God’s blessings to all of you, my readers, in this beautiful month of May! These days bring the full blossoming of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere, the grape harvest in Australia, and the close of the rainy season in Peru. May all these gifts, and the special love of Mary, brighten these days.
Please enjoy this beautiful and elegant music, reminiscent of May:
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040524.cfm
When they climbed out on shore,
John 21: 9-12
they saw a charcoal fire with fish on it and bread.
Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you just caught.”
So Simon Peter went over and dragged the net ashore
full of one hundred fifty-three large fish.
Even though there were so many, the net was not torn.
Jesus said to them, “Come, have breakfast.”
And none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?”
because they realized it was the Lord.
Table Stock photos by Vecteezy
Have you ever eaten breakfast on a quiet morning beach?
When each of my nieces and nephew was about three years old, I would take her or him to the beach with me in the early morning. It was like an initiation. We would sit quietly at water’s edge as I taught them to hum or sing a morning hymn. After a little while, my dear sister-in-law, their mother, would arrive with a full pot of coffee and two cups. The praying child would be released to play while Mare and I took up the morning silence, stringing it with occasional words.
It was a time of wonderful love and ease among us, a time of unforgettable blessing. This is the gift Jesus gives his disciples in today’s reading. He offers us the same blessing too, if we can find a little space for him in our morning. Just a minute or two will do. Remember, Jesus can do a lot with just a word — just think about those 153 fish!
Poetry: Jesus Makes Breakfast: A Poem about John 21:1-14
– by Carol Penner, Mennonite pastor currently teaching theology at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ontario.
I could smell that charcoal fire a long way off
while we were still rowing far from shore.
As we got closer I could smell the fish cooking,
I imagined I could hear it sizzling.
When you’re hungry, your mind works that way.
When the man by the fire called out asking us about our catch,
we held up the empty nets.
And his advice to throw the nets in once more
is something we might have ignored,
except for the smell of cooking fish…
this guy must know something about catching fish!
The catch took our breath away;
never in my life have we pulled so many in one heave.
I was concentrating on the catch,
but John wasn’t even paying attention,
he was staring at the shore
as if his life depended on it.
Then he clutched my shoulder, crying,
“It is the Lord!”
Suddenly, everything came into focus,
the man, the catch, the voice,
and nothing could stop me,
I had to be with the Master.
There were no words at breakfast,
beyond, “Pass the fish,”
or “I’ll have a bit more bread.”
We sat there, eating our fill,
basking in the sunrise.
We didn’t have to say anything.
Jesus just smiled and served.
Music: Whispering Sea – Tony O’Connor
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031224.cfm
There is a stream whose runlets gladden the city of God,
Psalm 46:5-6
the holy dwelling of the Most High.
God is in its midst; it shall not be disturbed;
God will help it at the break of dawn.
Our Psalm today connects two readings centered around life-giving water.
Ezekiel’s watery vision offers a symbolic interpretation of the life-force flowing from God’s heart (symbolized by the Temple) to all Creation.
In our Gospel, a man waits for decades beside the waters of an inaccessible pool until Jesus cures him – until Jesus himself becomes the “Water of Life”.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Imagine yourself being blessed by life-giving water – maybe a cool swim on a blistering day, or a warm bath on a frosty one.
Imagine walking in a gentle summer rain, no umbrella, no puddle prohibitions.
If you love the ocean, imagine diving under soft waves at flood tide, belly-riding them back, again and again, to a warm, quiet beach.
Now imagine that all that water is God’s Love for you, because it is. And let your heart pray with a joy similar to today’s psalmist!
Poetry: The Waterfall – Henry Vaughan (1621-1695)
With what deep murmurs through time’s silent stealth
Doth thy transparent, cool, and wat’ry wealth
Here flowing fall,
And chide, and call,
As if his liquid, loose retinue stay’d
Ling’ring, and were of this steep place afraid;
The common pass
Where, clear as glass,
All must descend
Not to an end,
But quicken’d by this deep and rocky grave,
Rise to a longer course more bright and brave.
