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.
When Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, who took them in my arms; I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I fostered them like one who raises an infant to his cheeks; Yet, though I stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I was their healer. Hosea 11:1;3-4
Our readings today invite us to pray with the profoundly beautiful image of the Sacred Heart, the mystery of divinity and humanity united in the person of Jesus. The tenderness of Hosea flows into Paul’s description of the “inscrutable riches of Christ”. These passages culminate in John’s depiction of the unbroken body of Jesus on the Cross.
Together, these readings present us with the mystery of love fulfilled by sacrifice, a reality we may resist in our lives, but one that is nevertheless true. All love entails sacrifice. Jesus loves us completely and sacrificed his Sacred Heart completely for that Love.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray to grow in our understanding of the Cross and of the mystery of Love as revealed to us in the Sacred Heart.
Poetry: To the Sacred Heart of Jesus – Thérèse of Lisieux, translated by Donald Kinney, OCD
At the holy sepulchre, Mary Magdalene, Searching for her Jesus, stooped down in tears. The angels wanted to console her sorrow, But nothing could calm her grief. Bright angels, it was not you Whom this fervent soul came searching for. She wanted to see the Lord of the Angels, To take him in her arms, to carry him far away.
Close by the tomb, the last one to stay, She had come well before dawn. Her God also came, veiling his light. Mary could not vanquish him in love! Showing her at first his Blessed Face, Soon just one word sprang from his Heart, Whispering the sweet name of: Mary, Jesus gave her back her peace, her happinesss.
O my God, one day, like Mary Magdalene, I wanted to see you and come close to you. I looked down over the immense plain Where I sought the Master and King, And I cried, seeing the pure wave, The starry azure, the flower, and the bird. “Bright nature, if I do not see God, You are nothing to me but a vast tomb.”
I need a heart burning with tenderness Who will be my support forever, Who loves everything in me, even my weakness… And who never leaves me day or night.” I could find no creature Who could always love me and never die. I must have a God who takes on my nature And becomes my brother and is able to suffer!
You heard me, only Friend whom I love. To ravish my heart, you became man. You shed your blood, what a supreme mystery!… And you still live for me on the Altar. If I cannot see the brilliance of your Face Or hear your sweet voice, O my God, I can live by your grace, I can rest on your Sacred Heart!
O Heart of Jesus, treasure of tenderness, You Yourself are my happiness, my only hope. You who knew how to charm my tender youth, Stay near me till the last night. Lord, to you alone I’ve given my life, And all my desires are well known to you. It’s in your ever-infinite goodness That I want to lose myself, O Heart of Jesus!
Ah! I know well all our righteousness Is worthless in your sight. To give value to my sacrifices, I want to cast them into your Divine Heart. You did not find your angels without blemish. In the midst of lightning you gave your law!… I hide myself in your Sacred Heart, Jesus. I do not fear, my virtue is You!…
To be able to gaze on your glory, I know we have to pass through fire. So I, for my purgatory, Choose your burning love, O heart of my God! On leaving this life, my exiled soul Would like to make an act of pure love, And then, flying away to Heaven, its Homeland, Enter straightaway into your Heart.
Gird up the loins of your mind, live soberly, and set your hopes completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Like obedient children, do not act in compliance with the desires of your former ignorance but, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in every aspect of your conduct, for it is written, Be holy because I am holy.
1 Peter 1: 13-16
Our reading from Peter uses strong phrases to direct our hearts fully to Christ.
Gird up the loins of your mind
Let your hopes rest completely on grace
Do not act from your former ignorance
Be holy
When my niece was a young teen, she had a placard in her bedroom that read “Put on your big girl pants and deal with it.” I thought it was an amazing charge for a thirteen-year-old kid. But she expected it of herself and proved eminently capable of practicing the advice.
James is giving early Christians the same kind of advice. Our capability to respond lies in the hope we place in the grace of Jesus Christ.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We ask for courage and fidelity in our commitment to Christ and to the Gospel.
Poetry: Don’t Quit – Edgar A. Guest
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill, When the funds are low but the debts are high, And you want to smile but you have to sigh, When care is pressing you down a bit… Rest if you must, but don’t you quit!
Life is strange with its twists and turns, As every one of us sometimes learns, And many failures turn about When we might have won had we stuck it out. Don’t give up though the pace seems slow… You may succeed with another blow.
Often the struggler has given up When he might have captured the victor’s cup; And he learned too late when the night came down, How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out… And you can never tell how close you are It may be near when it seems so far. So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.
After Jesus had revealed himself to his disciples and eaten breakfast with them, he said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” John 21:15
Perhaps we have spoken or heard these questions as we move through our heart’s life:
Do you love me?
