Friday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time
October 6, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/100623.cfm

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Baruch Writing Jeremiah’s Prophecies – Gustave Doré

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Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy (and tomorrow) we have a few words from Baruch – and he is not a happy camper. Baruch, the scribe for the prophet Jeremiah, did his own little bit of writing reflecting on the situation of the Jews exiled in Babylon.

The Book of Baruch takes the form of a letter from the captives to the high priest who remained in Jerusalem after the exile. The writer asks for prayers for the exiled community and sends money to support that request. He voices the people’s acknowledgment that their suffering is a result of their own sin. He even composes the prayers that he wishes to be said in Jerusalem:

Justice is with the Lord, our God;
and we today are flushed with shame,
we men of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem,
that we, with our kings and rulers
and priests and prophets, and with our ancestors,
have sinned in the Lord’s sight and disobeyed him.

Baruch 1:15-18

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When I was growing up, we had a practice in my family very similar to that described in Baruch. When confusing troubles arose for the family, Mom would appeal to either of two sources for supportive prayer: The Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré in Canada or the “Pink Sisters” (The Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters) on Green Street in Philadelphia. I have written to the Pink Sisters myself on a few spiritually catastrophic occasions. A Sister always writes back with sustaining wisdom and the affirmation of prayer.

Remembering all this reminds me that it is so important to pray for one another! Doing so creates an invisible, almost magnetic connection that helps sustain us in times of doubt, suffering, loss, and sadness. It also helps the pray-er to affirm membership in a company of believers – all of us “just walking each other home.”(Ram Dass)

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This is exactly what Baruch was doing for the Babylonian exiles:

• reminding them of their true home in God
• reconnecting them to a community from which they had been severed
• voicing their suffering
• showing them a path to repentance, hope, and restoration.

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At those “exile times” in our lives, when we are somewhere on the fragile edge of faith and endurance, as our Psalm today reminds us, prayer refocuses us on God rather than ourselves. Trusting the glorious name of God, we slowly open to a Light we may not have seen because our own shadow was in the way.

Help us, O God our savior,
because of the glory of your name;
Deliver us and pardon our sins
for your name’s sake.

Psalm 79:9

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Poetry: A Prayer – May Sarton

Help us to be the always hopeful
gardeners of the spirit
who know that without darkness
nothing comes to birth
as without light
nothing flowers.

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Music: Anthem – Leonard Cohen