Dear stream! dear bank, where often I
Have sate and pleas’d my pensive eye,
Why, since each drop of thy quick store
Runs thither whence it flow’d before,
Should poor souls fear a shade or night,
Who came, sure, from a sea of light?
Or since those drops are all sent back
So sure to thee, that none doth lack,
Why should frail flesh doubt any more
That what God takes, he’ll not restore?
O useful element and clear!
My sacred wash and cleanser here,
My first consigner unto those
Fountains of life where the Lamb goes!
What sublime truths and wholesome themes
Lodge in thy mystical deep streams!
Such as dull man can never find
Unless that Spirit lead his mind
Which first upon thy face did move,
And hatch’d all with his quick’ning love.
As this loud brook’s incessant fall
In streaming rings restagnates all,
Which reach by course the bank, and then
Are no more seen, just so pass men.
O my invisible estate,
My glorious liberty, still late!
Thou art the channel my soul seeks,
Not this with cataracts and creeks.
Music: How Deep Is the Ocean
As you listen to the smooth jazz of Diana Krall, let yourself be in love with God who raises you from beside whatever pool where you’ve been lingering.
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031124.cfm
Thus says the LORD:
Isaiah 65: 17-19a
Lo, I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
The things of the past shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
Instead, there shall always be rejoicing and happiness
in what I create;
For I create Jerusalem to be a joy
and its people to be a delight;
I will rejoice in Jerusalem
and exult in my people.
To create – not just “to make”, the way we make a cake, or a snowball, or a campfire which always depends on our ideation for existence.
But rather to generate something new, fully enlivened and freed by our faith, hope, and love – to be no longer what was made, but to become itself.
This is how God dreamed Creation to Life, around us and in us. This is how we and all Creation are re-created in the Paschal Mystery and in the Eucharist.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, let’s pray with this powerful act of praise over a New Creation:
from The Mass on the World – Pierre Teilhard De Chardin
“Since once again, Lord - though this time not in the forests of the Aisne but in the steppes of Asia - I have neither bread, nor wine, nor altar, I will raise myself beyond these symbols, up to the pure majesty of the Real itself; I, your priest, will make the whole earth my altar and on it will offer you all the labours and sufferings of the world.
Over there, on the horizon, the sun has just touched with light the outermost fringe of the eastern sky. Once again, beneath this moving sheet of fire, the living surface of the earth wakes and trembles, and once again begins its fearful travail. I will place on my paten, O God, the harvest to be won by this renewal of labour. Into my chalice I shall pour all the sap which is to be pressed out this day from the earth’s fruits.
My paten and my chalice are the depths of a soul laid widely open to all the forces which in a moment will rise up from every corner of the earth and converge upon the Spirit. Grant me the remembrance and the mystic presence of all those whom the light is now awakening to the new day . . .
Over every living thing which is to spring up, to grow, to flower, to ripen during this day say again the words: ‘This is my Body’. And over every death-force which waits in readiness to corrode, to wither, to cut down, speak again your commanding words which express the supreme mystery of faith: ‘This is my Blood’.”
Music: Essence – Peter Kater
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030624.cfm
Moses spoke to the people and said:
Deuteronomy 4:1
“Now, Israel, hear the statutes and decrees
which I am teaching you to observe,
that you may live, and may enter in and take possession of the land
which the LORD, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.”
The word “observe” carries several meanings. We may, for example,
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Let’s take the final sense of sacred observing, placing our lives before God in faith, hope, and love. Each day that we live is a ritual of praise to the One Who created us. By living God’s Law of Love, we offer the praise for which God made us.
Poetry: from First Love by Denise Levertov
In the excerpt, Levertov “observes” by giving, and receiving, full attention.
`Convolvulus,' said my mother.