How much do you love me?
Will you always love me?
Do you still love me?
But true love is immeasurable. It has shades and intensities, but it doesn’t have limits. True love is all; it’s everything – fidelity, forgiveness, delight, hope, chaos, perseverance, sacrifice, joy and generosity.
Jesus knows Peter possesses all these commitments to Him. But He is asking Peter to test himself before Peter is called to take Christ’s place on earth.
The only “more” that ever touched human love was when Jesus took our flesh to live, die, and rise for all of us. Jesus wants to hear Peter say he has that kind of sacrificial Love.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Jesus knows us too, and how we want to love him well; how we may want to love him “more”. Let’s talk with him about that in our prayer today, asking to not let our chances for loving God slip by without our notice.
Poetry: This Paltry Love – Jessica Powers
I love you, God, with a penny match of love that I strike when the big and bullying dark of need chases my startled sunset over the hills and in the walls of my house small terrors move. It is the sight of this paltry love that fills my deepest pits with seething purgatory, that thus I love you, God—God—who would sow my heights and depths with recklessness of glory, who hold back light-oceans straining to spill on me, on me, stifling here in the dungeon of my ill. This puny spark I scorn, I who had dreamed of fire that would race to land’s end, shouting your worth, of sun that would fall to earth with a mortal wound and rise and run, streaming with light like blood, splattering the sky, soaking the ocean itself, and all the earth.
Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying: “I pray not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. John 17:20-21
Over several Gospel readings, we have been blessed to pray with the prayers of Jesus. Just before today’s passage, Jesus has consecrated those sitting around him who are his friends. In today’s extraordinary moment, Jesus blesses us – and all those down through the ages – who will to believe in Him.
Of course, faith is a gift we cannot acquire through our own effort. The consolation of faith, the feeling of faith, is something that sometimes evaded even the greatest saints. St. John of the Cross writes extensively about the “dark night of the soul” during which he had no emotional awareness of faith. At times, St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Mother Theresa and even Jesus himself suffered a sense of isolation from God:
Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Matthew 27:46
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Even when we find ourselves in a spiritual desert, we still can will to believe by opening our heart and experience to the grace God offers us – by our trust, our perseverance in prayer, and our patience with our own uncertainty.
Spiritual darkness, received as a gift, can reveal an otherwise undiscovered dimension of God’s Love for us.
Poetry: The Uses of Sorrow – Mary Oliver
Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.
Music: One Dark Night – John Michael Talbot
In this beautiful music, Talbot recants lines based on the Song of Songs and the writings of St. John of the Cross – poetic imagery that strives to describe encounter with God.
One dark night Fired with love’s urgent longings Ah, the sheer grace In the darkness I went out unseen My house being all now still
In the darkness Secured by love’s secret ladder Disguised Oh, the sheer grace In the darkness And in my concealment My house being all now still
On that glad night In the secret, for no one saw me Nor did I see any other thing at all With no other light to guide me Than the light burning in my heart
And this light guided me More surely than the light of the noon To where he lay waiting for me Waiting for me Him I knew so well In a place where no one else appeared
Oh guiding night A light more lovely than the dawn A night that has united Ever now The Lover now with his beloved Transforming two now into one
Upon my flowering breast There he lay sleeping Which I kept for him alone And I embraced him And I caressed him In a breeze blowing from the forest
And when this breeze blew in from the forest Blowing back our hair He wounded my soul With his gentle hand Suspending all my senses
I abandoned, forgetting myself Laying my face on my Beloved All things ceasing, I went out from myself To leave cares Forgotten with the lilies of the field
Jesus said to his disciples: “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. Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.” John 15: 18-21
I have written about the word “if” several times in past reflections. There are a lot more “ifs” in today’s Gospel – and each of them has a very important “then”.
Thinking about the “if – then” syllogism, I remember one of my favorite professors. Florence Fay taught us Logic when we were young enough not to have practiced it much. She was a wonderful teacher, and building on this basic conditional argument, she led us through the labyrinths of logic.
Jesus seems to be doing the same thing for his disciples. He invites them to recognize that the “thens” of their lives are directly dependent on the “ifs”. He asks them to receive that interdependence without fear because in doing so, they imitate him.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We ask for the courage to live a life balanced on faith so that the “if-then”s of our lives lead us to holiness, not away from it.
Poetry: I See His Blood – Joseph Plunkett
I see his blood upon the rose And in the stars the glory of his eyes, His body gleams amid eternal snows, His tears fall from the skies.
I see his face in every flower; The thunder and the singing of the birds Are but his voice—and carven by his power Rocks are his written words.
All pathways by his feet are worn, His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea, His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn, His cross is every tree.
