Tend the flock of God in your midst, overseeing not by constraint but willingly, as God would have it, not for shameful profit but eagerly. Do not lord it over those assigned to you, but be examples to the flock.
1 Peter 5:2-3
The image of Jesus the Good Shepherd has blessed believers throughout the ages. As our weakness is lifted in the tender Divine Embrace, we find peace, hope, release of sorrow, and strength to go on.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Our reading from Peter calls us to be like the Good Shepherd. Christ called Peter to this ministry, and he calls us as well. As we accompany and support one another on faith’s journey, let us do so with tender mercy in imitation of Christ.
Poetry: The Good Shepherd – William Denser Littlewood (1831-1886)
Into a desolate land White with the drifted snow, Into a weary land Our truant footsteps go: Yet doth Thy care, O Father, Ever Thy wanderers keep; Still doth Thy love, O Shepherd, Follow Thy sheep.
Over the pathless wild Do I not see Him come? Him who shall bear me back, Him who shall lead me home? Listen! between the storm-gusts Unto the straining ear, Comes not the cheering whisper,— "Jesus is near."
Over me He is bending! Now I can safely rest, Found at the last, and clinging Close to the Shepherd's breast: So let me lie till the fold-bells Sound on the homeward track, And the rejoicing angels Welcome us back!
The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.
Mark 1:12-13
Isn’t it shocking that even our Godly Jesus experienced temptation?
There is a devotional tradition that considers temptation an act of God to test us. You have probably heard the tired old adage, “God will never test us beyond our endurance.”
I think that this is a limited and skewed image of God! God is not our Tester, our Tormentor, or our Tease. God is our Creator and Lover.
It is LIFE that tests us, and God abides with us in every aspect of that testing, just as the Father did with Jesus in the desert.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Let us go with Jesus to the desert in our prayer today, asking his enlightenment over any dark corners of our faith, hope, and love. Life can tempt us to choose less than God desires for us. Let us ask for the strength to always choose God Who is Love.
Poetry: THE TESTING (A TRIPTYCH) – Irene Zimmerman, OSF This is part 2 of a three-part poem by Irene Zimmerman. I highly recommend her beautiful spiritual poetry which illuminates the sacred scriptures.
Higher and yet higher he was led till all the kingdoms of the world lay spread before his eyes, more splendid still than he had ever dreamed. “Worship me and these are yours,” the Tempter said. Mountains boomed and echoed a thundering “No!” The Son of Man would choose instead to go where he was sent, to have no place to lay his head, to be content to spread himself cross-beamed above a common hill.
Music: Jesus Tempted in the Desert – text by Herman G. Stuempfle (1923 – 2007); tune by Thomas J. Williams (1890)
This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; Setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; Sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; Clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own. Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed; Your vindication shall go before you, and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer, you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!
Isaiah 58:6-9
In today’s passage from Isaiah, we are given clear instructions about fasting – some forms of this practice matter more than others.
Depriving oneself of physical comforts is an ancient practice of penance. It is intended to make us more prayerfully aware of the dynamic of sin and grace in our lives. But obviously, it is a self-centered spiritual practice.
Our reading tells us that God desires an other-centered fasting – the practice of mercy toward our sisters and brothers. And Isaiah is clear about who those needy brethren are.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy
In order to practice this mercy-centered fasting, there must be touch-points in our lives where we meet those in need. Today, we might examine our lives for our degree of insulation or isolation from society’s needy ones. We may isolate them by our attitudes, by our prejudices, by our physical distance, or perhaps just by our indifference.
Let’s ask ourselves today, “How might I reach out in prayer, service, and tenderness toward those who are in need of mercy?”
Poetry: Fasting – translated from Rumi
There's hidden sweetness in the stomach's emptiness. We are lutes, no more, no less. If the soundbox is stuffed full of anything, no music. If the brain and belly are burning clean with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire. The fog clears, and new energy makes you run up the steps in front of you.
Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry. Emptier, write secrets with the reed pen. When you're full of food and drink, Satan sits where your spirit should, an ugly metal statue in place of the Spirit. When you fast, good habits gather like friends who want to help.
Fasting is Solomon's ring. Don't give it to some illusion and lose your power, but even if you have, if you've lost all will and control, they come back when you fast, like soldiers appearing out of the ground, pennants flying above them. A table descends to your tents, Jesus' table.
Expect to see it, when you fast, this table spread with other food, better than the broth of cabbages.
Music: Forty Days and Forty Nights
Forty days and forty nights You were fasting in the wild; Forty days and forty nights Tempted, and yet undefiled.
Shall not we your sorrow share And from worldly joys abstain, Fasting with unceasing prayer, Strong with you to suffer pain?