Pale shell-pink, a chalice
no wider across than a silver sixpence.
It looked at me, I looked
back, delight
filled me as if
I, not the flower,
were a flower and were brimful of rain.
And there was endlesness.
Perhaps through a lifetime what I've desired
has always been to return
to that endless giving and receiving, the wholeness
of that attention,
that once-in-a-lifetime
secret communion.
Music: Touch of the Spirit – Nadama
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021024.cfm
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we finish with the Book of Kings. And, as several of my readers have told me, they’ll be glad for it. There may have been points in our journey through Samuel and Kings, when you thought, “WHY am I even reading this! Who cares about Rehoboam, Jeroboam or any other “boams”!
I understand, but here are two of my “WHY”s:
The Hebrew Scriptures show us how human beings deepened, over thousands of years, in their understanding of God. Throughout that extended deepening, God remains unchangingly faithful. Even though the cultural context of some Old Testament stories may upset, befuddle, or offend us, they still express the human attempt to find God in one's experience.
The Hebrew Scriptures inform and underlie the theology of the Christian Scriptures, and the culture in which Jesus lived and taught. Like a butterfly is the fulfillment of the chrysalis, Jesus was the fulfillment of the Promise to Abraham. Without an appreciation of that Promise, and how Israel lived out its long realization, our comprehension of Christ's meaning is limited.
Our Gospel today gives us the familiar story of the feeding of the multitude. Mark describes a large crowd engaged in the search for God. They follow Jesus for three days, listening, learning, and being amazed at his miracles. They are so hungry to find something to believe in that they forget to feed their human hungers!
I love the compassionate way Jesus takes notice of their predicament:
“My heart is moved with pity for the crowd,
because they have been with me now for three days
and have nothing to eat.
If I send them away hungry to their homes,
they will collapse on the way,
and some of them have come a great distance.”
In this pivotal miracle, Jesus teaches a core lesson of faith.
In Christ, we are given the gift of full and abundant life. Our hearts then must become like his, moved in mercy toward those who are still hungry, both spiritually and physically.
The miracle of the loaves and fishes calls the faithful community to the practice of shared abundance. It invites us to notice the hungers around us and within our world. It moves us to understand the distances people experience from love, inclusion, respect, security, and peace. It convinces us that the need to have more and more will only yield less and less for our spirits.
Our culture works to convince us that we can never work hard enough or accumulate enough. It deludes us to believe that we matter because of what we have, not because of who we are. In this miracle, Jesus models another way to live in relationship with God, ourselves and with Creation:
Trust in and respect for the abundant generosity of God’s Creation
His disciples answered him, “Where can anyone get enough bread
to satisfy them here in this deserted place?”
Still he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?”
They replied, “Seven.”
He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground.
Deep reverence and gratitude for God’s Presence in all life
Then, taking the seven loaves he gave thanks, broke them,
and gave them to his disciples to distribute,
and they distributed them to the crowd.
They also had a few fish.
He said the blessing over them
and ordered them distributed also.
They ate and were satisfied.
Acknowledgement of our need to replenish our spirits in rest and solitude
He dismissed the crowd and got into the boat with his disciples
and came to the region of Dalmanutha.
Somewhere in each of our lives, we might find a few loaves or minnows hidden away. Or we might be the famished one with an empty basket after a long journey. Today’s Gospel tells us to invite God’s transformative grace into our needs, hungers, inhibitions, or emptiness. Like this amazed Gospel crowd, we might be wowed at what God can do with our generous hearts!
Poetry: In the Storm – Mary Oliver
Some black ducks
were shrugged up
on the shore.
It was snowing
hard, from the east,
and the sea
was in disorder.
Then some sanderlings,
five inches long
with beaks like wire,
flew in,
snowflakes on their backs,
and settled
in a row
behind the ducks --
whose backs were also
covered with snow --
so close
they were all but touching,
they were all but under
the roof of the duck's tails,
so the wind, pretty much,
blew over them.
