Today, in Mercy, Jesus asks the quintessential question of Peter, “Do you love me more than these?”
The setting is by the morning-dappled sea. Jesus has just cooked his disciples breakfast. Ordinary enough, right?
What is extraordinary is that Jesus has already died, risen from the dead, and is sitting with his buddies once again by their old fishing boats!
In other words, these disciples now know clearly what the love of God means. They have seen, firsthand, what that kind of love does to a life! Mercy, Passion, Death and Resurrection lived out in everyday human experiences.
So Jesus’s question to Peter might really be asking:
After all you’ve seen,
after all is said and done,
do you have the “more”
that it will take to follow me?
Our spiritual life is all about growing to the “more” that will let us live and love in God.
This Saturday, in our Merion chapel, four young women make their perpetual profession of vows as Sisters of Mercy. On July 13th, a fifth woman will make her final profession in the Mid-West Community.
We rejoice that these women have chosen to find their “more” as Sisters of Mercy. Will you join us in prayers of thanksgiving and benediction for them as they take this sacred step?
Let us too have the courage, as we pray today, to listen to Jesus ask us about our love. Let us answer sincerely, and ask for all we need to give the “more” in whatever way God asks of us.
Music: Love Like Jesus – Pawn Shop Kings (This one will wake you up!😀)
It’s an appropriate theme at this time of weddings, graduations, retirements, house-hunting, and other temporary or final leave-takings.
Farewells are tough, aren’t they? They are an uneven mix of sadness and joy, one party often more heavily burdened than the other.
I think of the day I left home to enter the convent. I was bursting with joy, enthusiasm, curiosity and wonder. But I was woefully unaware of my parent’s profound sense of loss. It was a stunningly uneven farewell that I only came to understand in my growing maturity.
In our readings today, Paul and Jesus are poignantly aware of their farewells.
Paul says:
But now I know that none of you to whom I preached the kingdom during my travels will ever see my face again.
And Jesus says:
And now I will no longer be in the world, but (my followers) are in the world, while I am coming to the Father.
Both Paul and Jesus use their farewells to pray for their disciples, to confirm their strength, and to proclaim that their followers are ready to carry on the mission. You can almost envision these two great mentors releasing their disciples into the fullness of their own call.
Over our lifetimes, we will love and mentor many people: children, friends, students, protégés. There will come times when we must release them into new dimensions of their lives.
Sometimes we are the ones breaking forth to a new horizon, strengthened by the generous direction of those we leave behind.
In each situation, may we treasure the love that is generous enough to give new life. May we bless one another with a magnanimity like that of Jesus when He made his farewell:
I pray for you and … I will ask the Father and he will give you his Spirit to be with you always.
As I look back on that day long ago, standing with my parents at the front door of the Motherhouse, it was that kind of farewell that they unselfishly gave to me.
Today, in Mercy, Acts gives us a brief lesson on the difference between John’s and Jesus’ baptism. John’s is a baptism of repentance, cleansing and preparing the soul for Christ.
Baptism in Jesus unites us with Christ through the power of the indwelling Spirit. It is a dynamic and life-changing transformation.
But we are often so unaware of its power within us!
We are like the disciples in today’s Gospel. They think that, because they understand Christ’s word, they have it all together. But Jesus warns them:
Do you believe now? Behold, the hour is coming and has arrived when each of you will be scattered to his own home and you will leave me alone.
The distractions of this world can distort and muffle our Baptismal call. Jesus is warning his disciples that it is not easy to live a truly Christian life. Jesus tells them and us to “take courage”, to open our hearts to his power in us. And our Gospel verse from Colossians shows us the way:
If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
We are to make the higher choice always:
mercy over harshness
justice over retribution
forgiveness over vengeance
honesty over pretense
love over indifference
service over selfishness
In this way, our Baptismal power will shine, strengthening not only us, but the world we touch.
Music: The Lord Bless You and Keep You – John Rutter
Let pray this prayer for one another today, Beloveds. May God strengthen and uplift your hearts in the power of your Baptism.
Today, in Mercy, Acts describes how the preaching of the Gospel spread across the Mediterranean basin. In today’s passage, we meet Apollos, and the couple Priscilla and Aquila.
Paul had met Priscilla and Aquila earlier, in Corinth ( Acts18:1-2). They became his followers, going with him to Ephesus, where they set up a new home. Their home became a worship place for the Ephesians, and they, influential leaders in that vibrant community.
The degree of their influence can be seen in today’s story about Apollos, a gifted speaker who had converted to Christianity from Judaism. The scene is early in Apollos’s conversion, and he apparently needs a little fine tuning in his preaching. So…
Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the Way of God more accurately.
