Tuesday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 19, 2022
Today’s Readings
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071922.cfm
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Alleluia Verse reiterates that the love of God is a mutual exchange. God loves us first. But God blossoms in us to the degree that we respond to God’s Word.
Alleluia, alleluia.
If you love me
you will keep my Word,
and my Father will love you
and we will come to you.
Our first reading demonstrates, with beautiful images, the longing of Micah’s community for this kind of relationship:
Shepherd your people with your staff,
Micah 7:14-15
the flock of your inheritance,
That dwells apart in a woodland,
in the midst of Carmel.
Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead,
as in the days of old;
As in the days when you came from the land of Egypt,
show us wonderful signs.
Show us wonderful signs!
Micah 7:15
It’s a prayer that we can all say at times in our lives. We long to see where and how God is present in our sometimes chaotic world. We want God to wave a sacred wand over our pain, confusion, loss, anger, loneliness and a thousand other burdens. Perhaps we want God to say, “Look! It’s only Me hiding in the corners of your life!”
Our Alleluia Verse says that if we live in God’s Word those signs of Presence will become apparent to us.
They are there – woven through our everyday experiences. It is our alignment to the Word, nurtured by prayer and good works, that will reveal them to us.
Prose: Thich Nhat Hanh, from “The Sun My Heart”
There is no phenomenon in the universe
that does not intimately concern us,
from a pebble resting at the bottom of the ocean,
to the movement of a galaxy millions of light years away.
Music: Diamonds in Rain – Michael Hoppè
Hoppè dedicated this piece of music to the poet Edward Thomas who, like all good poets, could see diamonds hidden in the rain – signs of wonder and grace. One of ET’s poems in below for your enjoyment.
Out in the dark over the snow The fallow fawns invisible go With the fallow doe; And the winds blow Fast as the stars are slow. Stealthily the dark haunts round And, when the lamp goes, without sound At a swifter bound Than the swiftest hound, Arrives, and all else is drowned; And star and I and wind and deer, Are in the dark together,—near, Yet far,—and fear Drums on my ear In that sage company drear. How weak and little is the light, All the universe of sight, Love and delight, Before the might, If you love it not, of night.
Lavish Mercy 