Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 33 in which the human family remembers and gives thanks for God’s creative omnipotence.
Following upon our reading from Genesis, our psalm moves past Eden to the practical world of the psalmist. It is a world where centuries have passed and human beings have progressively made a mark on Creation – for good or for ill.
God has watched the progression, blessing or redeeming it in Mercy:
The One who fashioned together their hearts is the One who knows all their works.
Psalm 33:15
The psalmist reminds us that all Creation generates within God’s power. To cooperate with that infinite grace, we must wait, listen, trust, and deepen in holy understanding:
Our soul waits for the LORD, who is our help and shield. For in God our hearts rejoice; in God’s holy name we trust. May your mercy, LORD, be upon us; as we put our hope in you.
Psalm 33:20-22
We are not the actors. We are simply the instruments of God’s gracious unfolding in the symmetry of Creation – both in the cosmos and in the delicate blossom of our own hearts.
How is God growing in the world today within my life?
Poetry:The light shouts in your tree-top, and the face – Rilke
The light shouts in your tree-top, and the face of all things becomes radiant and vain; only at dusk do they find you again. The twilight hour, the tenderness of space, lays on a thousand heads a thousand hands, and strangeness grows devout where they have lain. With this gentlest of gestures you would hold the world, thus only and not otherwise. You lean from out its skies to capture earth, and feel it underneath your mantle’s folds. You have so mild a way of being. ……………………………………………They who name you loudly when they come to pray forget your nearness. From your hands that tower above us, mountainously, lo, there soars, to give the law whereby our senses live, dark-browed, your wordless power.
Our gifted Mercy artist, Sister Judy Ward, has created greeting cards using some of my designs. This “Sunrise Tree” is one of them. If you would like to purchase any of Sister Judy’s beautiful work, you can connect with her here. She’s nice to talk with on the phone.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 107, a poem filled with images that hold secrets for our spiritual journey:
They who sailed the sea in ships, trading on the deep waters, These saw the works of the LORD and God’s wonders in the abyss.
Psalm 107:23-24
Those who have the opportunity to see the ocean in its many moods will quickly understand the analogy.
Life is an ocean, but we are not sailing it alone.
That’s what the Lord suggests to Job in our first reading, and what Jesus points out to the nervous disciples in our Gospel.
Psalm 107 tells us that when life distresses us we should do just what the disciples did:
They cried to the LORD in their distress; from their straits he rescued them, God hushed the storm to a gentle breeze and the billows of the sea were stilled
Psalm 107: 28-29
It also suggests us that we can hope for this result:
They rejoiced that they were calmed, and brought to their desired haven. Let them give thanks fo the Lord’s kindness and wondrous deeds to us all.
Psalm 107:30-31
The message of today’s readings for me is trust and hope — in both calm and storm. Let’s pray for it.
Poetry: blessing of the boats – Lucille Clifton
(at St. Mary’s)
may the tide that is entering even now the lip of our understanding carry you out beyond the face of fear may you kiss the wind then turn from it certain that it will love your back may you open your eyes to water water waving forever and may you in your innocence sail through this to that.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 34 once again. With its two accompanying readings, the psalm hits me right between the eyes with this awareness:
Those of us trying to live in God’s presence, the world isn’t going to help us. We will be in contradiction to many, if not most, popular values. Our choices may be questioned, if not ridiculed. Our values may be explained away. Our integrity may be challenged.
What’s it like to live a faith-based life in today’s culture? The image that comes to my mind is that of trying to play soccer with a square ball!
Paul felt the dissonance:
But the Lord said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me. Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ …
Jesus put the contradiction in a nutshell for us:
No one can serve two masters. You will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
So we need to figure out our “mammon” and vanquish it. We need to make the choice that Paul, the psalmist, and Jesus made. Let’s pray on it today.
