Brothers and sisters: If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. Philippians 2:1-2
In our readings today, both Paul and Jesus advise believers on how to live in rhythm with the Gospel. When we love, support, invite, forgive, and encourage one another’s faith, we will find true joy.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We ask for the strength and insight to love as Jesus loves. It’s not easy because people can be deadly dull. We can be deadly dull. But if we strengthen our hearts on the heart of the Gospel, we will learn to truly love.
Poetry: from Winnie the Pooh – A.A.Milne
“Today was a Difficult Day,” said Pooh. There was a pause. “Do you want to talk about it?” asked Piglet. “No,” said Pooh after a bit. “No, I don’t think I do.”
“That’s okay,” said Piglet, and he came and sat beside his friend. “What are you doing?” asked Pooh. “Nothing, really,” said Piglet. “Only, I know what Difficult Days are like. I quite often don’t feel like talking about it on my Difficult Days either. “But goodness,” continued Piglet, “Difficult Days are so much easier when you know you’ve got someone there for you. And I’ll always be here for you, Pooh.”
And as Pooh sat there, working through in his head his Difficult Day, while the solid, reliable Piglet sat next to him quietly, swinging his little legs…he thought that his best friend had never been more right.”
Jesus replied, “The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” Matthew 12:38-41
In my old Baltimore Catechism, the Church, or the Communion of Saints, was divided into three levels: the Church Triumphant, The Church Suffering, and the Church Militant.
Those terms, steeped in 19th century culture, have been softened a bit today: The Church Triumphant, the Church Expectant, and the Church Pilgrim
Having just celebrated All Saints (Triumphant) and All Souls (Expectant), today’s readings give us ironclad advice on what is required of us, the Church Pilgrim.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We pray to hear and respond to today’s readings: JUST LOVE! And that should be taken in two ways: only love, and love justly.
Poetry: Five Dialogues on the Greatest Commandment – Malcolm Guite
The poet and God have a conversation about his readiness to live the Great commandment.
Five Dialogues 1: With All Your Heart With all my heart? You know my heart too well, It’s Yeats’s rag and bone shop. Will it do To start my loving in that little hell, Closed on itself and still excluding you? Could I not offer you some empty room, Some small apartment full of light and air, Some portion of my life, above the gloom, But not this pit of pride, not this despair.
Only your heart will do. Let me begin, To break the ground and plant a seed that grows Up through the closing darkness of your sin Till your unsightly roots brings forth my rose. For I have learned to make the broken true Since my heart too was broken once for you.’
Five Dialogues 2: With All Your Soul With all my soul? I scarcely know my soul. The age I live in doesn’t think it’s there, They cut me up, where you would make me whole, And think your promise only empty air. They say I’m hormones, chemical extremes, Enzymes unwinding blindly, selfish genes, Just empty gestures and repeated memes. With all my soul? I don’t know what that means.
Before the first life stirred my spirit called you, I knew you when I wove you in the dark, I made you more than all the forms that mould you, And kindled in your depth my hidden spark So let them say your soul is empty air, Love with your soul and you will know it’s there.
Five Dialogues 3: With All Your Strength With all my strength? What little strength I have Is shadowed by the instruments of death. I crawl from dawn to dusk towards my grave As frail and fleeting as my every breath, And all the strength of broken humankind Seems only spent on pain and cruelty, To magnify the malice of the mind And crush the poor in deeper poverty.
And that is why you need to love with strength, And offer all that little strength to me, That you might let me mend it, till at length We bear the weight together, set you free, As one who knows how all is borne above, And meets all malice in the strength of Love.
Five Dialogues 4: With All Your Mind With all my mind? With all my open questions? My restless questing after hidden truth? With all my science, all my suppositions? My search for certainty, my lust for proof? With all my mind? its logic and obsession, Its wordless reveries, its language games, Its reason and its deep imagination Its mysteries, its riddles and its dreams?
With all your mind, with every gift I gave you, For every drop of truth is drawn from me. Not that your mind itself will ever save you, But that it lives within my mystery. Ask and be answered, seek and you will find I am the life of every loving mind.
Five Dialogues 5: Your Neighbour as Yourself My neighbour as myself? I cannot learn To love myself at all. I look away, The dark glass only shames me and I burn At what should never see the light of day.
I’ll be the judge of that, for in my light Judgment and healing meet you equally. The self you loathe is precious in my sight And I will have you love it into me. You and your neighbor, both must made whole. Her heart’s as dark and needy as your own, So you must love her in her hidden soul, The very soul she’s trying to disown. Love her as you are loved and you will find Love is your heart, your soul, your strength, your mind.
In the time of their visitation they shall shine, and shall dart about as sparks through stubble; they shall judge nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord shall be their King forever. Those who trust in God shall understand truth, and the faithful shall abide with God in love: because grace and mercy are with God’s holy ones, whose care embraces the Elect. Wisdom 3:7-9
All Souls Day is a glorious feast, and yet it is threaded with a tinge of sadness. We remember those we have loved and lost into the incomprehensible dimensions of eternity, into an infinty of Love.
The gifted Wisdom writer consoles us with the verse we are all so familiar with from many funerals:
The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them.
Wisdom 3:1
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We place our trust in God’s promise to hold our beloveds in tenderness until we see them again.
Poetry: from John O’Donohue
Though we need to weep your loss, You dwell in that safe place in our hearts, Where no storm or might or pain can reach you.
Your love was like the dawn Brightening over our lives Awakening beneath the dark A further adventure of colour.
The sound of your voice Found for us A new music That brightened everything.
Whatever you enfolded in your gaze Quickened in the joy of its being; You placed smiles like flowers On the altar of the heart. Your mind always sparkled With wonder at things.
Though your days here were brief, Your spirit was live, awake, complete.
We look towards each other no longer From the old distance of our names; Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath, As close to us as we are to ourselves.
Though we cannot see you with outward eyes, We know our soul’s gaze is upon your face, Smiling back at us from within everything To which we bring our best refinement.
Let us not look for you only in memory, Where we would grow lonely without you. You would want us to find you in presence, Beside us when beauty brightens, When kindness glows And music echoes eternal tones.
When orchids brighten the earth, Darkest winter has turned to spring; May this dark grief flower with hope In every heart that loves you.
May you continue to inspire us: To enter each day with a generous heart. To serve the call of courage and love Until we see your beautiful face again In that land where there is no more separation, Where all tears will be wiped from our mind, And where we will never lose you again.
Lavish Mercy 