Sister Renee Yann, RSM, D.Min, is a writer and speaker on topics of spirituality, mission, and ethical business practice. After twenty years in teaching and social justice ministry, she served for over thirty years in various mission-related roles in Mercy Health System of Southeastern Pennsylvania.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we once again meet Psalm 104. Since we have had a very recent reflection on this psalm, we might instead like to reflect on our Gospel verse for today:
“Truth”, which would appear to be an evident reality, is in fact quite elusive. In his master work Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas writes extensively, and some might say exhaustively 🧐, in an effort to define truth.
For this reason truth is defined by the conformity of intellect and thing; and hence to know this conformity is to know truth.
Reflecting on the concept of Truth today, I remember Jesus’s self-description:
I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
John 14:6
By journeying through life with Jesus, we come to comprehend truth more clearly – both the truth around us and the truth within us. It is an unfolding which brings us ever closer to God’s complete imagination for us when we were created.
It is as if God’s fingerprint, first poured into on souls at our conception, becomes ever clearer in our lives. Let us pray each day to be consecrated in that Truth.
Poetry: truth by Gwendolyn Brooks And if sun comes How shall we greet him? Shall we not dread him, Shall we not fear him After so lengthy a Session with shade?
Though we have wept for him, Though we have prayed All through the night-years— What if we wake one shimmering morning to Hear the fierce hammering Of his firm knuckles Hard on the door?
Shall we not shudder?— Shall we not flee Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter Of the familiar Propitious haze?
Sweet is it, sweet is it To sleep in the coolness Of snug unawareness.
The dark hangs heavily Over the eyes.
Music: Heaven’s Window – Peter Kater (Angels of Hope)
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 8 which, in keeping with our first reading from Genesis, describes our Creator God in terms we can humanly understand.
I have always thought of these verses as the “Psalm of the Knitting God” who weaves the cloth of Creation to clothe us:
When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you set in place— What are we that you should be mindful of us , or that you should care for us?
Psalm 8:4
As beautiful as its images are, Psalm 8 contains a challenging verse which some, over time, have interpreted to support human domination of all creation:
You have made humans little less than the angels, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them rule over the works of your hands, putting all things under their feet.
Psalm 8:6-7
Elephant Trophy Hunting
The verse has been manipulated to justify an attitude of supremacy rather than unity and cooperation with nature. That misinterpretation supports such activities as uncontrolled extraction mining, land seizure, trophy hunting and many other forms of natural exploitation.
More recent theology has helped to understand our role in Creation in a humbler, truer light, as stated in the introduction to Laudato Sí:
LAUDATO SI’, mi’ Signore” – “Praise be to you, my Lord”. In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs”.
This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she “groans in travail” (Rom 8:22). We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters.
To prepare for prayer this morning, I reflected on “The Way of Beauty”, Stations of the Cross composed by Gilbert Choondal, SDB, a Salesian Priest of Don Bosco. He holds a PhD in Catechetics and Youth Ministry from the Salesian Pontifical University, Rome. Presently he is the president of the Indian Catechetical Association. You may find these prayerful reflections helpful, especially as we approach the season of Lent. (You may have to double-click the picture of the Good Shepherd to make the document come up.)
(for Tom Marshall) Tom and I are walking Last Chance Road down from the mountain where we had been hunting mushrooms under a stand of coast oaks, walking down and looking out to the Pacific shimmering in the late fall sun, the light on the surface like glittering flakes of mica, when we see a white-tailed kite hovering in the air, hovering over a green pasture, hovering over the day, over the two of us, our very lives hovering as well, there on the California coast, in the fall, in the sun, on our way home, with a sack of chanterelles, with our love for this world, with so much time, and so little time—all of it—hovering— and hovering still.
Music: Take Care of the Planet – a delightful reminder from Australia🤗
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 104, a lyrical hymn of praise for the wonders of Creation. As I write this morning, an ermine snow coats the evergreens in soft white feathers. There is a quiet whisper in the trees, like God might make while sleeping
To prepare for prayer, I turn to my favorite theologian who writes extensively about Psalm 104 in his book, From Whom No Secrets Are Hid: Introducing the Psalms.
