Today, in Mercy, our readings lead us to pray for faith.
Faith is not a commodity or an achievement.
Faith is a relationship and a journey.
It is a gift and an exercise of grace.
Never stretched, it withers like an broken ligament.
It ebbs and tides with our personal and communal dramas.
It deepens with prayer, silent reaching, and a listening obedience to our lives.
It shallows with our demands, like Thomas, only to see and to touch.
It is fed by the Lavish Mercy of God Who never cuts its flow to our souls if we but take down the seawall around our heart.
On this day when we celebrate the power of tested and proven faith,
may we bring our needs into the circle gathered in that Upper Room.
Standing beside Thomas today in our prayer, may we place our trust in the glorified wounds of Christ.
A video today for your prayer: Blessed Are They That Have Not Seen
Today, in Mercy, we stand with Abraham as he reflects over the demolished plains surrounding Sodom and Gomorrah. He has been through a traumatic upheaval with God. Now he lets the reality of its teaching sink into his soul.
The smoldering land over which Abraham meditates has been flattened by earthquake and ensuing fire. It is a striking symbol for us of those events or circumstances in our lives that have crushed our hope and joy. At some time, we have all stood at the edge of such a scorched plain, one to be traced not on a paper map but on the map of our soul.
The upheaval may have been spawned by a death, a broken vow, a trust revealed as false, a devastating illness of spirit, mind or body. Whatever the trauma, something of us did not survive – at least not in the way it was before the fire.
Abraham is full of such considerations on this now quiet morning. And he, as many of us in the aftermath of our storms, has learned a new depth of God. God has stayed with Abraham, listened to him, shown mercy to Lot and his family.
What we see in this reading is Abraham, our earliest ancestor in faith, growing in his understanding of the nature of God. Even the upheavals of life can bring us to the fullness of God’s mercy. Though life may unfold differently from what we would choose, it will always bring us grace if we stay in relationship with Abiding Love.
May God give us the faith to hold on to that Lavish Mercy in any upheaval we encounter. May we, like Abraham, stand quiet and trusting in the power of God – perhaps not to change things, but to change us.
Music: Though the Mountains May Fall – Dan Schutte
Today, in Mercy, we have the rather charming passage in Genesis where Abraham nickels and dimes God. We might dismiss it as childlike lore if we hadn’t tried it with God ourselves a hundred times. 😂
At least I know I bargain with God? Don’t you? When I really want life to go in a way I don’t expect it to, I might try to make a deal with God. It goes something like this:
Dear God, if you only please do “X”, I promise that I will do “Y”.
Or it might go like this:
Dear God, I know You can’t possibly want this suffering to be happening.
Won’t You please fix it? I promise to be grateful!
Even now, when faith has brought me to a deeper understanding of God’s presence in my life, these little bargains still creep through.
But, if I wait, Grace teaches. God is not the Omnipotent Fixer. God is rather the Omnipresent Mercy bearing our blessings and sorrows with us. God is the Infinite Revelation, leading us in both light and darkness into the depth of a Love we will never fully comprehend:
For as the heavens are high above the earth, so surpassing is God’s mercy toward those who live within its awe. (today’s responsorial Pslam 103)
Sometimes when I feel, like Abraham, that God may have turned and walked away from my pleading prayer, I hear God’s fading footsteps calling me to follow into an unexpected depth.
It is a radical call, like the one in Matthew’s Gospel, to follow and know the Face of God hidden in life’s suffering.
“Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus answered him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” Another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.” But Jesus answered him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.”
It is not easy to put the following of Christ above all our human considerations, but this is our invitation and call. May we be gifted with the grace to respond.
Today, in Mercy, the symbols of yokes and plows shout out across our readings. Again, we are dealing with metaphors not in everyday usage for most of us. But those listening to Elijah, Paul, and Jesus absorbed the symbolism easily.
The yoke has connotations of subservience and toiling; in some ancient cultures it was traditional to force a vanquished enemy to pass beneath a symbolic yoke of Spears or swords.The yoke may be a metaphor for something oppressive or burdensome, such as feudalism or totalitarianism. (Wikipedia)
The writer of Kings has fiery Elijah engaged in one of his several highly dramatic episodes. What a scene, right? But what is the point for us?
The point is the same in all three readings: yoke=commitment. Each of our writers is talking about a further understanding of the word “yoke” —a freely chosen commitment made, by grace, for Love.
Sometimes, as in Kings, we need to break an enslavement in order to commit to something life-giving, such as Elisha’s call to follow Elijah.
Other times, as in Galatians, we must remind ourselves of the freedom and power we have chosen by breaking the old yokes that bound us.