They stayed that way, motionless,
for maybe an hour,
then the sanderlings,
each a handful of feathers,
shifted, and were blown away
out over the water
which was still raging.
But, somehow,
they came back
and again the ducks,
like a feathered hedge,
let them
crouch there, and live.
If someone you didn't know
told you this,
as I am telling you this,
would you believe it?
Belief isn't always easy.
But this much I have learned --
if not enough else --
to live with my eyes open.
I know what everyone wants
is a miracle.
This wasn't a miracle.
Unless, of course, kindness --
as now and again
some rare person has suggested --
is a miracle.
As surely it is.
Music: Krystian Zimerman – Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 in E Flat Major, Op. 73: II. Adagio un poco moto
A lovely piece to accompany our reflection on faith, miracles, and abundance.
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/012724.cfm
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings say something about Divine Order, about Sacred Balance – and our ability to let go and trust.
Nathan Rebukes David – by James Tissot
In our first reading, the prophet Nathan confronts David regarding his relationship with Bathsheba. The beautiful Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah, an elite soldier in David’s army. From far away one day, David spies her bathing in a pool. Full of covetousness and lust, he engineers a heartless plot to have her as his own.
The story is complex, intriguing, and extremely dramatic. You can read it for yourself in 2 Samuel. But the point I would like to draw out for today is about covetousness. What is that, really, and does it play any part in my life?
“Covet” is an intransitive verb that we learned when we were taught the Ten Commandments. Like all the other sins, my six-year-old self decided I would try hard not to commit it … but I had no idea what it even meant! I was pretty sure I didn’t have to be worried about coveting my neighbor’s wife, but I did like Jimmy Clark’s bike enough to covet it. (But, I didn’t steal it.)
Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever used the verb “covet” in a sentence before today. So I turned to Meriam-Webster who defines covetousness like this: to desire (what belongs to another) inordinately or culpably
Do we “covet” when we wish we had some of the great things others have? Material things like money, mansions, and limousines? Or immaterial things like talent, beauty, and popularity?
I don’t think so. We may have to deal with the concupiscence of jealousy or envy, but it’s not quite the same as coveting. As Merriam-Webster indicates, coveting implies an inordinance or culpability. In other words, we act on our jealousy or envy in some way, creating an imbalance in our moral life.
When I examine my conscience I remind myself that the world belongs to me, but it also belongs to others — all others. Peace, a decent level of sustenance, the goods of Creation, the right to life — these belong to me but also to others. I may not be aware of “coveting” these things to the detriment of others, but how do my choices and actions in any way limit that right for others?
It could be as simple as this:
When we find ourselves entangled in greed or covetousness, it’s not necessarily that we are bad people. We might be more like the disciples described in today’s Gospel – fearful people, so insecure that we amass material protections around us.
A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat,
Mark 4: 37-40
so that it was already filling up.
Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion.
They woke him and said to him,
“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
He woke up,
rebuked the wind,
and said to the sea, “Quiet! Be still!”
The wind ceased and there was great calm.
Then he asked them, “Why are you terrified?
Do you not yet have faith?”
Jesus calls us to live a life grounded in faith not material protections. Only faith is invulnerable to life’s storms. Within its eternal securities, we become more deeply aware of our sacred relationship to all creatures and to Creation Itself.
If David had exercised such faith, the taking of Bathsheba and murder of Uriah would have been incomprehensible to him. As we deepen in our faith, what awarenesses will awaken in us?
Quote: Wisdom from Ramana Maharshi (1879 – 1950) who is considered an Indian Hindu sage and “jivanmukta” (liberated being). He is regarded by many as an outstanding enlightened being and, as a charismatic person, attracted many devotees. I particularly value this quote which leads me to consider my oneness with all beings:
Questioner: How are we to treat others?
Ramana Maharshi: There are no others.
Music: Imagine – John Lennon
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122223.cfm
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray a heartfelt antiphon beseeching God to transform our world.
