Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:6-11
In this profoundly beautiful passage from Philippians, Paul captures the complete essence of the Paschal Mystery. Every phrase is rich in meaning inviting us to explore its depths in awe.
No poetry is offered today. Take the time to really rest in these words and the glorious Truth they reveal
Music: Jesus The Lord – Roc O’Connor – St. Louis Jesuits
Jesus. Jesus. Let all creation bend the knee to the Lord. In him we live, we move and have our being In him the Christ, in him the king! Jesus, the Lord.
Jesus. Jesus. Let all creation bend the knee to the Lord. Though Son, he did not cling to godliness but emptied himself, became a slave! Jesus, the Lord.
Jesus. Jesus. Let all creation bend the knee to the Lord. He lived obediently his Father’s will accepting his death, death on a tree! Jesus, the Lord.
Jesus. Jesus. Let all creation bend the knee to the Lord.
Thus says the LORD: Say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God, he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing. Streams will burst forth in the desert, and rivers in the steppe. The burning sands will become pools, and the thirsty ground, springs of water. Isaiah 35:4-7
Isaiah’s prophecy foretells the time when God will turn the world upside down. It will be time of vindication for all those who have suffered. In God’s realm, even nature will be blessed by the recompense of salvation – by what they earned by their faithfulness.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We look to the Gospel – the Good News of Jesus – to guide us so that we may foster this recompense for all people and in our own time. Those tied only to material values do not understand the infinite hope of a world turned upside-down by Jesus.
Poetry: Ain’t I A Woman – Sojourner Truth
A formerly enslaved person, Sojourner Truth became an outspoken advocate for abolition, temperance, and civil and women’s rights in the nineteenth century. In this poem she gives us an insight into her view of the world turned “upside-down”.
That man over there say a woman needs to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helped me into carriages or over mud puddles or gives me a best place… And ain’t I a woman? Look at me Look at my arm! I have plowed and planted and gathered into barns and no man could head me…
And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man — when I could get to it — and bear the lash as well and ain’t I a woman?
I have born 13 children and seen most all sold into slavery and when I cried out a mother’s grief none but Jesus heard me…
And ain’t I a woman? that little man in black there say a woman can’t have as much rights as a man cause Christ wasn’t a woman Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with him! If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down, all alone together women ought to be able to turn it rightside up again.
When I came to you, brothers and sisters, proclaiming the mystery of God, I did not come with sublimity of words or of wisdom. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 1 Corinthians 2:1-2
Paul gets it, and he wants to give it to his listeners. Jesus Christ is the First and the Last Word. When Paul was given the gift of faith, he embraced the whole mystery of Christ, Passion, Death, and Resurrection.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: Who is the Christ that I believe in? Only a God of personal prosperity and abundance? Or a God Who continues to take flesh, suffer, and rise in my life and the lives of my sisters and brothers?
Prose: from Henri Nouwen
Suffering invites us to place our hurts in larger hands. In Christ we see God suffering – for us. And calling us to share in God’s suffering love for a hurting world. The small and even overpowering pains of our lives are intimately connected with the greater pains of Christ. Our daily sorrows are anchored in a greater sorrow and therefore a larger hope.
Brothers and sisters: Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the Gospel, and not with the wisdom of human eloquence, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its meaning.
The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 1 Corinthians 1:17-18
Paul writes that the meaning of the Cross depends on who you are. If you believe, it manifests God’s Power. If you do not believe, it signifies foolishness.
The Gospel and the Cross turn the realities of the world upside down. For those who have falsely believed that power exists in egotism, legalism, division, aggression, vengeance, and greed, Paul says, “No!”. These are only signs that you are perishing.
The power of the Cross is manifested in mercy, justice, community, peace, forgiveness and generosity. This is the path to salvation.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We ask for the courage to trust the contradictory wisdom of the Gospel, and to live a life that reveals the “foolish” power of the Cross.
Poetry: Jesus Is Nailed to the Cross – Malcolm Guite
See, as they strip the robe from off his back And spread his arms and nail them to the cross, The dark nails pierce him and the sky turns black, And love is firmly fastened on to loss. But here, a pure change happens. On this tree, loss becomes gain, death opens into birth. Here wounding heals and fastening makes free,
Earth breathes in heaven, heaven roots in earth. And here we see the length, the breadth, the height, Where love and hatred meet and love stays true, Where sin meets grace and darkness turns to light, We see what love can bear and be and do. And here our Saviour calls us to his side, His love is free, his arms are open wide.
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
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.
Jesus said to his Apostles: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s enemies will be those of his household. Matthew 10:34-36
I would not have liked hearing these words from Jesus, would you? The last thing I would have ever wanted was to be set against my precious mother! So WHAT is Jesus talking about?
These words are central to Christ’s mandate to his disciples. He is telling them that they will inevitably meet painful conflict while living out his mission. Sometimes the conflict will even be within their families and among their friends.
This is because God’s Peace is not quiet indifference but the striving for just equanimity for all people. This is the sword of discipleship – we must cut ourselves away from anything that turns us from a just and merciful God.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, We pray for graced insight that we may see where the sword is pointing in our lives, and for courage that we may do the necessary cutting to be worthy disciples and build an honest peace in our world.
Poetry: Swords Into Plowshares – Daniel Berrigan, SJ This poem was written in response to the conviction of the Plowshares Eight, of whom Berrigan was a member, for their civil disobedience against nuclear war.
