Some Pharisees approached Jesus, and tested him, saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?”
Matthew 19:3
The Pharisees miss the whole point of the Presence of Jesus. Think of it: here they have the Messiah they have longed for right in their midst. They can talk to him, touch him, listen to him. Instead, they are strangled in rationalizations which prevent them from believing.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We ask for a clear and innocent faith, one not caught in the need for proofs and signs. May we hold nothing back from God in our practice of faith.
Poetry: Two Went Up Into the Temple to Pray– Richard Crashaw
Two went to pray? O rather say One went to brag, th’ other to pray:
One stands up close and treads on high, Where th’ other dares not send his eye.
One nearer to God’s altar trod, The other to the altar’s God.
The Lord God said to me: Son of man, eat what is before you; eat this scroll, then go, speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth and he gave me the scroll to eat. Son of man, he then said to me, feed your belly and fill your stomach with this scroll I am giving you. I ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth. He said: Son of man, go now to the house of Israel, and speak my words to them. Ezekiel 3:1-3
The scroll represents the Word of God which we are all called to embrace by the faithful living of our lives. We cannot fully do so with only our mind and its analysis. When we do only that, the Word seems difficult and vexing.
Rather, we must consume the Word making it part of ourselves. It must become the sustenance without which we cannot live. When we do that, the Word becomes sweet and longed for.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We ask for a deep longing for God’s Word and the courage to fully embrace it by our faithful lives.
Poetry: Immersion – Denise Levertov
There is anger abroad in the world, a numb thunder, because of God’s silence. But how naïve, to keep wanting words we could speak ourselves, English, Urdu, Tagalog, the French of Tours, the French of Haiti… Yes, that was one way omnipotence chose to address us—Hebrew, Aramaic, or whatever the patriarchs chose in their turn to call what they heard. Moses demanded the word, spoken and written. But perfect freedom assured other ways of speech. God is surely patiently trying to immerse us in a different language, events of grace, horrifying scrolls of history and the unearned retrieval of blessings lost for ever, the poor grass returning after drought, timid, persistent. God’s abstention is only from human dialects. The holy voice utters its woe and glory in myriad musics, in signs and portents. Our own words are for us to speak, a way to ask and to answer.
Jesus said to his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. John 12:24
The great paradox of existence is that, in order to live, we must die. It is a truth endemic to all Creation. It is a reality lived out in all relationships.
Jesus cites this universal truth to teach his disciples the key to eternal life. We must die to self to find our life in God.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We prayerfully reflect on the times when this truth has been evident in our lives. When have we found new life? When have we experienced the freedom to grow? What had to die in us before these graces could transform us?
Poetry: Unless a Grain of Wheat – Malcolm Guite
Oh let me fall as grain to the good earth And die away from all dry separation, Die to my sole self, and find new birth Within that very death, a dark fruition, Deep in this crowded underground, to learn The earthy otherness of every other, To know that nothing is achieved alone But only where these other fallen gather.
If I bear fruit and break through to bright air, Then fall upon me with your freeing flail To shuck this husk and leave me sheer and clear As heaven-handled Hopkins, that my fall May be more fruitful and my autumn still A golden evening where your barns are full.
Music: Unless a Grain of Wheat Shall Fall – Bernadette Farrell
Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Matthew 16: 24-25
This passage from Matthew is one of the most astounding challenges Jesus gave his disciples: deny yourself, take up your cross, follow me.
What does it really mean to deny oneself? Does it mean to become a doormat or a Milquetoast? Does it suggest repressing one’s personality or ambitions? To act like a nobody?
Of course not! So many places in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures assure us that we are unique, precious, and beloved of God. God doesn’t want us not to be ourselves because that’s who we were created to be!
I think denying oneself means not getting caught in the mirror of selfishness. Instead we are called to focus on Jesus and his absolute care for all Creation, especially those who are poor, sick, outcast, and troubled. We can’t really do that if we are consumed with self-interest.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We ask for the grace to be aware, brave, and faithful enough to put the good of others first for the sake of Christ.
