Holy Week and Eastertide are times of sacred journey for Christians. We walk with Christ into the true and deepest dimensions of our lives.
All life is about journey and passage. At some time in each of our lives, we are passing:
from emptiness to abundance
from loneliness to love
from exhaustion to renewal
from anxiety to peace
from burden to freedom
from confusion to understanding
from bitterness to forgiveness
from pain to healing
from mourning to remembrance
The great Feasts of Holy Week and Easter, and the reflective weeks that follow, assure us that God accompanies us in all our journeys from darkness to light. The sacredness of these days invites us to quietly name whatever darkness surrounds us and our global family, and to reach through it to the hand of God. Like a parent leading a child in from the storm, the God of Easter longs to bring our hearts home to fullness and joy.
During these coming weeks, I will continue offering reflections centered on a single word, since many of you have expressed to me an appreciation for this approach. In the archives listed on the right of the blog, you can access more extensive reflections for each day of the liturgical cycle, accumulated over the past six years.
As we begin these sacred days, let’s pray for one another. And let us pray particularly for those whose current lives are closely patterned on the sufferings of Christ that, with Him, they may be strengthened with Easter hope and courage.
(Today, the Church repeats the King O Antiphon. But I love the concept of Christ as Radiant Dawn. It also fits so clearly with the sacred purifications alluded to in today’s readings.)
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we have finally reached the “delivery” stage of Advent. Just like those Amazon packages that keep showing up on doorsteps in the days preceding Christmas, other important arrivals are popping up in our readings.
Malachi announces that a prophet is coming who will purify the people, particularly concerning their worship practices which have corrupted:
Thus says the Lord GOD: Lo, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me; And suddenly there will come to the temple the LORD whom you seek, And the messenger of the covenant whom you desire. Yes, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.
It seems that Malachi and his friends, perhaps like some of us, haven’t had the discipline and devotion to safeguard the Temple rituals. Maybe like Mal and the gang, we start to take things for granted, to become cavalier about liturgical intention, to cut corners, to program our own agendas into the sacred rituals of common prayer. — to forget that God is the center of worship, not us.
Becoming that “forgetful” hardens the heart to grace. The One Who longs to encounter us in prayer and worship is stymied by our distracted negligence.
Our Gospel, too, is reminiscent of a sanctuary scene, for it was there that Zechariah learned that a prophet was actually going to be his son! Zechariah encountered God’s Word purifying his life and directing it in a totally unexpected manner. Surely, in the ensuing nine months of silence, the essence of Zechariah’s worship was transformed.
In today’s reading, the incredulous neighbors at John’s bris question Elizabeth’s assignment of such an unfamiliar name. But Zechariah confirms Elizabeth’s declaration. Zechariah’s purification and graceful evolution are complete. His tongue is loosened to proclaim the Word God has spoken in his silent heart.
“There is no one among your relatives who has this name.” So they made signs, asking his father what he wished him to be called. He asked for a tablet and wrote, “John is his name,” and all were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God.
Luke 1: 61-64
(I often wonder why the neighbors “made signs” to Zechariah. Why didn’t they just speak to him? He wasn’t struck deaf, just mute.:)
Poetry: Zechariah by Andy Sabaka, Pastor of Grace Fellowship Church in Louisville, KY
Day one of his nine months of silence Began as Zechariah entered God’s presence. When he walked past the curtain to behold Gabriel standing by the incense altar of gold, Zechariah did what all who are not regularly In the presence of such shining authority Do: he fell to his knees, filled full with dread, Assuming in moments he would be struck dead. Yet Gabriel’s words were frightfully comforting, Ringing off the walls like heavenly trumpeting. “Zechariah, my friend, do not be afraid, For the prayers you and Elizabeth have prayed, Have been heard by our God, the All-powerful One, And I tell you, soon your bride will bear a son. His name will be John, a man set apart, Filled with God’s Spirit, calling the hearts Of all who will listen to make room and repent Because the coming Messiah is soon to be sent.”