I have outlined my reading here for those who might like to approach Psalm 104 from Brueggemann’s perspective. If you benefit from his work, I highly recommend his book:
From Walter Brueggemann:
Psalm 104 divides roughly into two parts. The first part (vv. 1–24) provides an inventory of the components of creation, framed by a doxological formula. I suggest that inventory framed by doxology (praise prayer) is a good way to begin our thinking about creation.
In the second half of the poem, verses 25–35, we are offered four themes that may serve as reference points as we trace the paradigmatic power and significance of creation:
Creation and Chaos These verses attest to the reliable, generative ordering of creation that makes use of all available creaturely possibilities.
There is the sea, great and wide! It teems with countless beings, living things both large and small. There ships ply their course and Leviathan,* whom you formed to play with.
Psalm 104: 25-26
Creation and Provision
The creator “gives, gives, opens”; the creatures “gather, receive, eat,” and “are filled.” This transaction between the giver and the recipients is endless, reliable, and necessary. The creatures are always on the receiving end of the generous giving of the creator.
These all look to you to give them their food in due season; when you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
Psalm 104: 27-28
Creation and Ruach
“Rauch” is a Hebrew word which images God as a breath, a wind, or a life force that sustains all living things, human beings included. in Psalm 104, “rauch” describes God’s generous, life-initiating, life-sustaining gift of vitality without which no creature can live:
When you hide your face, they panic. Take away their breath, they perish and return to the dust. Send forth your spirit, they are created and you renew the face of the earth.
Psalm 104: 29-30
Creation and Righteous Judgement
Righteousness is glad acceptance of the good ordering of reality given and guaranteed by the creator, an ordering that culminates in confident Sabbath from all our destructive drives for self-worth.
May sinners vanish from the earth, and the wicked be no more. Bless the LORD, my soul! Hallelujah!
Psalm 104: 35
My humble prayer, wrought in light of Brueggemann’s elegant theology is this:
I praise and thank You, God, for the wonder of Creation. I am in awe of your Power to order all things toward Beauty. From that balance of beauty and power, you offer me the joys and challenges of life. You sustain and nourish me, even in the overwhelming times. I want to respond fully and gratefully to your creative power in my life and in our world. Please give me clarity and courage to live within your life-giving creative Grace. Amen
Poetry: The Creation by James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938)
And God stepped out on space, And he looked around and said: I’m lonely— I’ll make me a world.
And far as the eye of God could see Darkness covered everything, Blacker than a hundred midnights Down in a cypress swamp.
Then God smiled, And the light broke, And the darkness rolled up on one side, And the light stood shining on the other, And God said: That’s good!
Then God reached out and took the light in his hands, And God rolled the light around in his hands Until he made the sun; And he set that sun a-blazing in the heavens. And the light that was left from making the sun God gathered it up in a shining ball And flung it against the darkness, Spangling the night with the moon and stars. Then down between The darkness and the light He hurled the world; And God said: That’s good!
Then God himself stepped down—
And the sun was on his right hand, And the moon was on his left; The stars were clustered about his head, And the earth was under his feet. And God walked, and where he trod His footsteps hollowed the valleys out And bulged the mountains up.
Then he stopped and looked and saw That the earth was hot and barren. So God stepped over to the edge of the world And he spat out the seven seas— He batted his eyes, and the lightnings flashed— He clapped his hands, and the thunders rolled— And the waters above the earth came down, The cooling waters came down.
Then the green grass sprouted, And the little red flowers blossomed, The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky, And the oak spread out his arms, The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground, And the rivers ran down to the sea; And God smiled again, And the rainbow appeared, And curled itself around his shoulder.
Then God raised his arm and he waved his hand Over the sea and over the land, And he said: Bring forth! Bring forth! And quicker than God could drop his hand, Fishes and fowls And beasts and birds Swam the rivers and the seas, Roamed the forests and the woods, And split the air with their wings. And God said: That’s good!