While they were still speaking about this, he stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” But they were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost. Then he said to them, “Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed, he asked them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of baked fish; he took it and ate it in front of them.
Luke 24: 36-42
Jesus allows his friends, whose faith is quavering with their current tumult, to touch him in a very human way. He offers his wounded body to their tentative hands. No longer needing human sustenance, he still asks to share their food to assure them he is real.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
The Risen Jesus is revealed to us when we reach to touch his wounds in the world.
As I pray this morning, I remember a morning over forty years ago when I stood outside a patient’s room ready to make my very first pastoral visit as a rookie chaplain. I was scared to death, feeling so inadequate and so unsure of what I would say and do once in the patient’s presence.
When I went in to meet Tony, the first thing he did was to extend his hand. That touch made him real. Awaiting some profound request from him, I stood quietly. Then Tony reached into his bedside drawer, pulled out a roll of candy, and said, “Would you like a Life-Saver?”.
Little did he realize that his very human actions were truly “life-savers” for me. They shifted my attention from myself and my inadequacies to Tony’s very honest openness for me to connect with him. Once that happened, the two of us could find our way to the presence of God.
Jesus extends that kind of humanness to his disciples in today’s reading. He makes it clear to them , without words, that this is where they will find him now — in the common and vulnerable humanity around them. Jesus is telling us the same thing.
Poem: Jesus of the Scars – Edward Shillito (1872 – 1948)
If we have never sought, we seek Thee now; Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars; We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow, We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars.
The heavens frighten us; they are too calm; In all the universe we have no place. Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm? Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars, we claim Thy grace.
If, when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near, Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine; We know today what wounds are, have no fear, Show us Thy Scars, we know the countersign.
The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak; They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne; But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak, And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.
“On Holy Saturday, the Church waits at the Lord’s tomb in prayer and fasting, meditating on his Passion and Death and on his Descent into Hell, and awaiting his Resurrection.
The Church abstains from the Sacrifice of the Mass with the sacred table left bare, until after the solemn Vigil, that is, the anticipation by night of the Resurrection, when the time comes for paschal joys, the abundance of which overflows to occupy 50 days.
Holy Communion may only be given on this day as Viaticum.”
From New Roman Missal, Third Edition
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: Jesus, I keep grateful vigil beside your tomb. I await the graces that will arise from this faithful abiding. As the hours pass, let me slowly empty my heart into your Divine Silence. When the morning comes, let me rise with You, transformed in Your Light.
Who would believe what we have heard? To whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? He grew up like a sapling before him, like a shoot from the parched earth; there was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him. He was spurned and avoided by people, a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, one of those from whom people hide their faces, spurned, and we held him in no esteem.
Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured, while we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted.
Isaiah 53:1-4
Good Friday: when we stand awestruck before an Infinite Power Who chooses to suffer for the sake of Love.
We can neither comprehend such Love nor explain it. Before it, the words “why”, “how”, and “if” dissipate in futility. Such Love simply is, has always been, and will always be – Creator, Redeemer, and Holy Spirit.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: Let us kneel in humble gratitude before this Infinite Love. By our own sufferings, may we learn a holy obedience – an ability to hear the heart of God crying in our world. May we tender God’s heart, broken over the willful selfishness of humankind. May we give ourselves to its healing.
Adoramus Te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi, quia per sanctam crucem tuam redemisti mundum. Qui passus es pro nobis, Domine, Domine, miserere nobis
We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee, who by Thy Holy Cross hast redeemed the world. Thou, who hast suffered death for us, O Lord, O Lord, have mercy on us.
The Lord GOD is my help, therefore I am not disgraced; I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame. He is near who upholds my right; if anyone wishes to oppose me, let us appear together. Who disputes my right? Let him confront me. See, the Lord GOD is my help; who will prove me wrong?
Isaiah 50: 7-8
Have you had moments in your life when you’ve said to yourself, “This is it. Like it or not, face the music.”?
Some of these times are unhappy, even scary. Some of them are just overwhelming. But they are times when we realize we have no choice but to go forward – that the time has come for whatever the life-changing reality is before us.
Jesus is at such a moment. All the energies of his life have now converged to this confrontational moment where he fully discovers his Oneness with the Father and Holy Spirit.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We examine our own lives, and the shared life we live in the global community. How might the pattern of Jesus’s life, particularly in these critical moments, teach us the way to holiness and wholeness?
Poetry: from Philippians 2
I have always found this passage from Philippians to speak so much more than the printed words which carry it.
Let each of you look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something thing to be grasped at, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every other name, so that at Jesus' Name, every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue proclaim to the glory of God the Father, that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Lavish Mercy 