Poetry: Contraband – Denise Levertov
The tree of knowledge was the tree of reason. That’s why the taste of it drove us from Eden. That fruit was meant to be dried and milled to a fine powder for use a pinch at a time, a condiment. God had probably planned to tell us later about this new pleasure. We stuffed our mouths full of it, gorged on but and if and how and again but, knowing no better. It’s toxic in large quantities; fumes swirled in our heads and around us to form a dense cloud that hardened to steel, a wall between us and God, Who was Paradise. Not that God is unreasonable – but reason in such excess was tyranny and locked us into its own limits, a polished cell reflecting our own faces. God lives on the other side of that mirror, but through the slit where the barrier doesn’t quite touch ground, manages still to squeeze in – as filtered light, splinters of fire, a strain of music heard then lost, then heard again.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 34 which carries forward the thread of sage advice running through all of our readings
I’m going to state the obvious here: distress is not a pretty thing.
We all have stress in our lives and, guess what, it can be a good thing. Stress is a reaction in us when a situation calls for our response. If such reactions never occurred, we would be living in isolation from our environment or community. We would not grow as persons.
This positive stress can be called “eustress”. Distress, on the other hand, occurs when we cannot respond effectively to our experiences or situation. We become overwhelmed, fearful, or anxious.
Paul, in our first reading, has a lot of opportunity to grow from stress! Maybe too much. It sounds like Paul’s experiences had certainly bordered on “distress”.
So did our psalmist’s experiences. In later verses of the psalm, we get a hint of that. The writer is broken-hearted, crushed in spirit, and under physical threat — just like Paul:
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted, saves those whose spirit is crushed. Many are the troubles of the righteous, but the LORD delivers us from them all. God watches over all our bones; not one of them shall be broken. Evil will slay the wicked; those who hate the righteous are condemned. But the LORD redeems the faithful servant and none are condemned who take refuge in God.
Psalm 34:19-23
Jesus has a word for us about dealing with distress:
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal.
So it all depends on what we treasure, on what we allow to become most important in our lives. If wealth, reputation, power, and self-aggrandizement are our treasures, we’re going to live in distress all our lives trying to protect these trophies.
If charity, hope, faith, and merciful justice are our treasures, it doesn’t mean we will never have stress or pain. But we will understand the prayer of Psalm 34:
Glorify the LORD with me, let us together extol God’s name. I sought the LORD who answered me and delivered me from all my fears. From all their distress God rescues the just. Look to God that you may be radiant with joy, and your faces may not blush with shame. When the poor one called out, the LORD heard, and was delivered from all distress.
Psalm 34:4-7
Poetry: Do not be troubled, God, though they say “mine” – Rainer Maria Rilke
Do not be troubled, God, though they say “mine” of all things that permit it patiently. they are like wind that lightly strokes the boughs and says: MY tree. They hardly see how all things glow that their hands seize upon, so that they cannot touch even the utmost fringe and not be singed. They will say “mine” as one will sometimes call the prince his friend in speech with villagers, this prince being very great — and far away. They call strange walls “mine,” knowing not at all who is the master of the house indeed. They still say “mine,” and claim possession, though each thing, as they approach, withdraws and closes; a silly charlatan perhaps thus poses as owner of the lightning and the sun. And so they say: my life, my wife, my child, my dog, well knowing all that they have styled their own: life, wife, child, dog, remain shapes foreign and unknown, that blindly groping they must stumble on. This truth, be sure, only the great discern, who long for eyes. The others WILL not learn that in the beggary of their wandering they cannot claim a bond with any thing, but, driven from possessions they have prized, not by their own belongings recognized, they can OWN wives no more than they own flowers, whose life is alien and apart from ours. God, do not lose your equilibrium. Even he who loves you and discerns your face in darkness, when he trembles like a light you breathe upon, — he cannot own you quite. And if at night one holds you closely pressed, locked in his prayers so you cannot stray, …..you are the guest …..who comes, but not to stay. God, who can hold you? To yourself alone belonging, by no owner’s hand disturbed, you are like unripened wine that unperturbed grows ever sweeter and is all alone.