Then God walked around, And God looked around On all that he had made. He looked at his sun, And he looked at his moon, And he looked at his little stars; He looked on his world With all its living things, And God said: I’m lonely still.
Then God sat down— On the side of a hill where he could think; By a deep, wide river he sat down; With his head in his hands, God thought and thought, Till he thought: I’ll make me a man!
Up from the bed of the river God scooped the clay; And by the bank of the river He kneeled him down; And there the great God Almighty Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky, Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night, Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand; This great God, Like a mammy bending over her baby, Kneeled down in the dust Toiling over a lump of clay Till he shaped it in is his own image;
Then into it he blew the breath of life, And man became a living soul. Amen. Amen.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 147 which invites us to:
Praise the LORD, for he is good; sing praise to our God, Who is gracious; Whom it is fitting to praise.
It is a psalm for the left-brained who, like Job in our first reading, might need some explanation about just why we should praise when life seems so unpraiseworthy at times!
Job spoke, saying: Is not man’s life on earth a drudgery? Are not his days those of hirelings? He is a slave who longs for the shade, a hireling who waits for his wages. So I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights have been allotted to me.
Job 7: 1-4
Job, like many of us when we suffer, feels crushed under life’s burdens. However, an extended reading of the Book of Job reveals that humility and repentance allow Job to “see God”, and to rediscover the richness and flavor of his life.
Calling us to the same kind of awareness, Psalm 147 presents a series of reasons for praising God, including God’s continual attention to the city of Jerusalem, to brokenhearted and injured individuals, to the cosmos, and to nature.
For me, the most moving of these reasons comes in verse 3:
The Lord heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. The Lord tells the number of the stars; calling each by name.
This is a beautiful picture of our infinitely compassionate God who is able to recognize our broken-heartedness.
This loving God, who knows the stars by name, knows us as well. We, like Job, begin to heal within the divine lullaby God patiently sings over our broken hearts.
Jesus is that Healing Song, the Word hummed over the world by the merciful Creator. In today’s Gospel, we see that Melody poured out over the suffering:
When it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons. The whole town was gathered at the door. He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons, not permitting them to speak because they knew him.
Mark 1: 32-34
As we pray today,
let us hear God’s song of mercy being sung over all Creation. Let us rest our own brokenness there in its compassionate chords. Let us bring the world’s pain to our prayer.
Poetry: A Cure Of Souls by Denise Levertov
The pastor of grief and dreams guides his flock towards the next field with all his care. He has heard the bell tolling but the sheep are hungry and need the grass, today and every day. Beautiful his patience, his long shadow, the rippling sound of the flocks moving along the valley.
Music: God Heals My Broken Heart – Patty Felker
If Job were singing his sadness today, it might sound like this song.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 23, that lovingly familiar song which, over the ages, has comforted so many.
Beside Still Waters by Greg Olsen
We may wish to simply pray this psalm gently and slowly, remembering the many times it has comforted us.
(Below is the inclusive language translation from the Inclusive Language Liturgical Psalter of the Canadian Anglican Synod. Other inclusion collections include Evangelical Lutheran Worship, the Psalter for the Christian People, The Saint Helena Psalter and the Canadian publication, Songs for the Holy One.)
Psalm 23 (Dominus regit me) The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. You make me lie down in green pastures and lead me beside still waters. You revive my soul and guide me along right pathways for your name’s sake. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me; you have anointed my head with oil, and my cup is running over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 27, a song of intimate relationship with God. The psalmist is suffused with God’s Presence in the way morning light permeates the shadows.
The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear? The LORD is my life’s refuge; of whom should I be afraid?
Psalm 27:1
Because of this deeply abiding Love, the psalmist fears nothing – not armies, nor any other threat to peace and grace-filled confidence.
Though an army encamp against me, my heart will not fear; Though war be waged upon me, even then will I trust.
Psalm 27:3
We have little, or maybe big, wars at times, don’t we? Armies of pain, or sadness, struggle or confusion standing at the border of our hearts? In such times, Psalm 27 invites to remember and trust:
For God will hide me in the holy abode in the day of trouble; will conceal me in the shelter of God’s tent, will set me high upon a rock.