Apollos goes on to become a significant influence on the early Church. In 1 Corinthians, Paul mentions Apollos at Corinth, describing Apollos’ role in this way:
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
All of the players in Acts today were able to accomplish what they did because they understood and lived a directive from Jesus given in today’s Gospel:
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. Until now you have not asked anything in my name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.”
If we believe, live, and act in the Name of Jesus, God lives in us and in our experiences.
But it can’t be words only. We often hear people, in a crisis or challenge, call on the Name of Jesus. But if Jesus hasn’t heard from us in a while, and doesn’t live already in our hearts, that invocation won’t work.
The Name of Jesus shines in us when it is a constant resident in our thoughts, choices and actions. May the power of that precious Name live in us.
Music: Jesus, the Lord – Roc O’Conner, SJ (Lyrics below)
Refrain: Jesus, Jesus Let all creation bend the knee to the Lord.
1. In Him we live, we move and have our being; In Him the Christ, In Him the King!
Jesus the Lord.
2. Though Son, He did not cling to Godliness, But emptied Himself, became a slave! Jesus the Lord.
3. He lived obediently His Father’s will Accepting His death, death on a cross! Jesus the Lord.
Jesus talks about the kind of blowback his disciples can expect for living their faith inan inimical world. He gives us some “if … then” statements:
If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.
If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.
If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.
Reading these verses makes me wonder if I am really living the Gospel, because I don’t feel all that persecuted.
And then I think that this is because I really live in two worlds. I live in first world comfort and security. But there is also a part of me that agonizes daily over the injustice rampant in our shared world. Today’s Gospel challenges me to live more intentionally in that second world.
Walter Brueggemann says this:
Faith is both the conviction
that justice can be accomplished
and the refusal to accept injustice.” – Interrupting Silence: God’s Command to Speak Out
Jesus was not persecuted simply because he did miracles and preached love. This loving, life-giving ministry confronted the dominant, government-generated culture which relied on the subjugation and despair of those they dominated.
I don’t aspire to martyrdom. But I do want to be a true disciple of Jesus. The way available to us is to live and act with mercy and compassion for the poor, marginalized people Jesus so loves. We can do this by voting, advocating for, and sponsoring programs and agendas for social justice.This link from the Sisters of Mercy is a help on how to do that:
Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness. In the arrangement of “lawfulness” in Jesus’ time, as in the ancient empire of Pharaoh, the one unpermitted quality of relation was compassion. Empires are never built or maintained on the basis of compassion.” (Prophetic Imagination)
May our hearts be moved by grace to the depth of compassion we have learned from Jesus.
P.S. I know that many of you have responded to this request I placed on Facebook. Thank you. For those who don’t do Facebook, this is an urgent request for help for refugees at our southern border. It’s an easy way to do some good things.It was received from Sisters of Mercy Leadership Team in D.C.
Today, in Mercy, our Gospel offers us a profound message: what does it mean to live in the peace of God?
So many things, from the monumental to the trivial, can make us unpeaceful. If we made a list, we might tire before we completed it! This lack of peace takes many forms in us – worry, anxiety, second guessing, distraction, self-doubt and myriad other forms of inner fragmentation.
For some of us, gaining inner peace is more difficult than for others. So much depends on the trust we have felt in our lives. For those who have felt betrayed by family, friends, or God, the journey to a peaceful heart can be a tortuous one.
But Jesus says we can do it because he showed us how.
Don’t you think he might have been confused and bewildered at times by what the Father was asking of him? Don’t you think he was disillusioned at times by the wavering faith of his disciples? Don’t you think he was frightened by the kind of death he faced?
So just how did Jesus grow to such a fullness of peace that he was able to bequeath it to us as our inheritance?
He said:
Not as the world gives peace do I give it to you.
The world gives peace by removing or dominating challenges. God gives peace by accompanying us through challenges.
Jesus came to the point, in his very human life, where he chose not to let his heart be troubled because he had found this accompaniment.
The willingness of Jesus to live, suffer, and die according to the Father’s Will gives us the pattern on which to build our peace.
Throughout the ages, many saints have found and lived this peace according to their own call from God. One of the many who inspire me is Julian of Norwich.Julian was an English anchorite of the Middle Ages.She wrote the earliest surviving book in the English language to be written by a woman, Revelations of Divine Love.
Julian was worried about the presence of sin in the world. It seems she wondered, like many of us might, why God didn’t just fix that!
“In my folly, before this time I often wondered why, by the great foreseeing wisdom of God, the onset of sin was not prevented: for then, I thought, all should have been well. This impulse [of thought] was much to be avoided, but nevertheless I mourned and sorrowed because of it, without reason and discretion.