Our readings strengthen our prayer because they vibrate with luminous faith deepened by a palpable humanness like our own. We pray with these spiritually powerful women:
Mary and Hannah
courageous mothers
shining believers
agents of worship
prophets in common disguise.
Our first reading once again foreshadows Christ’s life. Hannah, a mother like Mary, gives her only son fully to God’s work. Notice that Hannah, not her husband, brings Samuel to the Temple and initiates the ritual of his dedication. It is Hannah who, claiming her womanhood, utters the simple canon that dedicates Samuel’s life.
Hannah brought Samuel with her,
1 Samuel 1:24-28
along with a three-year-old bull,
an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine,
and presented him at the temple of the LORD in Shiloh……
I am the woman who stood near you here, praying to the LORD.
I prayed for this child, and the LORD granted my request.
Now I, in turn, give him to the LORD;
as long as he lives, he shall be dedicated to the LORD.”
She left Samuel there.
Hannah Leaves Samson at the Temple
But how poignantly the reading ends! Do not miss the human emptiness that filled her heart as she returned to her childless home.
1 Samuel 1:28
In our Gospel, Mary offers us her Liturgy of the Word as she proclaims the liberated dimensions of a redeemed world.
My soul proclaims your greatness, O God!
My heart rejoices in you, my Savior,
because you have showered your servant with blessing!
From now to the end of time,
all generations will know the great things you have done for me.
Mighty One! Your name is holy!
In every age, your compassion flows to those who reverence you!
But all who seek to exalt themselves in arrogance
will be leveled by your power.
You have deposed the mighty from their seats of power,
and have raised the lowly to high places.
Those who suffer hunger, you have filled with good things.
Those who are privileged, you have turned away empty-handed.
You have come to the aid of your people,
in fulfillment of the promise you made to our ancestors
when you spoke blessing to Sarah and Hagar
and all their descendants, to the utmost generation!
from the Cortona Altarpiece by Fra Angelico
After her courageous declaration, Mary spends three months with Elizabeth in a mutually-directed matriarchal retreat. She then goes back, alone but not alone, to the life she has yet to shape for the coming God. Once again, the striking solitude of this young mother as she travels home:
Luke 1:56
What can we learn from these women today as we make a place for God in our hearts and in our world? Like Hannah, to what liturgies of giving am I called? Like Mary, does my life proclaim my faith in God’s transformative intention for Creation?
Poetry: The Eternal Feminine by Pierre de Chardin
When the world was born, I came into being.
Before the centuries were made, I issued from the hand of God. . .
God instilled me into the initial multiple
as a force of condensation and concentration.
In me is seen that side of beings by which they are joined as one,
in me the fragrance that makes them hasten together and leads them,
freely and passionately, along their road to unity.
Through me, all things have their movement and are made to work as one.
I am the beauty running through the world,
to make it associate in ordered groups;
the ideal held up before the world to make it ascend.
I am the Eternal Feminine.
I was the bond that held together the foundations of the universe. . .
I extend my being into the soul of the world. . .
I am the magnetic force of the universal presence
and the ceaseless ripple of its smile.
I open the door to the whole heart of creation:
I, the Gateway of the Earth, the Initiation. . .
In me, the soul is at work to sublimate the body —
Grace to divinize the soul.
Those who wish to continue to possess me
must change as I change. . .
It is God who awaits you in me!. . .
If, God, then, was able to emerge from himself,
he had first to lay a pathway of desire before his feet,
he had to spread before him a sweet savor of beauty.
It was then that he caused me to rise up,
a luminous mist hanging over the abyss—
between the earth and himself—
that, in me, he might dwell among you. . .
Lying between God and the earth,
as a zone of mutual attraction,
I draw them both together in a passionate union.
. . . I am the Eternal Feminine.