With the psalmist, we pray with longing – we implore God to show us this comforting, protective love.
Your presence, O LORD, I seek. Hide not your face from me; do not in anger repel your servant. You are my helper: cast me not off.
Poetry: from The Spiritual Canticle – John of the Cross
Oh, then, soul, most beautiful among all creatures, so anxious to know the dwelling place of your Beloved so you may go in search of him and be united with him, now we are telling you that you yourself are his dwelling and his secret inner room and hiding place. There is reason for you to be elated and joyful in seeing that all your good and hope is so close as to be within you, or better, that you cannot be without him. Behold, exclaims the Bridegroom, the kingdom of God is within you.
Music: Unchained Melody – sung by Susan Boyle
Psalm 27 reminds me of this modern classic which, no doubt, was written about a different kind of love. But listening to the song as a prayer, a holy longing can be unchained in our spirits.
Please click the arrowhead in the center of the video to hear the Introduction
2. A Spring Time Story
Spend a little time now reflecting on, or re-listening to the story. Does it awaken any spiritual thought or prayer in your heart?
3. Sister Kate on Springtime and Dawn
4. Praying with Scripture
For our scripture reading this session, we return to John 10 and the familiar story of the Woman at the Well. The story is fill with symbols of new life – the well and its cool water; the request for a refreshing drink; the sharing of life stories; the telling of truth, and the gift of forgiveness.
In this passage, we see the many moods of Jesus: he is at times in the story needy, a bit sarcastic, feisty, wise, and gentle. Engaging the woman through these many moods, he brings her to new life.
How is God bringing the spring time of new life to our spirits?
5. Reflection Nuggets: Dawn – Spring
6. Poetry:
Hope – Lisel Mueller It hovers in dark corners before the lights are turned on, it shakes sleep from its eyes and drops from mushroom gills, it explodes in the starry heads of dandelions turned sages, it sticks to the wings of green angels that sail from the tops of maples. It sprouts in each occluded eye of the many-eyed potato, it lives in each earthworm segmentsurviving cruelty, it is the motion that runs from the eyes to the tail of a dog, it is the mouth that inflates the lungs of the child that has just been born. It is the singular gift we cannot destroy in ourselves, the argument that refutes death, the genius that invents the future, all we know of God. It is the serum which makes us swear not to betray one another; it is in this poem, trying to speak.
Spring – Mary Oliver
Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring
down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring
I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue
like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:
how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledge
to sharpen her claws against
the silence
of the trees.
Whatever else
my life is
with its poems
and its music
and its cities,
it is also this dazzling darkness
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;
all day I think of her –
her white teeth,
her wordlessness,
her perfect love.
Closing Music: Thank God for the Promise of Spring
Can’t beat a little “country” to put the final ribbon on our retreat! 🙂
Thank God for the Promise of Spring The sky seems gray above me And I can’t see the light of day There’s a ray breaking through the shadows And the smile can’t be far away Thank God for the promise of springtime Once again my heart will sing There’s a brand new day a-dawning Thank God for the promise of spring Though the earth looks bleak and barren And the seeds lay brown and dead But the promise of life grows within them And I know spring is just ahead Thank God for the promise of springtime Once again my heart will sing There’s a brand new day a-dawning Thank God for the promise of spring Thank God for the promise of spring
Virtue/Gift to pray for: Joy
Dear God, We pray for the gift of joy in the promise of ever-renewing grace. Refresh our spirits with your warm gifts of peace, hope, enthusiasm, and delight. Give us springtime hearts. No matter the season, may our souls be rooted in Easter, blossoming with love for You and for all Creation. We ask this in Mercy. Amen.
Please click the arrowhead in the center of the video to hear the Introduction.
2. A Winter Story
Spend a little time now reflecting on, or re-listening to the story. Does it awaken any spiritual thought or prayer in your heart?