But Jesus, who in this vision informed me of all that is needed by me, answered with these words and said: ‘It was necessary that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’
These words were said most tenderly, showing no manner of blame to me nor to any who shall be saved.”
This also is a lovely quote from Julian to pray with:
“From the time these things were first revealed I had often wanted to know what was our Lord’s meaning. It was more than fifteen years after that I was answered in my spirit’s understanding. ‘You would know our Lord’s meaning in this thing? Know it well. Love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. What did he show you? Love. Why did he show it? For love. Hold on to this and you will know and understand love more and more. But you will not know or learn anything else — ever.”
Music: Meg Barnhouse’s modern interpretation of Julian’s writing, which Meg has obviously studied.
Today, in Mercy, the inevitable shadow falls over the early Christian community. Stephen is martyred – the first, the proto-martyr of many, down through the centuries, who will die for their faith.
This slaughter of innocence happened at the feet, and at the approbation, of Saul – yet untouched by the glorious grace of Christ.
How the community must have mourned beloved Stephen who, as our hymn describes him, was “bright with Love”:
Stephen, a man filled with faith and the Holy Spirit (Acts 6:5)
Stephen, filled with grace and power, was working great wonders and signs among the people (Acts 6:8)
All those who sat in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen and saw that his face was like the face of an angel. (Acts 6:15)
Stephen, filled with the holy Spirit, looked up intently to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:8)
Stephen, as they were stoning him, called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. ( Acts 7:55)
What a treasure of a man! What a devastation to see his young, gracious life crushed by rejection, suffering and pain!
It is so hard to lose our prophets and saints!
I still remember, with great awe, the funeral of our Sister Mary Joanna Regan – one of the graced treasures of the Sisters of Mercy. Our Beloved Community was raw with her loss – as was the larger community of her love and influence.
Joanna’s dear friend, Father John Comey, SJ – now also of beloved memory – preached the sermon at her funeral liturgy. This was his first sentence:
How can such a woman die?
Dear Readers, haven’t we all felt that way in the face of some great loss? Whenever human frailty seems to bend to the powers of death, hatred, or oppression, our souls are crushed. We are astounded that life and goodness seem to yield. So was the early Christian Church when Stephen seemed to fall to hateful hands.
Nevertheless, they believed that there is an eternal life in God beyond that apparent yielding. They persisted in the ardent work of building up the reign of Christ.
Now those who had been scattered continued preaching the word. … and there was great joy in that city.
And the witness of Stephen impelled not only them, but twenty centuries of committed Christians who find their fullness of life in Jesus Christ.
Certainly our Church, with its many recent fractures and falls, needs a resilient, faithful community to lift it up and carry it forward. Let’s pray to St. Stephen today that we may be that community!
(English and Latin canticle today, plus lovely poem after them)
Music:Sancte Dei, Pretiose– sung by the Benedictine Monks of St. Michael’s de Laudes
Latin Version
Sancte Dei, pretiose,
Protomartyr Stephane,
Qui virtute caritatis
Circumfulsus undique,
Dominum pro inimico
Exorasti populo
Et coronae qua nitescis
Almus sacri nominis,
Nos, qui tibi famulamur,
Fac consortes fieri :
Et expertes dirae mortis
In die Judicii.
Gloria et honor Deo
Qui te flora roseo
Coronavit et locavit
In throno sidereo :
Salvet reos, solvens eos
A mortis aculeo. Amen.
English Version
Saint of God, elect and precious,
Protomartyr Stephen, bright
With thy love of amplest measure,
Shining round thee like a light;
Who to God commendest, dying,
Them that did thee all despite.
Glitters now the crown above thee,
Figured in thy honored name:
O that we, who truly love thee.
May have portion in the same;
In the dreadful day of judgment
Fearing neither sin nor shame.
Laud to God, and might, and honor,
Who with flowers of rosy dye
Crowned thy forehead, and hath placed thee
In the starry throne on high:
He direct us, He protect us,
From death’s sting eternally.
Poem: St. Stephen by Malcolm Guite
Witness for Jesus, man of fruitful blood,
Your martyrdom begins and stands for all.
They saw the stones, you saw the face of God,
And sowed a seed that blossomed in St. Paul.
When Saul departed breathing threats and slaughter
He had to pass through that Damascus gate
Where he had held the coats and heard the laughter
As Christ, alive in you, forgave his hate,
And showed him the same light you saw from heaven
And taught him, through his blindness, how to see;
Christ did not ask ‘Why were you stoning Stephen?’
But ‘Saul, why are you persecuting me?’