The announcement of who the promised child would be, Never reached Zechariah’s ears, for all he could see Was Elizabeth’s barrenness and how old they both were. He was stung that the promise had come so long after They had given up hope of any offspring. The guarantee of a child brought back an old sting. His fear of the angel faded, now replaced by disbelief, Combined with renewed disappointment and grief. He said to the angel, “How shall I know this is true? Can’t you see we are old; our youth long ago flew? So I hear your authoritative proclamation But from the little I know about procreation…” “Silence,” the angel said, and Zechariah obeyed the command. “Gabriel is my name; before God in heaven I stand. I was sent from there to give you this good news. But since you have rejected these wonderful truths, You will be silent until you see their fulfillment.” And at the exit of Gabriel, Zechariah’s voice also went.
The crowd outside had been worried at Zechariah’s delay, So when he finally emerged, they demanded right away An explanation for all that had happened inside, But Zechariah’s mouth could give none, no matter how he tried. It was obvious to all that a vision had been sent And those who heard of his muteness responded with wonderment. Yet the response to Zechariah’s silence was nothing compared To the way that everyone would stop and then stare At Elizabeth’s pregnant stomach. How could it be That a woman her age could possibly conceive?
So it was that dumbfounded silence was the reply To Gabriel’s message that could no longer be denied.
Elizabeth named her child John the day he was born, But everyone received the name with great scorn, Insisting the name Zechariah was the right one, But his father wrote clearly: “His name shall be John.”
It was in that moment of faith, when Zechariah obeyed, When he showed he believed all the angel had said, God reached down and touched the lips of the man, Releasing his tongue to speak once again. And when his voice first spoke after being dead for so long, It rang out clearly in the words of this song:
Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, who has come to save And redeem his people – a horn of salvation he will raise And he will come from the house of David, his servant, The one who the prophets said would be sent, Bringing salvation from our enemies and great mercy To our fathers before and to all who now see The promise of Abraham fulfilled in our days. We are free now to serve with no fear in the way To walk in righteousness before the rising sun, And in holiness from this blessed day on.
And you, John, my son, will be a prophet of the Most High, Preparing the way for him – in the desert you will cry, Giving the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins That the tender mercy of God has come here to win. He will rise like the sun from heaven and shine bright On those living in darkness, giving them sight, Calling them out of the shadow of death to release Their feet to walk in the path paved with peace.”
Our first advent candle tells us to recall The miracle of Christmas and the wonder of all It took for our God to prepare and then send His Son to bring sin and death to an end. Let us silently wait in this season pregnant with meaning Until God loosens our lips to break forth with loud singing About the rising sun from heaven who has risen again And brings forgiveness and life to each of us when We repent and believe that God can do Any miraculous thing that he wants to, Including save doubting sinners like you and like me, Shutting our mouths, making us able to see.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we begin the Advent Watch, that annual time of acute spiritual awareness and hope-filled expectation.
We’ve all kept watch at various times in our lives, perhaps without even realizing it. It may have been as simple as waiting for a delayed but highly anticipated letter, or as worrisome as the anxious vigil over a feverish child. It may be as unnoticeable as waiting for an elevator, a green light, or a “transaction complete” at the ATM, or as marvelous as the nine-month expectancy of new life.
We should be good at waiting because we do it all the time, but maybe we’re not so good at it after all.
Good waiting requires our consciousness. We may idly consider the “waiting space” a neutral zone that we can fill with anything we choose – impatience, daydreaming, or distraction. But pivotal waiting can offer us an invaluable invitation – to meet God in a new way as we anticipate what we cannot yet see or comprehend. But sometimes we don’t pay enough attention to hear the invitation.
This kind of “keeping watch” can be a sacramental experience. It is a time when we are stilled before a reality or mystery we cannot control. We can only wait, hope, release any fear, and cleanse our demanding prayer of its useless stipulations. It is a time of confident abandonment into God’s loving will for our good. Advent is such a blessed time.
Praying with our Advent scriptures provides us with a curriculum for good waiting. Our teachers will be the divinely lyrical Isaiah, the Psalms, Matthew and Luke, and the glorious O Antiphons.
We begin today with this heartfelt entreaty to God:
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, with the mountains quaking before you, while you wrought awesome deeds we could not hope for, such as they had not heard of from of old. No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any God but you doing such deeds for those who wait for him. Would that you might meet us doing right, that we were mindful of you in our ways!