3. Sister Kate’s Thoughts on Night and Winter
4. Praying with Scripture
In our Gospel passage today, we join Jesus at the Temple in Jerusalem. It is winter, and he is “walking about” in the open area. Perhaps there is a small fire where he and others might warm themselves. What’s on Jesus’s mind as he paces this sacred ground?
We know , from reading the Gospels, that it is also the “winter” of his life, the time when the Father is gathering all to completion.
In this reading, we see that some hearts remain cold to his life-giving Word. It is painful for Jesus to realize this. But despite this heartache, remains ever confident in the Father’s love.
For this session, focus on John 10:22-30 – The Feast of the Dedication
Take some quiet time to reflect on this passage. Allow yourself to be in the scene beside Jesus.
5. Reflection Nuggets: Winter – Night
6. Poetry
Please enjoy these beautiful poems evoking the sentiments of winter, stillness, patience, deepening. You may want listen to this lovely music as you read the poems.
These Things – Renee Yann, RSM
You must tell yourself
these things will happen
before they happen:
the deep winter you will spend,
essentially, alone:
The falling into love
that will not catch you;
the death that rends you
into half of what you were:
the triumph, finally claimed,
bereft of meaning.
Otherwise,
when these things happen,
as they will,
you will be swallowed by them
as if you had not ever been
outside these things,
the way an ocean swallows
hail inside the storm.
You will be nearly cleaved:
a raw, green peach
whose freestone falls away in frost,
because these things are separating,
colder than the loneliness
of ice blue space,
and you are farther from yourself
within them than it is safe to ever be.
There is no climbing back
from these things.
You will bring their distance with you.
In the thinnest, splintered space
that separates the stone from peach flesh,
cold universes can insert themselves.
Instead, enter these things,
down the long cold slope inside them.
Inside even inverse passion,
there is cobalt fire,
though it masquerades in ice.
~ Renee Yann, RSM
Winter: Tonight: Sunset – David Budbill
Tonight at sunset walking on the snowy road,
my shoes crunching on the frozen gravel, first
through the woods, then out into the open fields
past a couple of trailers and some pickup trucks, I stop
and look at the sky. Suddenly: orange, red, pink, blue,
green, purple, yellow, gray, all at once and everywhere.
Closing Music: Seasons by Ben Tan
Virtue/Gift to pray for: Fidelity
Dear God,
We pray for the gift of fidelity. Let us bravely live our winter times. Give us a great trust in your Presence, even in the dark moments of our lives. Beyond that, let us find the soul-secrets only darkness can reveal – that You are ever faithful to us, that in sorrow, loss and seeming emptiness, still You and I are one. We ask this in Mercy. Amen
Please click the arrowhead in the center of the video to hear the Introduction.
2. An Autumn Story
Spend a little time now reflecting on, or re-listening to the story. Does it awaken any spiritual thought or prayer in your heart?
3. Sister Kate thoughts on Dusk and Autumn
4. Praying with Scripture
In our first session scripture reading, Jesus and his disciples were frolicking through a summer grain field. In today’s reading, the seasons are passing. The same fields are now “white” for the harvest. The fullness of time has come.
The disciples have been with Jesus for some time now. They have been learning his ways. The time has come for them to practice full discipleship, one nourished and matured by their loving attendance on the Word who is Jesus.
For this session, focus on verses 35-36. We will pray with the rest of the chapter in a later session.
Take some quiet time to reflect on this passage. Allow yourself to be in the scene beside Jesus.
5. Reflection Nuggets: Autumn – Dusk
6. Poetry:
Please enjoy these beautiful poems evoking the sentiments of summer, noontime, fullness and energy. You may want listen to this lovely music as you read the poems.
The Wild Geese – Wendell Berry
Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze
over the fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.
I Will Remember - Renee Yann, RSM
In another place, where life’s demands are rude,
and time is spinning faster than my soul,
I will remember You in this green wood,
when spirit, will, desire, love were whole.
I will remember your sweet hand in saffron glove,
reaching through flaxen sunlit trees.
I will remember the suggestion of your love,
humming promises to me like golden bees;
how sun dipped lower, lower to the earth,
lifting up to Its cheek the auburn sod;
how in a moment, like a splendent birth,
I was transported to the Face of God.