In our Gospel, Jesus acknowledges the cost of a commitment to his Way. He has already told us in Matthew 11:
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Today, in Luke, Jesus doubles down on his invitation /challenge to follow him:
No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.
The question left for our prayer today? Is my heart fully yoked to the heart Christ? Is my hand firmly grasping the plow?
Today, in Mercy, we celebrate the great Apostles Peter and Paul, first architects of the Christian faith.
From our 21st century perspective, we may be tempted today to celebrate the totality of their accomplishments – the scriptures ascribed to them, the theology traced to them, the cathedrals named for them.
But there is a deeper message given to us in today’s readings, one that challenges our practice of faith. We can access that message by asking an obvious question:
Why were Peter and Paul, simple religious leaders, persecuted, imprisoned, harassed, and eventually executed? What was the terrible threat these unarmed preachers presented to political power?
The answer:
It was their testimony to the transformative Gospel message of Jesus Christ – the Gospel of Mercy and Justice.
But Jesus’ proclamation of God’s kingdom constituted a serious challenge to the Romans who ruled Israel during his lifetime. The cheering crowds who greeted him, especially during his entry into Jerusalem, as well as his confrontation with the moneychangers in the Temple, constituted such a threat to the unjust power of empire that the rulers crucified Jesus in order to silence him. – Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ
Peter and Paul, and every committed Christian after them, bears the same holy threatto ensuing cultures of domination, violence and greed.
As Jesus, Peter, Paul and so many others down through Pope Francis show us, faith and politics always work hand in hand. The work of faith is to build a world where every person can live, and find their way to God, in dignity and peace. It is to witness to an alternative to any power that feeds on the freedom, joy and peace of another person – especially those who are poor, sick and vulnerable.
May Peter and Paul inspire us to continue the daunting task of such an apostolic faith.
Music:They Who Do Justice – David Haas
They who do justice will live in the presence of God! They who do justice will live in the presence of God! Those who walk blamelessly and live their lives doing justice, who keep the truth in their heart, and slander not with their tongue! Who harm not another, nor take up reproach to their neighbor, who hate the site of the wicked, but honor the people of God! Who show no condition in sharing the gifts of their treasure, who live not off the poor: they shall stand firm forever!
Today, in Mercy, Abram and Sarai fall back into a struggle with God’s promise. God tarries with fulfillment and has not yet removed Sarai’s barrenness. The aging couple become impatient.
So, as we all sometimes do when God appears deaf to our prayers, Sarai comes up with her own strategy, clearly outside God’s outlined promise. They will use their slave Hagar to bear Abram’s heir.
The passage doesn’t mean that we should not work hard to fulfill our lives. It isn’t intended to contradict that old wisdom:
Work as if everything depended on you. Pray as if everything depended on God.
Or as St. Ignatius puts it in a more precise way:
I consider it an error to trust and hope in any means or efforts in themselves alone; nor do I consider it a safe path to trust the whole matter to God our Lord without desiring to help myself by what he has given me; so that it seems to me in our Lord that I ought to make use of both parts, desiring in all things his greater praise and glory, and nothing else.
What this reading does hold up before us is the quality of our faith, the depth of our relationship with God.
Do I consider every aspect of my experience in the light of prayer, sharing it with God, listening for God’s voice?
Do I inform my spirit through scripture and spiritual reading, (with what I like to call “a holy culture”), so that I can trust my discernment and be patient for its fulfillment?
Do I seek the counsel and companionship of those who strengthen the resolve of my spirit?
Abram was making good progress with these stepping stones, then Sarai threw him a curve with the offer of Hagar as his concubine. But don’t just blame Sarai. Good old Abram caught the curve and ran with it!🙂
Life pitches us all a lot of curves. It can be hard to catch God’s Voice as the curve buzzes by us!
Let’s pray today to let this story teach us whatever we need to learn about our own faith, discernment, patience, and “holy culture”.
Today, in Mercy, we begin several weeks of readings from the Book of Genesis.
Some people think of Genesis as a literal history. Others think of it more as a myth. Was there a real Adam and Eve? A real apple? A real snake?
When we get caught up in these ambivalences about Genesis, we are likely to miss the whole point. And the whole point, according to Hebrew Scripture scholar Walter Brueggemann is this:
… these texts should be taken neither as history nor as myth.
Rather, we insist that the text is a proclamation
of God’s decisive dealings with his creation.
“God’s decisive dealings with God’s Creation…”
What a powerful phrase! So over the next few weeks, here is our opportunity:
How does God want to be with us, to love us, and to share the ongoing Creation with us?
Today’s reading, according to Brueggemann, is the second part of a four-part drama:
Genesis 11: 30—25: 18 “The Embraced Call of God” Will Abraham live by faith?