Then if Satan on us press, Flesh or spirit to assail, Victor in the wilderness, Grant we may not faint nor fail!
So shall we have peace divine; Holier gladness ours shall be; Round us, too, shall angels shine, Such as served You faithfully.
Keep, O keep us, Savior dear, Ever constant by your side, That with you we may appear At th’eternal Eastertide
Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him. For that will mean life for you, a long life for you to live on the land that the LORD swore he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Deuteronomy 30:19-20
The capacity to choose is a Divine gift that enables us to will our relationship with God. God desires the gift of our free choice to love Him.
What an act of divine courage for God to place hope in us! God does not demand our love. God waits for us to choose.
And God does not punish us if we choose otherwise. The choice is its own punishment because it is a rejection of the gift of divine life.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
As we give thanks for the gift to choose, and for God’s desire for our love, we do so in the light of today’s Gospel. It clarifies the character of a sincere choice for Jesus Christ:
Then Jesus said to all, “If anyone wishes to come after me, they must deny themselves and take up the cross daily and follow me. For those who wish to save their lives will lose them, but those who lose their lives for my sake will save them. What profit is there for us to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit ourselves?”
Luke 9:23-25
Poetry: from Kahil Gibran
Do Not Love Half Lovers. Do Not Entertain Half Friends. Do Not Indulge in Works of the Half Talented. Do Not Live Half a Life, And Do Not Die a Half Death.
If You Choose Silence, Then Be Silent. When You Speak, Do So Until You Are Finished. Do Not Silence Yourself to Say Something, And Do Not Speak To Be Silent.
If You Accept, Then Express It Bluntly, Do Not Mask It. If You Refuse, Then Be Clear About It, For an Ambiguous Refusal Is But a Weak Acceptance.
Do Not Accept Half a Solution. Do Not Believe Half-Truths. Do Not Dream Half a Dream. Do Not Fantasize About Half Hopes.
Half a Drink Will Not Quench Your Thirst Half a Meal Will Not Satiate Your Hunger Half the Way Will Get You Nowhere Half An Idea Will Bear You No Results.
Your Other Half Is Not The One You Love, It is You in Another Time Yet In the Same Space It is You when You Are Not.
Half A Life Is a Life You Didn’t live, A Word You Have Not Said, A smile You Postponed, A Love You Have Not Had, A Friendship You Did Not Know.
To Reach And Not Arrive, Work And Not Work, Attend Only To Be Absent. What Makes You A Stranger To Them Closest To You And They Strangers To You.
The Half Is a Mere Moment Of Inability, But You Are Able, For You Are Not Half a Being You Are A Whole That Exists To Live a Life Not Half a Life.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Lent is just a few days away. We will spend the intervening time in good company with insights from James, Peter and Mark. Today we begin the Epistle of James.
The Epistle of James- Chapter 1: Illustration provided to Wikimedia Commons by Distant Shores Media/Sweet Publishing as part of a cooperation project. Sweet Publishing released these images, which are taken from now-out-of-print Read’n Grow Picture Bible Illustrations (Biblical illustrations by Jim Padgett, courtesy of Sweet Publishing, Ft. Worth, TX, and Gospel Light, Ventura, CA. Copyright 1984.), under new license, CC-BY-SA 3.0
This letter is one of the very earliest of the New Testament. Scholars are mixed about exactly which “James” wrote it, but agree that it was one of several who were very close to Jesus – perhaps one of “the brothers of Jesus” mentioned in several New Testament passages:
Matthew 12:46-50
Mark 3:31
Luke 8:19
John 2:12
Acts 1:14
1 Corinthians 9:5
and specifically “the Lord’s brother James” in Galatians 1:19
James writes in the style of Wisdom Literature, those Old Testament books that give advice, proverbs, and insights for living a holy life. His immediate audience was a community of dispersed Christian Jews whose world was filled with increasing upheaval and persecution.
When I read the following description I thought how germane James’s letter could be for our world today. His themes echo the teachings of Pope Francis for our chaotic time:
The epistle is renowned for exhortions on fighting poverty and caring for the poor in practical ways (1:26–27; 2:1-4; 2:14-19; 5:1-6), standing up for the oppressed (2:1-4; 5:1-6) and not being “like the world” in the way one responds to evil in the world (1:26-27; 2:11; 3:13-18; 4:1-10). Worldly wisdom is rejected and people are exhorted to embrace heavenly wisdom, which includes peacemaking and pursuing righteousness and justice (3:13-18).
JIM REIHER, “VIOLENT LANGUAGE – A CLUE TO THE HISTORICAL OCCASION OF JAMES.”EVANGELICAL QUARTERLY. VOL. LXXXV NO. 3. JULY 2013
Here is the golden advice James gives us today:
Be joyful in trials.