When this lucid hour of love is through,
Dusk is the way I will remember You.
Closing Music: Autumn – Audrey Assad
Lyrics:
As the dew falls on the blade
You have touched all this fragile frame
And as a mother knows her baby's face
You know me, You know me
As the summer air within my chest
I have breathed You deep down into my breast
And as You know the hairs upon my head
Every thought and every word I've said
Every thought and every word I've said
Savior, You have known me as I am
Healer, You have known me as I was
As I will be in the morning, in the evening
You have known me, yeah, You know me
Oh, and as the exhilaration of autumn's bite
Oh, You have brought these tired bones to brilliant life
And as the swallow knows, she knows the sky
This is how it is with You and I
Oh, this is how it is with You and I
Savior, You have known me as I am
Healer, You have known me as I was
As I will be in the morning, in the evening
You have known me, yeah, You know me
From the fall of my heart to the resurrection of my soul
You know me, God, and You know my ways
In my rising and my sitting down
You see me as I am, oh, see me as I am
And as a lover knows his beloved's heart
All the shapes and curves of her even in the dark
Oh, You have formed me in my inward parts
And You know me, You know me, yes
Savior, You, You have known me as I am
Oh, healer, You have known me as I was
As I will be in the morning, in the evening
You have known
You have known me, in the morning, in the evening
You've known me, God
In the morning, in the evening You have known me
Yeah, You've known me
You have always known me
You know me, God, You have known me
You have always known my heart
Virtue/Gift to pray for: Gratitude/Appreciation
Dear God, We pray for the gift of gratitude, that sacred virtue which can transform our lives from the inside out. Let grateful awareness fill our prayer, the way color fills the autumn trees. Like the multi-colored leaves, your blessings to us are beyond calculation. Grateful, may we mirror your generosity in all that we do. We ask this in Mercy. Amen.
Theme: Live in the fullness and freedom of your faith.
1. Introduction: Summer – Noontime
Please click the arrowhead in the center of the video to hear the Introduction.
2. A Summertime Story
Spend a little time now reflecting on, or re-listening to the story. Does it awaken any spiritual thought or prayer in your heart?
3. Sister Kate has a few thoughts on Noon and Summer:
4. Praying with Scripture
Picture Israel in the beautiful warm weather. (Maybe some of you are fortunate enough to have been there.) It might have been a late May Saturday afternoon. Jesus and his young companions are on a little picnic but – typical guys – they forgot the food!
But there in the colorful field, the heads of wheat are still green and not yet turned golden and dry. The wheat kernels are plump and soft, full of protein and sugar. This is the only time of year that they could be eaten raw.
The whole scene speaks to us of summer, and of the joy and freedom Jesus came to offer all of us within the New Law of Love.
And then the Pharisees appear – those whose power depends on using the law to control and oppress, requiring sacrifices and taxes of the poor only to benefit themselves.
Let’s listen to Matthew describe the scene.
Scripture : Matthew 12: 1-8 — Picking Grain on the Sabbath
Take some quiet time to reflect on this passage. Allow yourself to be in the scene beside Jesus.
5. Reflection Nuggets: Summer – Noontime
6. Poetry
Please enjoy these beautiful poems evoking the sentiments of summer, noontime, fullness and energy. You may want listen to this lovely music as you read the poems.
Click the little arrowhead on the left of the dark grey bar to hear the music.
Eagle Poem - Joy Harjo
To pray, you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can't see, can't hear
Can't know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren't always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circles in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon, within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.
Now I Become Myself – May Sarton
Now I become myself. It’s taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
“Hurry, you will be dead before—”
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted by love.
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!
Closing Music: Michael Mangan – For Everything
Virtue/Gift to pray for: Generous Love
Dear God, We pray for the gift of generous love. Let us live with summertime hearts. Confident that, in You, we already have everything we need, may we allow your love to flow generously from us to all Creation, especially to those most in need of your warmth, light, and confidence. We ask this in Mercy. Amen.
Lavish Mercy 