Music: Me and Bobby McGee written and sung by Kris Kristofferson
I don’t know if you will appreciate this song, but I thought I’d give it a try. I have always identified today’s Gospel with a verse in the song: Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose. Nothin’, it ain’t nothin’ honey, if it ain’t free I have never fully spiritually plumbed that verse, but I love to explore it every time I hear this song.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 111 which enumerates and celebrates the joys of relationship with God. The psalm is offered within the “faithful assembly”, that covenanted community who long to be faithful to their ever-faithful God.
One way to strengthen that commitment in ourselves is to reflect on God’s splendor, generously flowing into our lives:
in the amazing mystery of our own lives
in the blessing of those we love and who love us
in the unbounded beauty of nature
in the wonderful gifts of human creativity that convince us of God’s Presence within us
the gift of sharing faith in community, however small or large, which fortifies our spirits in life’s challenging tides
Poetry: Christine Robinson – Psalm 111
Hallelujah! I will give thanks to God with my whole heart-- in silence and in company. God’s deeds are great— I will study them. God is compassionate and gracious I will remember God speaks in the heart— I will listen God’s hands work faithfulness and justice I will follow Awe of God is the beginning of wisdo I will praise God forever.
Music: Mozart – Vesperae de Dominica – Confitebor Tibi Domini (Psalm 111)
Confitebor tibi Domine, In toto corde meo; In consilio justorum, Et congregatione. Magna opera Domini, Exquisita in omnes voluntates ejus. Confessio et magnificentia opus ejus; Et justitia ejus manetIn saeculum saeculi. Memoriam fecit mirabilium suorum, Misericors et miserator Dominus. Escam dedit timentibus se. Memor erit in saeculum Testamenti sui. Virtutem operum suorum Annuntiabit populo suo. Ut det illis Hereditatem gentium; Opera manuum ejus Veritas et judicium. Fidelia omnia mandata ejus, Confirmata in saeculum saeculi, Facta in veritate et aequitate. Redemptionem misit Dominus Populo suo; Mandavit in aeternum testamentum suum. Sanctum et terribile nomen ejus: Initium sapientiae timor Domini; Intellectus bonus omnibus Facientibus eum. Laudatio ejus manet In saeculum saeculi. Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper. Et in saecula saeculorum. Amen
I acknowledge you, o Lord, With my whole heart; In the council of the just And in the congregation. Great are the works of the Lord, Chosen by all His desires. I acknowledge as well the magnificence of His deeds; And His justice endures From generation to generation. He has made memorials of His miracles, A merciful and compassionate Lord. He gives food to those that fear Him. He will remember forever His covenant. The power of His works Will be announced to His people. So that He may give them The inheritance of the nations; The works of His hands Are truth and justice. All His commandments are faithful, Confirmed from generation to generation, Made in truth and fairness. The Lord has sent salvation To His people; He has given His convenant for eternity. Holy and awesone is His name; The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; All who practice it Have a good understanding. His praise endures From generation to generation. Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and forever, and for generations of generations. Amen
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 112, a poem about why and how to live a generous life.
Blessed the one who is in awe of the LORD, who greatly delights in God’s commands. That person’s posterity shall be mighty upon the earth; the upright generation shall be blessed. Wealth and riches shall be in their house; their generosity shall endure forever.
Psalm 112:2-4
The psalm nicely complements our readings:
Paul, nudging the Corinthians for a general collection
Jesus, preaching sincerity and humility in our giving – both to humans and to God.
Generosity is the fruit of the theological virtue of charity.
I think “charity” gets a flimsy definition in our modern culture. Many think of it only as a noble intermittent gesture toward those who are disadvantaged, like change tossed into the Salvation Army bucket.
But it’s a way bigger deal. Here are a few clips from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. They offer so much thought for our meditation. After that, we might pray to deepen in true charity and to manifest it in quiet, sustained generosity.
The theological virtues are the foundation of Christian moral activity; they animate it and give it its special character. They inform and give life to all the moral virtues. They are infused by God into the souls of the faithful to make them capable of acting as God’s children and of meriting eternal life. They are the pledge of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in the faculties of the human being. There are three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity.
Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for God’s own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.
