Saturday, June 12, 2021

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 103, a well-known and loved hymn of praise. It is a fitting psalm for today’s feast which unites us with Mary as we pray.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me, bless God’s holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all the benefits of the Lord.

Psalm 103:1

Mary lived much of her life in the actual presence of God, in the person of Jesus her Son. And no doubt, she received this holy proximity as a surpassing gift.

But even more importantly, Mary lived her whole life in total awareness of God – before and after Jesus was present with her.

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There is a practice many of us learned as children called “Blessing the Hour”. The prayer goes like this:

Let us remember the holy presence of God
Let us adore God’s Divine Majesty.

Sometimes a classmate was assigned to watch the clock and ring a little bell to trigger our prayer. We needed a reminder, every hour, that our whole life is held in the Breath of God.

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But Mary always remembered. She lived so completely within God’s promise of mercy that she became the vessel of its accomplishment.

My soul proclaims your greatness, O God, 
and my spirit rejoices in you, my Savior. 
For you have looked with favor upon your lowly servant, 
and from this day forward all generations will call me blessed.
For you, the Almighty, have done great things for me, 
and holy is your Name.
 
Your mercy reaches from age to age for those who fear you.
You have shown strength with your arm; 
you have scattered the proud in their conceit; 
you have deposed the mighty from their thrones 
and raised the lowly to high places.
You have filled the hungry with good things, 
while you have sent the rich away empty.
 
You have come to the aid of Israel your servant, 
mindful of your mercy
—the promise you made to our ancestors―
to Sarah and Abraham and their decendants forever.

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So today, like Mary, let us remember the holy Presence of God in our every moment –

• the Lord who is kind and merciful.
• and pardons all our iniquities,
• and heals all our ills
• and redeems our life from destruction,
• and crowns us with kindness and compassion

_{Psalm 103:2-3,8}

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Poetry: John O’Donohue, ‘The Annunciation’, in Conamara Blues

Cast from afar before the stones were born
And rain had rinsed the darkness for colour,
The words have waited for the hunger in her
To become the silence where they could form.
The day’s last light frames her by the window,
A young woman with distance in her gaze,
She could never imagine the surprise
That is hovering over her life now.
The sentence awakens like a raven,
Fluttering and dark, opening her heart
To nest the voice that first whispered the earth
From dream into wind, stone, sky and ocean.
She offers to mother the shadow’s child;
Her untouched life becoming wild inside.

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Music: In His Presence – Sandi Patty