Each one of us can look into our own hearts today, into our own perception of the world, to see where God is most sorely needed. As we pray Isaiah’s plea, we can do so assured by Paul’s blessing that God desires to answer us:
I give thanks to my God always on your account for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus, that in him you were enriched in every way, with all discourse and all knowledge, as the testimony to Christ was confirmed among you, so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will keep you firm to the end, irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, and by him you were called to fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Poetry: Advent (On a theme by Dietrich Bonhoeffer) – by Pamela Cranston
Look how long the tired world waited, locked in its lonely cell, guilty as a prisoner.
As you can imagine, it sang and whistled in the dark. It hoped. It paced and puttered about, tidying its little piles of inconsequence.
It wept from the weight of ennui draped like shackles on its wrists. It raged and wailed against the walls of its own plight.
But there was nothing the world could do to find its freedom. The door was shut tight.
It could only be opened from the outside. Who could believe the latch would be turned by the flower of a newborn hand?
Music: Wachet auf! ruft uns die Stimme – J.S. Bach
Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme Wake up, the voice calls us Der Wächter sehr hoch auf der Zinne, of the watchmen high up on the battlements, Wach auf, du Stadt Jerusalem! wake up, you city of Jerusalem! Mitternacht heißt diese Stunde; This hour is called midnight; Sie rufen uns mit hellem Munde: they call us with a clear voice: Wo seid ihr klugen Jungfrauen? where are you, wise virgins ? Wohl auf, der Bräutgam kömmt; Get up, the bridegroom comes; Steht auf, die Lampen nehmt! Alleluja! Stand up, take your lamps! Hallelujah! Macht euch bereit Make yourselves ready Zu der Hochzeit, for the wedding, Ihr müsset ihm entgegen gehn! you must go to meet him!
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we celebrate a rare type of feast day – one that marks the dedication of a church building. For many, that seems a little odd. We are accustomed to celebrating Mary, Joseph, and other saints and feasts of Our Lord.
Here’s the thing: we are not actually celebrating a building. We are celebrating what the building represents – the Body of Christ, the Church, made of living stones – us.
The Lateran Basilica, founded in 324, is the oldest public church in the city of Rome, and the oldest basilica in the Western world. Standing before it, one can sense the entire drama of our 2000-year-old Church whispering its secrets to us. We hear the echoes of human courage, hope, perseverance, and fidelity which, over centuries, have transmitted the faith to us. We can hear the now stilled voices of those who loved the faith enough to give it visible and glorious expression for all who would follow them.
Today’s feast reminds us that sometimes it helps to have visible symbols of the things we venerate and celebrate. That’s why we have medals, rosary beads, and candles – so that we can SEE something as we try to conceptualize a spiritual reality. Can you imagine the awe and joy of the early Christians when, after centuries of hiding from persecution, they were able to gather and worship in this magnificent edifice!
St. John Lateran is the Pope’s parish church. Since he is the Bishop of the whole People of God, his physical church has come to symbolize the universal Body of Christ, the world Church.
Pope Benedict XVI in his Angelus Address, on November 9, 2008 said this:
Dear friends, today’s feast celebrates a mystery that is always relevant: God’s desire to build a spiritual temple in the world, a community that worships him in spirit and truth (cf. John 4:23-24). But this observance also reminds us of the importance of the material buildings in which the community gathers to celebrate the praises of God. Every community therefore has the duty to take special care of its own sacred buildings, which are a precious religious and historical patrimony. For this we call upon the intercession of Mary Most Holy, that she help us to become, like her, the “house of God,” living temple of his love.
As we pray today, we might want to consider the gift of faith on which our own lives are built – a faith whose cornerstone is Jesus Christ. In our second reading, Paul says this:
Brothers and sisters: You are God’s building….. Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
And in our Gospel, Jesus speaks of his own body as a temple which, though apparently destroyed by his enemies, will be raised up in three days.
By our Baptism, that same spiritual temple lives in us and in all the community of faith. That same power of Resurrection is alive in us! So in a very real sense, what we celebrate today is ourselves – the Living Church – raised up and visible as a sign of God’s Life in the world.
Happy Feast Day, Church (and I’m talking to YOU, dear reader!)
Research: For the Church History buffs among us, this Wikipedia article on St. John Lateran Basilica can serve as a syllabus on the annals of the Roman Catholic Church.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, the whole Church joins in praying for the wholeness of the Communion of Saints. We all desire to be together again, with everyone we have loved, in eternal life.