The practice of all the virtues is animated and inspired by charity, which “binds everything together in perfect harmony”; it is the form of the virtues; it articulates and orders them among themselves; it is the source and the goal of their Christian practice. Charity upholds and purifies our human ability to love, and raises it to the supernatural perfection of divine love.
The fruits of charity are joy, peace, and mercy; charity demands beneficence and fraternal correction; it is benevolence; it fosters reciprocity and remains disinterested and generous; it is friendship and communion:.
Love is itself the fulfillment of all our works. There is the goal; that is why we run: we run toward it, and once we reach it, in it we shall find rest.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 146, a lilting song of praise, remembrance, hope, trust, gratitude, and joy.
Praying with this inclusive translation, I let my life story unfold in the Presence of the Beloved, turning each petal over and over in the Light of God’s incomprehensible grace and mercy. No words … just the grateful turning. And I listened…listened to the silence.
Psalm 146
Alleluia
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I live.
Happy are they who look to God for their help!
For their hope is in the Lord their God,
who made heaven and earth, the seas, and all that is in them;
who keeps promises for ever;
who gives justice when we are oppressed,
food when we hunger
freedom when we are entrapped.
The Lord breaks through our blindness
The Lord lifts us up wthe we have been bowed.
and loves our desire for good.
I remember how the Lord cares for us
when we are brokenhearted,
but frustrates the way of the faithless.
I know the Lord shall reign for ever.
Alleluia!
Poetry: “I Happened To Be Standing” by Mary Oliver
I don’t know where prayers go, or what they do. Do cats pray, while they sleep half-asleep in the sun? Does the opossum pray as it crosses the street? The sunflowers? The old black oak growing older every year? I know I can walk through the world, along the shore or under the trees, with my mind filled with things of little importance, in full self-attendance. A condition I can’t really call being alive. Is a prayer a gift, or a petition, or does it matter? The sunflowers blaze, maybe that’s their way. Maybe the cats are sound asleep. Maybe not. While I was thinking this I happened to be standing just outside my door, with my notebook open, which is the way I begin every morning. Then a wren in the privet began to sing. He was positively drenched in enthusiasm, I don’t know why. And yet, why not. I wouldn’t pursuade you from whatever you believe or whatever you don’t. That’s your business. But I thought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be if it isn’t a prayer? So I just listened, my pen in the air.
Music: Praise You – Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir
Lord I come to you today,
With a simple prayer to pray.
In everything I do,
Let my life O Lord praise you.
Praise you, praise you, praise you
Let my life, praise you
Praise you, praise you, praise you
Let my life, O lord praise you
Lord you formed me out of clay,
And for your glory I was made.
Use this vessel as you choose.
Let my life O Lord praise you
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 98, a prayer filled with hints of joyful thanksgiving and exuberant music.
At first reading, the psalm is a surprising companion to our other readings.
In the passage to the Corinthians, Paul doesn’t sound like he’s singing. He cites the struggles a committed disciple will face in order to spread the Gospel:
We cause no one to stumble in anything, in order that no fault may be found with our ministry; on the contrary, in everything we commend ourselves as ministers of God, through much endurance –
2 Corinthians 6:3-4
He then offers quite a catalog of endured tests.
Jesus isn’t singing either in our reading from Mark. Instead, he enumerates the list of trials to be endured, if necessary, to live a radical commitment to the Gospel – even including lost eyes and teeth, multiple slaps, indentured clothing and service, and self-effacing generosity.
Feel like singing yet?
But here’s the thing. Praying with these passages allows us to break through their surface to understand their heart, as our Alleluia Verse explains:
A lamp to my feet is your word, a light to my path.
Psalm 119:105
Jesus and Paul remind us that all our experiences, good and bad, are transformed in the light of the Word. That transformation calls us to respond to our lives from a well of radical faith which contradicts the deceits and interpretations of the world.
And if we answer the call to discipleship, where will it lead us? What decisions and partings will it demand? To answer this question we shall have to go to him, for only he knows the answer. Only Jesus Christ, who bids us follow him, knows the journey’s end. But we do know that it will be a road of boundless mercy. Discipleship means joy.