This second segment poses a profound question to us, and to our Church:
Have we embraced God’s call in our lives and will we live our faith OUT LOUD!
Jesus asks us the same question in today’s Gospel: Will we live our faith OUT LOUD?
Will we: “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.”
How to help children at the border and in inhuman detention centers:
Today, in Mercy, we celebrate one of the greatest figures of the Bible, John the Baptist. He prepared the way for the Lord.
Icon of St. John the Baptist (16th c.) Dionysiou Monastery
When I think of John’s role in Salvation History, I am reminded of a captivating poem by Geoffrey Brown, author of Road of the Heart Cave:
The Heart Cave
I must remember
To go down to the heart cave & sweep it clean; make it warm with a fire on the hearth, & candles in their niches, the pictures on the walls glowing with a quiet light. I must remember
To go down to the heart cave & make the bed with the quilt from home, strew the rushes on the floor hang lavender and sage from the corners. I must go down
To the heart cave & be there when You come.
John the Baptist went down to the heart cave of our human perception of God.He understood, in an inexpressible way, that God was about to do something astounding in human history.God was about to become part of it!
John understood this with unquestioning faith, the way we understand heaven but cannot rationalize it. Understanding it, he knew that the world needed to turn itself toward God – to repent – in radical and ardent expectation.
This was his call and his message – this extraordinary man, dressed in his camel hair vestments, preaching at the desert’s edge.
We might pray to John today to be turned from anything that distracts us from God, to long for God’s presence in our hearts and in our world, to love deeply and make a welcome home for Christ within us.
( On this Feast, 53 years ago, my entrance companions and I professed our vows. I think of all of them with love today. May I humbly ask you, dear readers, to join me in prayer for us as we thank God for the gift of our lives in Mercy.)
Music: Apolytikion of the Synaxis of St. John the Baptist ( Dismissal Hymn of the Assembly for St. John the Baptist from the Greek Liturgy)
Today, in Mercy, Jesus and Paul offer us lessons in character, something sorely needed in today’s world.
Sometimes I think I’m just getting old, but I feel like our culture has abandoned the pursuit of “character”.
Who are the models held up for our children? Overpaid, spoiled sports icons? Fat cat, indifferent politicians? Grossly sexualized entertainers? Self-indulgent religious and civic officials?
What are the messages our kids receive through our media? Unless you are the richest, the strongest, the flashiest, the cleverest, etc., you fail?
What about us adults? We are bombarded with these messages too. What do we begin to believe about ourselves and who we should be in the world?
Today our readings tell us this: Be upright, gracious, merciful and just. Be generous, humble and brave without needing to be recognized for it. Be honest, sincere, and wise. Wow! Are you kidding me?
As we continue to nourish our character, as we help our children build theirs, there are many blocks to choose from. We can turn every experience, act and choice either to light or to darkness, either to self or to God.
As we pray these readings today, let us ask for the grace to see ourselves clearly with God’s eyes- always true and always merciful. Let us ask for the courage and character to be someone God delights to see.
Today, in Mercy, our Gospel reveals a lot about the relationships and personalities among Jesus and his disciples.
John is described as “the one whom Jesus loved”, indicating that there was a unique affection shared between them. What was that like? John was younger than most of the other men. Perhaps he needed more overt direction and care from Jesus. We know from John’s later extensive contributions to scripture that he was a poet and a visionary, someone with heightened sensitivities. Perhaps John expressed his love for Jesus more openly, triggering a similar response in Jesus.
Peter, once again, appears as the questioner. Throughout the Gospels, he is always asking Jesus to explain, to define, to assure. In today’s reading, Jesus has given Peter the prime call to follow him. But Peter wants more. Looking at John, Peter wants to know, “What about him… will he follow?”
Maybe Peter is a lot like some of us, a little unsure of where we are in God’s love. Maybe he wants to know how he compares to John, the obvious “Beloved Disciple”.
Jesus doesn’t coddle Peter. He wants Peter to “man up”. Peter has immense leadership responsibilities ahead of him. He needs to rely totally on Jesus’s promise to him.
So Jesus tells him not to worry about how others are loved and called by God. He tells Peter, “ You follow me!” – that’s all you have to be concerned about.
Everybody’s call to follow is personal and different. It comes dressed in our particular life circumstances, gifts and awarenesses. God wants Peter and God wants John. He doesn’t want clones of either.
And God wants and calls each one of us in our uniqueness. By entering deeply into our own spirit, we will find our answer to God’s call.
Teresa of Avila said this:
It is foolish to think that we will enter heaven without entering into ourselves.
May dear, questioning Peter inspire us today to be brave, confident and complete in our own response to God’s call.
Lavish Mercy 