This morning, as I prepare the reflection for All Souls Day, I consider how much religious practice can change in one’s lifetime. The Church and we are always growing in understanding and truth if we have open hearts. This graced understanding is exactly what the Church seeks in the current Synod on Synodality. Yet, as with all growth, we may tend to resist.
Today, I am taken (waaay) back to how All Souls Day was commemorated in my youth. My teachers impressed me with the idea that this special day was a time when repentant souls could be released from Purgatory if I prayed hard enough. I thought the process was similar to Amazon Prime Day where costs/penalties dropped and the early and persistent pray-er could snag a lot of souls for heaven.
(not us, but close enough)
We always had off from school on All Souls Day, so Janie McFadden and I would meet up about 5:45 AM to begin our marathon of Masses. We had four parish priests so at three Masses a piece, Janie and I were set for the next few hours of liberating prayer. About 7:00 AM, Harry diNicolo finally showed up but he certainly didn’t get full credit like me and Janie!
The scene was somber. The priests wore black vestments then, spoke mostly in Latin, and turned their backs to the participating congregation. There were a lot of candles and not very much real light that early in the morning. You guessed it – Janie and I took turns falling asleep. About every 10 minutes, one would punch the other in an effort to rev up purgatorial releases. Still not sure if any of that worked. Harry, by the way, went back home about 7:15 because he was hungry for breakfast.
One year, after the third Nicene Creed or so, Janie fainted. Sister Eucharistica told her not to do the All Souls Marathon again without drinking “a wee bit of milk before you come to Church”. Given our understanding of Divine Law at the time, requiring total fasting, we fourth graders were pretty sure Sr. Eucharistica would be the next soul we were praying out of Purgatory!
But as I think of her now, she was exactly the kind of person we need today for a “synodal Church”. She was a woman full of wisdom, courage, and common sense. She knew how to prioritize human needs long before the institutional Church figured it out. She knew Jesus desired communion with someone who wasn’t in a dead faint!
I think she probably knew too that we hadn’t come to Mass on that cold 1955 morning just to help “release” folks from purgatory. We had come to remember people we loved who had gone ahead of us, to reflect on their lives, to miss them, love them, and to learn from both their lights and their shadows.
We were young kids who, in our own small way, wanted to honor and face the meaning of death in human life. We wanted to know that God cared about our sadness over losing Grandmom or Uncle Joe. We wanted to know that God cared about us even though we too would face the same mysterious completion of our earthly lives.
Unfortunately, the Tridentine Mass didn’t provide much of that spiritual enrichment. But Sr. Eucharistica did. God bless her!
Today, in a language still very heavy with 16th-century concepts, the Catholic Encyclopedia defines purgatory as a place or condition of temporal punishment for those who, departing this life in God’s grace, are, not entirely free from venial faults, or have not fully paid the satisfaction due to their transgressions.
That language doesn’t do much for me either. I choose to think that most of us do the best we can with our lifetimes, but maybe there are a few who don’t. They don’t quite create the space in themselves to receive and eternally embrace God. “Purgatory” is their second chance, a “time out” God gives them to get their heads together and realize how much they have been missing. Then, violà, they like all the saints are flooded with glory.
My dear friend Janie has long ago gone to the heavenly understanding. I’m not sure what happened to Harry, even though we dated off and on well into high school. I think he finally found somebody who liked to eat more than she liked to go to Mass. Meanwhile, my likes were going in a different direction.
Prose: from Pope Francis’s homily on November 2, 2022
Brother and sisters, let us feed our expectation for Heaven, let us exercise the desire for paradise. Today it does us good to ask ourselves if our desires have anything to do with Heaven. Because we risk continuously aspiring to passing things, of confusing desires with needs, of putting expectations of the world before expectation of God. But losing sight of what matters to follow the wind would be the greatest mistake in life.
Remembering Our Merion Mercy Family – lyrics below
We lovingly remember these dear Sisters and Associates who shared Mercy life with us and who have gone home to God in 2023.