Deitrich Bonhoeffer
Deep faith allows us to see things, such as the listed trials, from a “new” perspective.
It is when we get to that place of freedom in our spiritual lives that we can truly “sing a new song unto the Lord”!
Poetry: Unconditional by Jennifer Paine Welwood
Willing to experience aloneness, I discover connection everywhere; Turning to face my fear, I meet the warrior who lives within; Opening to my loss, I gain the embrace of the universe; Surrendering into emptiness, I find fullness without end. Each condition I flee from pursues me, Each condition I welcome transforms me And becomes itself transformed Into its radiant jewel-like essence. I bow to the one who has made it so, Who has crafted this Master Game; To play it is purest delight - To honor its form, true devotion.
Music: I Want to Sing a New Song – BJ Putnam and the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 92, the only psalm in the Hebrew Bible assigned to a particular day – Shabbat. Combined with our readings, especially Ezekiel, it invites us to heartfelt prayer.
Shabbat (שַׁבָּת; related to Hebrew verb “cease, rest”) is the seventh day of the Jewish week and is the day of rest and abstention from work as commanded by God. Shabbat involves two interrelated commandments: to remember (zachor) and to observe (shamor).
from jewishvirtuallibrary.org
Psalm 92 captures the spirit we hope for in all our Sundays- peace, reflective gratitude, patient hope, recognized blessing. It is a time to remember God’s goodness to us and to reflect on God’s presence.
But, as you may know, I write these reflections a day ahead. And my Saturday morning was anything but “Shabbatish”! I stayed up too late last night, slept too late this morning, and had to handle an early grocery order. To top it all off, a glass exploded in my housemate’s face as she emptied the dishwasher! (She’s fine, but it was like lightening hit our kitchen.)
It all left me a little distracted!
I tell you this to say that – yes – prayer comes begrudgingly when we don’t make the space for it.
But when we do take a breath and quiet ourselves, it can be amazingly generous.
Over time, the seeds of a consistently prayerful life will bear fruit even under challenging conditions. As Jesus tells us today:
It is like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth. But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.
Our #92 psalmist prays that kind of a prayer today. Here’s the way I read it with my heart:
It is good to give thanks to you LORD, to sing praise to your name, Beloved, To proclaim your kindness at daybreak, and even later if I miss its rising! To know your faithfulness even in my distractions.
You let my prayer bear fruit even in the shade of time and its pressures, my faith to be vigorous and sturdy. I sing of your goodness,LORD, You, my Steady Love who is always faithful.
Poetry: The Spirit’s Whispers by Colten Biro, S.J.
If only my words were poised, precise, perfect ballerinas. If only they could pirouette on a point,
Holding a pose, arresting rapt attention, Meaning twirling out past paradox of The Ineffable, convincing the very orbit of the Son to stop and listen, to nothing more significant—than me.
If only my words were quick, sharp, exact, halting in the air for emphasis and recognition. All of which calm, careful, and controlled. All of which holding the attention of the Heavens, interrupting an unceasing song of seraphim and cherubim.
If only my words were anything, but garbled, goofy, grating, and less akin to rodeo clowns than en pointe figurines. But they are bumbling and boisterous, dancing dunces, threading a thin, thimble-like thought that the gait of my racing heart could avoid running into either lines of bull—or truth too true. Which means my words, in effect, avoid bearing my very heart, directly to You.
If only the words, with a gentle extension and a faint flourish, could entwine: my desires—Your Will. my loneliness—Your Presence. my pain—the Resurrection. my disquiet—Your Peace.
Completing a grand jete, coupling cacophonous concepts midair—and mid-heart.
And yet, my words don’t dance or sing at all.
So, I don’t speak. My words don’t waltz, so much as whimper. And my seat here in the pew feels too quiet in the muffled silence of the sanctuary.
Maybe, Lord, You have the words I can perfectly perform, to cry anything but Abba. Which for now, is the only word I pray, while paralyzed in the repeating echoes of my pointless pirouetting.
Music: Vento di Passioni – James Horner
As we pray today, may a flight of prayerful gratitude spring from our spirits!
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Lavish Mercy 