Each martyr after you adds to his story,
As clouds of witness shine through clouds of glory
Today, in Mercy, our Gospel recounts a scary episode for the disciples. Just as in most scary stories, “It was a dark and rainy night”. Worse yet, these guys were out in the middle of a turbulent sea!
Been there? Maybe not in actual nautical terms, but we’ve all had our storms. Right?
The miracle in our Gospel story is that Jesus comes to the disciples out of the midst of the storm. And he will do the same thing for us, if faith can clear our eyes to see him.
In a spiritual direction relationship, where we share our soul’s journey with a guiding companion, that mentor will often ask the question:
Where is God in this situation?
It is the perfect question to ask ourselves in both our small and mighty storms. In all that happens within and around us, God abides – perhaps in the center calling us to new depths; perhaps at the edges calling us away from darkness.
Where is God today for you, dear friends?
Music: Sometimes He Calms the Storm – Scott Krippayne
(You might want just to linger over the words of this beautiful song, so I have printed them below.)
All who sail the sea of faith
Find out before too long
How quickly blue skies can grow dark
And gentle winds grow strong
Suddenly fear is like white water
Pounding on the soul
Still we sail on knowing
That our Lord is in control
Sometimes He calms the storm
With a whispered peace, “Be still.”
He can settle any sea
But it doesn’t mean He will
Sometimes He holds us close
And lets the wind and waves go wild
Sometimes He calms the storm
And other times He calms His child
He has a reason for each trial
That we pass through in life
And though we’re shaken
We cannot be pulled apart from Christ
No matter how the driving rain beats down
On those who hold to faith
A heart of trust will always
Be a quiet peaceful place
Today, in Mercy,in our reading from Acts, the disciples continue to show immense courage in preaching the Word.They are bursting with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, soon to be confirmed in them on Pentecost.
We, too, have these gifts confirmed in us, not only when we receive the sacrament of Confirmation, but each time we open our hearts without reserve to the Holy Spirit and her ensuing abundance:
Wisdom
Understanding
Counsel, or Right Judgment Fortitude, or Courage
Knowledge Piety, or Reverence
Fear of the Lord, or Awesome Wonder
Sometimes, we unfortunately forget to call on these infinite gifts as we navigate life’s challenges. It is a blessing to remember that we are not doing this thing called “Life” alone, just as the early disciples were charged by the power of God.
Our Gospel confirms the availability of God’s unbounded Grace to all who believe:
For the one whom God sent speaks the words of God. He does not ration his gift of the Spirit. The Father loves the Son and has given everything over to him. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.
Let’s consciously claim that unrationed grace today! Oh, what a difference it might make in our lives!
Music: Mozart: Veni Sancte Spiritus (Latin and English Lyrics below)
Veni sancte Spiritus: Reple tuorum corda fidelium: et tui amoris in eis ignem accende. qui per diversitatem linguarum cunctarum gentes in unitate fidei congregasti. Alleluia.
Come Holy Spirit: fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle your love in them. You have gathered the nations together in the unity of faith. Alleluia.
Today, in Mercy,our readings continue to show us the rising power of Christ after the Resurrection.
Acts demonstrates how powerfully He lives in his disciples, and in the faith of the emerging Church.
… the people esteemed them. Yet more than ever, believers in the Lord, great numbers of men and women, were added to them. Thus they even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and mats so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on one or another of them.
Our Gospel recounts two Post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus where He bolsters that faith for these still fledgling followers. They were gathered in the Upper Room, doors locked and fearful. When Jesus appears, the first thing he says is, “Peace”, because that is what his little flock most needs.
In the course of the reading, we discover Thomas’s adamant doubt unless he can see and touch evidence of the Christ he once knew in the flesh. His doubt is so strong that his faith, when it comes, overwhelms him.
My Lord, and my God!
In these first sainted founders of the faith, we can find a mirror image of our own call to witness Christ. We are delegated to be his presence in the world, to cast a shadow that bears his blessing in the midst of suffering and confusion.
But in the locked room of our hearts, we may still be afraid. We may feel, like Thomas, that we were absent when the affirmation and courage were distributed!
Knowing our own weaknesses – and captured in the maze of their little dramas – we may be skeptical that Christ desires to rise in us, to preach by our lives.
What Jesus said to these very fragile witnesses, he says to us
Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me,
so I send you.
Let us look around today in awareness of those who fall in the shadow of our faith: our children and families, our religious communities, our elders, our neighbors, our friends and co-workers. As we pass through life together, does our presence bless them with a trace of God?
As we pray today, let us place our doubts, fears, weaknesses and self-concerns into Christ’s sacred wounds. Let us leave them there in confidence as we humbly choose to be his Presence and Mercy for others by the simple, selfless choices of our lives.
Lavish Mercy 