Poetry: As the Ruin Falls – C.S. Lewis
All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through: I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.
Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek, I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin: I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek-- But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.
Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making My heart into a bridge by which I might get back From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.
For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains You give me are more precious than all other gains.
Music: Deny Yourself – Paul Melley
Deny yourself. Take up your cross . Despite the pain Despite the cost. Leave all behind and follow me. Deny yourself, be free.
For what will it profit to gain the world and lose your life? Those who would save their life will lose it. What can you give in return for your life? For those would lose their life will find it. Deny yourself.
Come, take up your cross and daily follow me and you will have rich reward in heaven. Those who have left their home and family for his sake inherit one hundred fold, inherit eternal life. Deny yourself.
What can you give in return for your life? For those who would lose their life, lose their life will find it Deny yourself
Lord, you reveal the depth of your life and your love in your everlasting covenant. Strengthen the faith we share, fill our work with your love, and bring all of us to grace, to the grace you promise.
Remove from me the way of falsehood, and favor me with your law. Take not the word of truth from my mouth, for in your ordinances is my hope. Psalm 19:29,43
The passage from Jeremiah tells the story of the false prophet Hananiah who offered a counterfeit hope because he did not have a true relationship with God. Jeremiah’s message, which called for sincere repentance, was honest but not popular.
Today’s Psalm 19 is a prayer for the courage to listen to and live in God’s Truth, not to ascribe to a false message just because that is the one we want to hear.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We pray for the courage to hear God’s Word in the truth of our hearts, a truth created by living a life of prayer, spiritual honesty, repentance, and mercy.
Poetry: Tell All the Truth – Emily Dickinson
Tell all the truth but tell it slant — Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind —
Music: Great Is Thy Faithfulness – written by Thomas Chisholm (1866–1960)
In today’s readings, both Jeremiah and John the Baptist encounter persecution. Jeremiah is saved, but John is not. Maybe both of them had questions about how, when they were so dedicated to God, evil yet pursued them. Perhaps they felt they had run into a spiritual wall. Ever felt like that?
Our Responsorial Psalm captures the longing for an answer – an understanding of how and why God works in our lives.
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
Psalm 69:14
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: I think it’s safe to say that we all have questions about life and death, good and evil, grace and darkness, worldly success and spiritual peace, God’s Presence and God’s apparent absence.
Poetry: The Answer – Carl Sandberg
You have spoken the answer. A child searches far sometimes Into the red dust On a dark rose leaf And so you have gone far For the answer is: Silence.
In the republic Of the winking stars and spent cataclysms Sure we are it is off there the answer is hidden and folded over, Sleeping in the sun, careless whether it is Sunday or any other day of the week,
Knowing silence will bring all one way or another.
Have we not seen Purple of the pansy out of the mulch and mold crawl into a dusk of velvet? blur of yellow? Almost we thought from nowhere but it was the silence, the future, working.
Music: Popule Meus – Motet by Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611)
Ecce lignum crucis: In quo salus mundi pependit, Venite, adoremus.
Popule meus, quid feci tibi? Aut in quo contristavi te? Responde mihi.
Quia eduxi te de terra Aegypti, Parasti Crucem Salvatori tuo.
Hagios o Theos. Sanctus Deus. Hagios Ischyros. Sanctus Fortis. Hagios Athanatos, eleison himas. Sanctus Immortalis, miserere nobis.
Quia eduxi te per desertum Quadraginta annis, Et manna cibavi te, Et introduxi te in terram satis bonam, Parasti Crucem Salvatori tuo.
Hagios o Theos. Sanctus Deus. Hagios Ischyros. Sanctus Fortis. Hagios Athanatos, eleison himas. Sanctus Immortalis, miserere nobis.
Ego propter te flagellavi Aegyptum Cum primogenitis suis: Et tu me flagellatum tradidisti.
