Friday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
August 18, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081823.cfm

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 136 – a short course in Bible history – some of which we also read in the first reading from Joshua:

Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel:
In times past your fathers, down to Terah,
father of Abraham and Nahor,
dwelt beyond the River and served other gods.
But I brought your father Abraham from the region beyond the River
and led him through the entire land of Canaan.
I made his descendants numerous, and gave him Isaac.
To Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau.
To Esau I assigned the mountain region of Seir in which to settle,
while Jacob and his children went down to Egypt ……

Joshua 24:2-4

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Didn’t you love Bible History when you were in school? I remember my little 1950’s McLoughlin Notes and my old Benzinger Bible History book. 

An exciting Bible story was a welcome change to droll history and geography. Sister Stella Mercedes had the great Bible figures pinned over the blackboard, just above the permanent, perfectly painted border which warned me, (fruitlessly🤣), never to lie:

Oh, what a tangled net we weave, when first we practice to deceive.

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Psalm 136 could serve as an index for those wonderful Old Testament stories. As Walter Brueggemann notes:

In Psalm 136, the whole history is again recited, punctuated this time with the repeated refrain, “for his steadfast love endures forever.” All of Israel’s history, indeed all of world history, is an arena that exhibits God’s abiding fidelity.

Walter Brueggemann: From Whom No Secrets Are Hid

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With this encouragement, today we might reflect on what our own catalogue of God’s fidelity might look like. 

• How has God’s mercy and love endured in my life? 
• How has God loved, protected, and delivered me? 
• How has God deepened in me the call to responsive love?

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Poetry: We might like to pray with Rev. Christine Robinson’s prayer “Mercy Forever”:

Give thanks to God, who is good—
whose mercy endures forever.
Whose love expands with the expanding universe–
whose mercy endures forever.
Whose breath gives life to matter–
whose mercy endures forever.
Who animates life with spirit–
whose mercy endures forever.
Who plants a fierce unrest in our hearts–
whose mercy endures forever.
Who bends the universe towards justice–
whose mercy endures forever.
Who holds the whole world, and our hearts–
whose mercy endures forever.
Give thanks to God, who is good—
whose mercy endures forever.

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Music: How Deep, How Simple – Kathryn Kaye

https://youtube.com/watch?v=cEONqd-uApo%3Fversion%3D3%26rel%3D1%26showsearch%3D0%26showinfo%3D1%26iv_load_policy%3D1%26fs%3D1%26hl%3Den%26autohide%3D2%26wmode%3Dtransparent