Vow – Lavish Mercy

Friday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time
May 24, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052424.cfm

.. do not swear,
either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath,
but let your “Yes” mean “Yes” and your “No” mean “No,”
that you may not incur condemnation.
James 5:12

James lets us know that a vow sworn is a sacred and dangerous thing:

sacred because God is always at least the third party in our oaths, and
dangerous because it takes lifelong commitment to learn to live fully within the vows we make.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Let’s place our spirit close to God’s heart as we pray for insight into our life’s deep vows and promises. In that tender space, let us ask for renewed love, insight, and strength for the journey.

Poetry: The Neophyte – Alice Meynell

Who knows what days I answer for to-day:
Giving the bud I give the flower. I bow
This yet unfaded and a faded brow;
Bending these knees and feeble knees, I pray.

Thoughts yet unripe in me I bend one way,
Give one repose to pain I know not now,
One leaven to joy that comes, I guess not how.
I dedicate my fields when Spring is grey.

Oh, rash! (I smile) to pledge my hidden wheat.
I fold to-day at altars far apart
Hands trembling with what toils? In their retreat
I seal my love to-be, my folded art.
I light the tapers at my head and feet,
And lay the crucifix on this silent heart.

Music: Every Step You Take – The Police

The song, a longtime favorite of mine, mirrors the tone of James’s exhortation in today’s Epistle. It takes a little imaginative stretch, but I invite you to it. 🙂