Popule meus, quid feci tibi? Aut in quo contristavi te? Responde mihi.
Ego te eduxi de Aegypto, Demerso Pharone in mare Rubrum, Et tu me tradidisti Principibus sacerdotum.
Popule meus, quid feci tibi? Aut in quo contristavi te? Responde mihi.
Ego ante te aperui mare, Et tu aperuisti lancea latus meum.
Popule meus, quid feci tibi? Aut in quo contristavi te? Responde mihi.
Behold the wood of the cross: On which hung the salvation of the world, Come, let us adore.
O my people, what have I done to you? Or wherein have I grieved you? Answer me.
Because I led you out of the land of Egypt: You have prepared a Cross for your Saviour.
O Holy God. O Holy God. O Holy Strong One. O Holy Strong One. O Holy and Immortal, have mercy upon us. O Holy and Immortal, have mercy upon us.
Because I led you through the desert, For forty years, And fed you with manna, And brought you into a land exceeding good, You have prepared a Cross for your Savior.
O Holy God. O Holy God. O Holy Strong One. O Holy Strong One. O Holy and Immortal, have mercy upon us. O Holy and Immortal, have mercy upon us.
For you I scourged Egypt, And its firstborn, And you have delivered me to be scourged.
O my people, what have I done to you? Or wherein have I grieved you? Answer me.
I brought you out of Egypt, And sank Pharaoh in the Red Sea, And you bave delivered Me To the chief priests.
O my people, what have I done to you? Or wherein have I grieved you? Answer me.
I opened the sea before you, And you have opened my side with a spear.
O my people, what have I done to you? Or wherein have I grieved you? Answer me.
I went down to the potter’s house and there he was, working at the wheel. Whenever the object of clay which he was making turned out badly in his hand, he tried again, remaking of the clay another object of whatever sort he pleased. Then the word of the LORD came to me: Can I not do to you, house of Israel, as this potter has done? says the LORD. Indeed, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, house of Israel. Jeremiah 18:3-6
In the simple image of a potter with clay, we come to understand the transformative power of God’s grace. Like nourishment for a precious plant, that divine grace breathes new life into any fading flowers of faith, hope, and love. Jesus came among us so that we might be remade in his image as the Beloved of God.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We pray for a supple heart, an acute attention, and a patient openness to God’s power in our lives.
Poetry: The Song of the Potter – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Turn, turn, my wheel! Turn round and round, Without a pause, without a sound: So spins the flying world away! This clay, well mixed with marl and sand, Follows the motion of my hand; For some must follow, and some command, Though all are made of clay!
Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change To something new, to something strange; Nothing that is can pause or stay; The moon will wax, the moon will wane, The mist and cloud will turn to rain, The rain to mist and cloud again, To-morrow be to-day.
Turn, turn, my wheel! All life is brief; What now is bud will soon be leaf, What now is leaf will soon decay; The wind blows east, the wind blows west; The blue eggs in the robin's nest Will soon have wings and beak and breast, And flutter and fly away.
Turn, turn, my wheel! This earthen jar A touch can make, a touch can mar; And shall it to the Potter say, What makest thou? Thou hast no hand? As men who think to understand A world by their Creator planned, Who wiser is than they.
Turn, turn, my wheel! 'Tis nature's plan The child should grow into the man, The man grow wrinkled, old, and gray; In youth the heart exults and sings, The pulses leap, the feet have wings; In age the cricket chirps, and brings The harvest home of day.
Turn, turn, my wheel! The human race, Of every tongue, of every place, Caucasian, Coptic, or Malay, All that inhabit this great earth, Whatever be their rank or worth, Are kindred and allied by birth, And made of the same clay.
Turn, turn, my wheel! What is begun At daybreak must at dark be done, To-morrow will be another day; To-morrow the hot furnace flame Will search the heart and try the frame, And stamp with honor or with shame These vessels made of clay.