That I, Paul, might not become too elated, because of the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 13:6-9
Two millennia of believers have speculated about Paul’s “thorn”. Was it a bad hip, sciatica, or maybe eczema? And why didn’t he just come right out and tell us what it was?
Such useless speculation may make us miss the point of this powerful passage. Paul was immensely graced by God to the point that he could easily have become proud. Although he begged for the “thorn” to leave him, he received it as a gift. That gift allowed Paul to give not only his strengths to God’s service, but also his weaknesses.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Do you have a little “thorn” somewhere that bothers and distracts you from full trust in God? Maybe an inability to forgive, an excessive need for control, an uncharitable judgment, a fear of change, an intolerance toward certain personalities, a fascination with personal achievements?
God invites us to transform these “thorns” into blessings by giving them to the Divine Energy Who calls us to love fiercely like Paul did.
Quote:
“The thorn from the bush one has planted, nourished and pruned pricks more deeply and draws more blood.”
Maya Angelou
Music: A Thorn Tree – from Trinity UMC in Montpelier, VT
I came upon this lovely rendition by accident, and I thought it was beautiful in its simplicity.
So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But Thomas said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” John 20:25
There’s that tiny word for which, despite a magnanimously holy life, Thomas remains famous:
Unless …
At that particular moment in his life, Thomas’s faith was conditional. He would not believe Jesus was alive unless he saw and touched him.
I doubt that Thomas was alone in his “conditionality”. The faith of many of those scared disciples was probably a bit shaky. Thomas was just more forthcoming in his doubts and hadn’t, like some of them, already seen the Risen Lord.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We all know what it’s like to have doubts – about big things, like our faith, and about little things like our appearance. It feels like we’re being dropped into a safety net that might have a hole in it. Will it hold, or will it fall through? And what happens to us in either case!
Decades ago, when I taught eighth grade, one of my brightest students asked me this: “Sister, you’ve dedicated your whole life for the faith. What if, in the end, there is no God or heaven?”
I’m not going to tell you my answer. I’m going to suggest that you consider what your own answer would be. Is your faith conditional or unconditional?
Poetry: St. Thomas the Apostle – Bishop Edward Henry Bickersteth (1825-1906)
The Paschal feast was ended. Multitudes, Unweeting what was done, that day had left The gates of Zion for their far-off homes; And there was silence, where but yesterday Had been the hum of thousands. Olivet Slept calmly underneath the waning moon, And darkening shadows fell across the steeps And hollows of Jerusalem. Deep night Had drench'd the eyes of thousands. But, behold, Within the upper room where Jesus broke The bread of life, and pour'd the mystic wine The night before He suffer'd, once again The little band of those who loved Him most Were gather'd. On the morrow morn they thought To leave the holy city, holier now Than ever in their eyes, and go to meet Their Lord upon the Galilean hill.
All bosoms swell'd with gladness, all save one; One heart amid that group of light and love Was desolate and dark: nine weary days Of doubt, which shadow'd all eternity, Had written years of suffering on his brow. The worst he fear'd to him was realized, Life quench'd, for ever quench'd, and death supreme. Jesus was dead. And vainly others told, How they had seen and heard their risen Lord; Himself had seen the lifeless body hang Upon the cross; and, till he saw like them And like them touch'd the prints in hands and side, He would not, for he could not, hope again.
But there has been enough of sorrow now For that true mourner, sorely tried but true: And as they communed of an absent Lord Jesus was there, though doors were shut and barr'd, There in the midst of them; and from His lips, Who is Himself our Peace, the words of peace Fell as of old like dew on every heart, But surely sweetest, calmest, tenderest On one most torn and tost. The waves were still; Day broke; the shadows fled: nor this alone, Love offer'd all which bitterest grief had ask'd, And laying bare the inly bleeding wound Heal'd it, which haply else had bled afresh In after years, till faith adoring claim'd In One, whom sense no longer sought to touch, The Lord of life, the everlasting God.
O Master, though our eyes have never look'd Upon Thy blessèd face and glorious form, Grant us to trust Thee with a perfect trust, And love Thee and rejoice in Thee unseen, And prove the heaven of Thy beatitude On those who, though they see Thee not, believe.
Music: When I Survey The Wondrous Cross – Keith & Kristyn Getty
When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them. He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. Luke 2: 48-51
Mary’s heart is formed in the image of the God who was her child. She, our Mother and Sister, conveys to us in human tenderness, the Divine Compassion that may sometimes seem inaccessible to our imperfect faith.
She was just a young girl when God espoused her for the purpose of our redemption. Still her utter “Fiat” opened her soul to the transformation that only sacrificial love can accomplish.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We reflect on Mary’s immutable alignment to the heart of Jesus, begun in the womb, confirmed on Calvary. We ask her guidance in patterning our hearts to Jesus as we meet him in the Gospel.
Prose: Caryll Houselander – The Reed of God
In this great fiat of the little girl Mary, the strength and foundation of our life of contemplation is grounded, for it means absolute trust in God, trust which will not set us free from suffering but will set us free from anxiety, hesitation, and above all from the fear of suffering. Trust which makes us willing to be what God wants us to be, however great or however little that may prove. Trust which accepts God as illimitable Love.
Lavish Mercy 