One day in the love of Christ we’ll meet once again We’ll laugh as we celebrate a life with no end Where death has been overcome by our Risen Lord
And there are no more goodbyes, no more tears, no more loneliness, and no more fear
Our pain turns to joy darkness to light in God’s heaven there are no more goodbyes
No words tell the gratitude we have for the gift your life was to each of us We’ll never forget
May angels now lead you home to our Risen Lord
And there are no more goodbyes, no more tears, no more loneliness, and no more fear
Our pain turns to joy darkness to light, in God’s heaven there are no more goodbyes
Though now with our heavy hearts we go separate ways we trust in the certain hope there will come a day we’ll join you in paradise with our risen Lord
There will be no more goodbyes, no more tears, no more loneliness, and no more fear Our pain turns to joy darkness to light God’s heaven there are no more goodbyes
Brothers and sisters: You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone.
Ephesians 2:19-20
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we celebrate the feast of the Apostles Simon and Jude. Not much is really known about either of these men. One tradition suggests that after the Ascension, they went together to carry the Gospel to Persia where they were eventually martyred.
Since we have so few facts, many legends and interpretations have grown up around these saints. Probably the strongest and most familiar of these is of St. Jude as the patron of hopeless cases.
There are probably very few of us who haven’t asked at least one favor from St. Jude in our lifetimes. This probability begs the question of why and how do we pray with the saints.
Our tradition holds that we exist in the Communion of Saints with all of God’s creatures, and that we inspire and support one another by the sharing of our lives. This sharing is not limited by time, nor is it constricted by death.
When we pray with the saints, we draw on their faithful witness to inspire, motivate and sustain us in our lives.
Today, we might pray within the spirit of these two great Christians whose witness, though historically muted, transcends time. May they inspire in us the passion and joy to speak Christ in our lives.
Prose: Since we celebrate two Apostles today, we might want to slowly and carefully pray this prayer. The Apostles’ Creed is a statement of Christian belief that is used by Western churches, both Catholic and Protestant. While it is explicitly affirmed only in Western churches, it reflects traditions that were affirmed officially by the entire Church in the Nicene Creed. Although its roots are much earlier, in its present form it dates to about the eighth century.
Music: Apostles’ Creed – sung here by Rebecca Gorzynska, a beautiful and talented artist (Latin and English text below.)
Today, in God’s Mercy, Paul sounds a lot like someone approaching the microphone at “Sinners Anonymous“:
I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.
Romans 7:18-19
Paul basically attests to the fact that for human beings, even him, will and actions often don’t synch up. Sure, we want to be good people, but as Nike says, do we:
Paul says no, we don’t. The only way we do the good we will to do is by the grace of Jesus Christ.
In our Gospel, Jesus affirms the slowness of the human spirit to act on the realities around us. In some translations, Jesus uses a phrase which caught on with the architects of Vatican II: the signs of the times.
You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky; why do you not know how to interpret the present time? “Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?
Luke 12:56-57
Jesus is telling his listeners and us that we need to be alert to the circumstances of our world. It both weeps and rejoices. Where it weeps, we must be a source of mercy and healing. Where it rejoices, we must foster and celebrate the Presence of the Spirit.
In the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes (The Church in the Modern World), we read:
In every age, the church carries the responsibility of reading the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel, if it is to carry out its task. In language intelligible to every generation, it should be able to answer the ever recurring questions which people ask about the meaning of this present life and of the life to come, and how one is related to the other. We must be aware of and understand the aspirations, the yearnings, and the often dramatic features of the world in which we live.
While we look forward hopefully to the communications that will come from the current Synod on Synodality, the Documents of Vatican II have everlasting meaning for the Church. Although written in the 1960s, these powerful words hold true today. We are the Church of which the document speaks. We are the ones whom Jesus calls to respond with authentic justice and mercy to the signs of the times. Read the newspaper in that light today. Watch the news in that light. Meet your brothers and sisters in that light today.
Poetry: The Right Thing – Theodore Roethke
Let others probe the mystery if they can. Time-harried prisoners of Shall and Will — The right thing happens to the happy man.
The bird flies out, the bird flies back again; The hill becomes the valley, and is still; Let others delve that mystery if they can.
God bless the roots! Body and soul are one! The small become the great, the great the small; The right thing happens to the happy man.
Child of the dark, he can outleap the sun, His being single, and that being all: The right thing happens to the happy man.