Stop, stop, my wheel! Too soon, too soon The noon will be the afternoon, Too soon to-day be yesterday; Behind us in our path we cast The broken potsherds of the past, And all are ground to dust at last, And trodden into clay.
Again, the Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it. Matthew 13:45-46
On this feast, our readings offer us a perfect understanding of what motivated the life of St. Ignatius Loyola – he gave everything to possess the pearl of eternal life.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We pray the Suscipe of Ignatius, asking to deepen in our understanding of how we are called to holiness in our particular life circumstances.
Poetry: As Kingfishers Catch Fire – Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame; As tumbled over rim in roundy wells Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.
I say móre: the just man justices; Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces; Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is — Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places, Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
Music: Take, Lord, Receive – John Foley, SJ
Take, Lord, receive all my liberty, My memory, understanding, my entire will.
Give me only Your love and Your grace, that’s enough for me. Your love and Your grace, are enough for me.
Take, Lord, receive all I have and possess. You have given all to me, now I return it.
Give me only Your love and Your grace, that’s enough for me. Your love and Your grace, are enough for me.
Take, Lord, receive, all is Yours now. Dispose of it, wholly according to Your will
Give me only Your love and Your grace, that’s enough for me. Your love and Your grace, are enough for me.
Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Reform your ways and your deeds, so that I may remain with you in this place. Put not your trust in the deceitful words: “This is the temple of the LORD! The temple of the LORD! The temple of the LORD!” Only if you thoroughly reform your ways and your deeds; if each of you deals justly with his neighbor; if you no longer oppress the resident alien, the orphan, and the widow; if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place, or follow strange gods to your own harm, will I remain with you in this place, in the land I gave your fathers long ago and forever. Jeremiah 7:3-7
Jeremiah tells the people that God wants to reform them in a very particular way. They are to be reshaped by justice, truthfulness, mercy, holy hospitality, non-violence, and faithful worship.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We examine our lives for where we need reformation. Don’t tell me you don’t need it. Everybody needs it. We get weary, distracted, hurt, stubborn, fooled, proud, and arrogant. These human conditions knock us out of spiritual shape. How great that God grants us the indulgence to reform and gladly assists us in the process!
Wisdom:
“In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.”
Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock of your inheritance, That dwells apart in a woodland, in the midst of Carmel. Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old; As in the days when you came from the land of Egypt, show us wonderful signs… Who is there like you, the God who removes guilt and pardons sin for the remnant of his inheritance; Who does not persist in anger forever, but delights rather in mercy… Micah 7:14-15; 18
Micah prophesied about 700 years before Christ. His world was under siege by Sennacherib the Assyrian king. In the midst of this devastation, many abandoned the one true faith. But there was a small faithful portion of believers – the remnant – whom Micah sought to both warn and encourage by his prophecies.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We, too, live in a time of siege. Our faith is constantly challenged by our culture, our politics, religious institutionalization, and our self-serving economy.
But Micah reminds us that still God shepherds us tenderly. God awaits our recognition of God’s graces and call to be among the remnant who do not lose faith.
Poetry: Friday – Elizabeth Jennings (1926-2001) Jennings ranks among the finest British poets of the second half of the twentieth century. She is also England’s best Catholic poet since Gerard Manley Hopkins.
We nailed the hands long ago, Wove the thorns, took up the scourge and shouted For excitement's sake, we stood at the dusty edge Of the pebbled path and watched the extreme of pain.
But one or two prayed, one or two Were silent, shocked, stood back And remembered remnants of words, a new vision, The cross is up with its crying victim, the clouds Cover the sun, we learn a new way to lose What we did not know we had Until this bleak and sacrificial day, Until we turned from our bad Past and knelt and cried out our dismay, The dice still clicking, the voices dying away.
Music: Arise and Shine – New Wine
Not a pleasing piece of music, but perhaps what Micah would sound like were he preaching today?
Lavish Mercy 