Music – Magnificat – Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (8 March 1714 – 14 December 1788), commonly abbreviated C. P. E. Bach, was a German Classical period composer and musician, the fifth child and second surviving son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach.
Throughout his lifetime, Bach worked on the Magnificat in D, Wq. 215. J. S. Bach was alive to hear it in 1749, and C. P. E. continued to revise and perform it as late as 1786. The work clearly shows the influence of J.S. Bach’s own Magnificat, including the striking resemblance of the Deposuit movements in both works.
This is the track list for the album Magnificat, taking the various phrases of the Latin prayer and expressing them in melody. If you don’t have time to listen to the whole thing, you might like to take a portion or two at a time.
Tracklist:
00:00:00 Symphony in G Major, Wq 173: I. Allegro assai
00:02:59 Symphony in G Major, Wq 173: II. Andante
00:05:34 Symphony in G Major, Wq 173: III. Allegretto
00:08:38 Symphony in G Major, Wq 180: I. Allegro di molto
00:12:50 Symphony in G Major, Wq 180: II. Largo
00:17:12 Symphony in G Major, Wq 180: III. Allegro assai
00:20:26 Magnificat in D Major, Wq 215: I. Magnificat (Chorus)
00:23:18 Magnificat in D Major, Wq 215: II. Aria. Quia respexit (Soprano)
00:29:35 Magnificat in D Major, Wq 215: III. Aria. Quia fecit (Tenor)
00:33:40 Magnificat in D Major, Wq 215: IV. Et misericordia eius (Chorus)
00:41:28 Magnificat in D Major, Wq 215: V. Aria. Fecit potentiam (Bass)
00:45:14 Magnificat in D Major, Wq 215: VI. Duet. Deposuit potentes (Contralto, Tenor)
00:51:00 Magnificat in D Major, Wq 215: VII. Aria. Suscepit Israel (Contralto)
00:56:31 Magnificat in D Major, Wq 215: VIII. Gloria (Chorus)
00:58:17 Magnificat in D Major, Wq 215: IX. Sicut erat (Chorus)
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121523.cfm
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Isaiah paints a poetic picture of the soul fully taught by God. He describes that sacred obedience, or heart’s listening to God, which leads to fullness of joy, peace, and eternal life.
I, the LORD, your God,
Isaiah 48:17-19
teach you what is for your good,
and lead you on the way you should go.
If you would hearken to my commandments,
your prosperity would be like a river,
and your vindication like the waves of the sea;
Your descendants would be like the sand,
and those born of your stock like its grains,
Their name never cut off
or blotted out from my presence.
When looking for music to complement Isaiah’s passage, I found a hymn written in 1876 by Frances R. Havergal, an English Anglican poet and hymn writer.
Her hymn Like a River Glorious, although written in older style language, spoke to me. It contains several beautiful metaphors, many reflective of today’s passage from Isaiah.
You might want to pray with one or two of these images today as you think about your own relationship with God and the Advent hopes flowing in your heart:
Throughout the ages, believers have used images to open their hearts to the graces of prayer. Think about the magnificent stained glass windows in the world’s churches — and of the centuries of our ancestors who have prayed beside them.
I hope you enjoy praying with this hymn, and the accompanying pictures, as much as I did.
Music: Like a River Glorious – Frances R. Havergal – 1876; performed here by the Parkview Mennonite Church. Follow the images and verses below.
Like a river glorious is God’s perfect peace,
Over all victorious, in its bright increase;
Perfect, yet it floweth fuller every day,
Perfect, yet it groweth deeper all the way.
Refrain:
Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blest
Finding, as He promised, perfect peace and rest.
Hidden in the hollow of His blessed hand,
Never foe can follow, never traitor stand;
Not a surge of worry, not a shade of care,
Not a blast of hurry touch the spirit there.
(Refrain then …)
Every joy or trial falleth from above,
Traced upon our dial by the Sun of Love;
We may trust Him fully, all for us to do;
They who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true.
Lavish Mercy 