Or he sits still, a solid figure when The self-destructive shake the common wall; Takes to himself what mystery he can,
And, praising change as the slow night comes on, Wills what he would surrendering his will Till mystery is no more: No more he can. The right thing happens to the happy man.
Music: The Times They Are A’changin’ – Bob Dylan whose songs in the 50s and 60sbecame anthems for the Civil Rights and anti-war movements. His lyrics during this period incorporated a wide range of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences, defied popular music conventions and appealed to the burgeoning counterculture. (Wikipedia) (Ah, it was a good time to be young!)
The Swedish Academy awarded Dylan the 2016 Nobel Prize inLiterature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.
Thanks to all of you who let me know you were pleased to receive the links to the Synod Retreat. Below, you will see the official Synod Prayer, and Sessions 5 and 6 of the Retreat.
I have also included, at the end, Pope Francis’s response to a questioning letter sent to him by five retired conservative Cardinals, Walter Brandmüller and Raymond Leo Burke supported by three other Cardinals, Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, Robert Sarah, and Joseph Zen Ze-kiun. On the threshold of this momentous gathering, the men’s questions express their fears rather than their hopes for the Church, and attempt to limit the dynamism of the Synod solely to specific moral and doctrinal concerns. Their letter and questions may confuse and distract people from the real power and purpose of a synod. I found Pope Francis’s thoughtful, pastoral, and eloquent response most inspiring.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we begin the first of three passages from the prophet Zechariah to be read over the next few days. These are the only times we meet Zechariah in our cycle of readings, other than December 12th, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
For that reason, we could easily overlook Zechariah, a minor prophet whose visions, so specifically directed to the post-exilic Israelite community, may seem alien and extraneous to our own spirituality.
But we should not overlook Zechariah. Here’s why.
These two prophets (Zechariah and Haggai) seek to rally the identity and vocation of Jews in a time when faith is hard and prospects are lean. Such a time, they assert, is a time for vigorous action. The rebuilding of the temple is thus an act of faith, confident in the reality of God, and an act of defiance against the established imperial order of the world, even the imperial order that funded the project. We might well read these prophets in our own time of “small things” when the church seems to lack energy, courage, and imagination. In just such a time it is urgent to enact visible faithful gestures (like the temple building) that defy business as usual. Thus the prophetic imagination given here outruns historical possibility. That is the quality and depth of faith held here to which we are invited.
Walter Brueggeman: From Judgement to Hope
Zechariah invites the people to imagine a world vastly beyond their present perceptions. It is a world where the Temple is rebuilt as a symbol of God’s Presence, central to their identity. That Divine Presence provides any protection needed, thus removing the need for “walls” of isolation, fear, oppression, defensiveness, and exclusion.
People will live in Jerusalem as though in open country, because of the multitude of men and beasts in her midst. But I will be for her an encircling wall of fire, says the LORD, and I will be the glory in her midst.
Zechariah 2:8-9
Surely we could use such holy imagination in our times! And surely this is the sacred energy Pope Francis seeks as he leads the Church in synodality.
As our shared geopolitical world seems daily to become more fragmented and hostile, the power of our communal, Resurrection faith is crucial to its graceful restoration.
Zechariah calls the people to sing, even in the midst of their disheartening exile, and to dream of a world without vicious walls. We are called to the same hope even in a world that conspires to feed cynicism and indifference rather than justice and mercy.
Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! See, I am coming to dwell among you, says the LORD. Many nations shall join themselves to the LORD on that day, and they shall be his people and he will dwell among you.
Zechariah 2:14
Prose: The Monk Manifesto – Christine Valtners Paintner
Monk Manifesto is a public expression of one’s commitment to live a compassionate, contemplative, and creative life. When I read it, I find encouragement to act for a more integrated world, one without dissociative walls.
I commit to finding moments each day for silence and solitude, to make space for another voice to be heard, and to resist a culture of noise and constant stimulation.
I commit to radical acts of hospitality by welcoming the stranger both without and within. I recognize that when I make space inside my heart for the unclaimed parts of myself, I cultivate compassion and the ability to accept those places in others.
I commit to cultivating community by finding kindred spirits along the path, soul friends with whom I can share my deepest longings, and mentors who can offer guidance and wisdom for the journey.
I commit to cultivating awareness of my kinship with creation and a healthy asceticism by discerning my use of energy and things, letting go of what does not help nature to flourish.
I commit to bringing myself fully present to the work I do, whether paid or unpaid, holding a heart of gratitude for the ability to express my gifts in the world in meaningful ways.
I commit to rhythms of rest and renewal through the regular practice of Sabbath and resist a culture of busyness that measures my worth by what I do.
I commit to a lifetime of ongoing conversion and transformation, recognizing that I am always on a journey with both gifts and limitations.
Music: One World – Toby Mac
I’m not a big fan of rap, but I think this song is pretty good for today’s reflection.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Luke gives us a jolt with this Gospel passage that has always disturbed me:
The mother of Jesus and his brothers came to him but were unable to join him because of the crowd. He was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside and they wish to see you.” He said to them in reply, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it.”
Luke 8:19-21
Honestly, I don’t want Jesus to sound officious like that with his family! I want him to wiggle through the crushing crowd and run into Mary’s loving arms. I want him to hug his mom to bits and pummel his little brothers on the back with callow delight.
And you know what – I think that might be exactly what Jesus did, on the way uttering the seemingly callous phrase which Luke has isolated and immortalized.
Like all scripture passages, we can read this one in the slant of our own light. At the same time, it is important to access the wisdom of scripture scholars in order to understand depths we might not otherwise discern. There is a scholarly consensus that this Lucan passage is intended to show us how radically dedicated Jesus was to his mission. The passage affirms that the mission is more important even than family ties … in other words, more important than anything. For thirty years Jesus had lived a quiet life somewhere within his mother’s circle of care. In this Gospel, that quiet time is over and he is on the path to his Passion, Death, and Resurrection.
I understand that radicality and the courage it takes to live it. I failed at it once (at least) but learned immensely from the failure.
When I was a young religious, there was a call for US nuns to minister in Nicaragua. I wanted to answer that call. When I told my mother about my emerging decision, she froze in time. My father had died just about a year and a half before. The thought of also “losing” me to a socio-politically volatile Central America traumatized my mom.
But my mom was so brave. She didn’t say, “Don’t go.” She simply said, “Take me with you. I can cook for all of you.”
Mom and I at the 41st Eucharistic Congress Philadelphia (1976)
Needless to say, I wasn’t going to take my mom into a political boiler in order to satisfy my plans. But I also wasn’t going to leave her alone in the thinly-veiled desperation of her offer. I didn’t go to Nicaragua and, like Robert Frost’s split road, that has made a profound difference in my life.
That decision almost fifty years ago was a good one, and opened the way for me into other opportunities to serve God’s people. The Gospel did not suffer because of my hesitations or my mother’s. We both trusted our humanity that had, for all our lives, been directed toward God’s love.
But at this juncture in Jesus’s life, the Gospel demands that he open his heart beyond any familial or personal ties in order to embrace all people in the Gospel.
There are frequent times in each of our lives when we must choose for the largeness of the Gospel over limited self-interest. Enriching ourselves daily in scriptural wisdom will strengthen us to respond generously at those times.
Prose: Pope Francis on praying with the scriptures:
Through prayer a new incarnation of the Word takes place. And we are the “tabernacles” where the words of God want to be welcomed and preserved, so that they may visit the world. This is why we must approach the Bible without ulterior motives, without exploiting it. The believer does not turn to the Holy Scriptures to support his or her own philosophical and moral view, but because he or she hopes for an encounter; the believer knows that those words were written in the Holy Spirit, and that therefore in that same Spirit they must be welcomed and understood, so that the encounter can occur.
Music: O Word of God – Ricky Manolo – In this hymn, passages from the Psalms – snippets of God’s Word – are sung in a round within the plea for God’s Word to come into our hearts.
O Word of God, come into this space. O Word of God, come send us your grace. Open our minds; show us your truth. Transform our lives anew.
O Word of God, come into this space. O Word of God, come send us your grace. Open our minds; show us your truth. Transform our lives anew.
Here I am, O Lord my God I come to do your Will.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
To the upright, I will show the saving power of God.
Let all the nations praise You, O God. Let all the nations praise You.
The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.
Lavish Mercy 