Let trials increase your perseverance not discourage you.
Doing this is a sign of wisdom.
When your wisdom is depleted, ask God for more with an open and trusting heart.
Honor all people, high or low in circumstances
Don’t be fooled by riches. They fade away.
In our Gospel, Jesus is frustrated with the Pharisees who insincerely demand a magical sign from him. They demonstrate none of the spiritual wisdom and openness to grace that James describes.
When we think about our own faith, where does it fall on the scale of sincerity, on the spectrum joy, justice, and faithful perseverance?
Poetry: On Joy and Sorrow – Kahlil Gibran
Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises
was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,
the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine
the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit,
the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart
and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow
that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart,
and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for
that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,”
and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come,
and when one sits alone with you at your board,
remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales
between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty
are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you
to weigh his gold and his silver,
needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings leave me wondering about what makes God tick.
We really know nothing about God for sure, except what we have learned and believed in Jesus. The writers of the Hebrew scriptures stretched their imaginations to understand and portray God to the people. Sometimes their metaphors work for us, sometimes not. Today’s, I think, is tricky.
In this first reading, God exacts justice for Solomon’s unfaithfulness, but He does it sort of like a prosecutor in a plea bargain.
I will deprive you of the kingdom … but not during your lifetime It is your son whom I will deprive … but I won’t take away the whole kingdom.
What’s going on with God in this reading? Well, it’s more like “What’s going on with the writer who tries, retrospectively, to interpret God’s role in Israel’s history?”
The passage is much more than a report on exchanges between God and Solomon.
It is a testament to Israel’s unwavering faith that God is intimately involved in their lives. In every circumstance, the believing community returns to the fact that experience leads to God and not away from Him.
So “Solomon … had TURNED his heart to strange gods” BUT God had not turned from Solomon. Nor would God EVER turn because God has CHOSEN Israel.
In our Gospel, the Syrophoenician woman tries to get the favor of Jesus to turn toward her. And actually, Jesus sounds pretty mean and stingy about it.
The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She replied and said to him, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.” Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.”
Mark 7:26-30
The writer Mark is portraying, retrospectively, a significant time in Christ’s ministry. Jesus has really gone into hiding in a remote place. Apparently, he wants space to figure some things out. The story indicates that one of those things might be whether or not his ministry should embrace the Gentiles.
The persistence of this woman’s faith is a turning point for Jesus Who evolved, as we all do, in his understanding of his sacred role and meaning in the world.
These passages encourage us to constantly turn toward God Who lives our life with us. Such “turning” helps us to grow spiritually. As we become bigger in heart and soul, so does our concept of God and what God’s hope is for us.
Poetry: All this “turning” brought to mind some favorites lines from T.S. Eliot:
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings might lead us to consider what we pay attention to in our spiritual lives and why.
In our first reading, Solomon prays simply and sincerely before the presence of God. It is the prayer of one who is spiritually vulnerable to God’s grace in whatever way it comes.
Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of the whole community of Israel, and stretching forth his hands toward heaven, he said, “LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below; you keep your covenant of mercy with your servants who are faithful to you with their whole heart.
1 Kings 8:22-23
Solomon’s focus in prayer is to honor and acknowledge God and to ask mercy for himself and the people for whom he is responsible.
Today’s Responsorial Psalm 84
The Pharisees, on the other hand, fear the presence of God in Jesus because he threatens the collapse of their false religionism. To protect their man-made securities, they have constructed an elaborate maze of rules and judgments which hardens them to renewing grace.
Rather than listen to Jesus who offers them redemption, they focus on the lifeless particularities of the Law:
When the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands.
Mark 7:1-2
The Pharisees’ recalcitrance disappoints and angers Jesus:
He responded, “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written:
This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts.
You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.” He went on to say, “How well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition!
Mark 7:6-8
We live our lives always in the Presence of God. Do we even realize this? Do we pray, like Solomon, with an open heart for the grace to grow ever closer to God in every circumstance that is offered to us?
Do we ask for the grace to see where judgments, measurements, and definitions limit our spiritual growth?
As I read today’s Gospel, I think of Pope Francis’s recent decision to allow the blessing of same-sex couples. Francis looked beyond traditional constraints to offer healing mercy to those seeking God’s love. Some people, caught in strictures similar to those of the Pharisees, have not only resisted but condemned the Pope for his decision.
The situation is not dissimilar from that of today’s Gospel. What can we learn about our own attitudes and spiritual openness as we pray with these readings? What can Solomon teach us about sincere, humble, and transparent prayer?
Poetry: Peace Is This Moment Without Judgment – Dorothy Hunt
Do you think peace requires an end to war? Or tigers eating only vegetables? Does peace require an absence from your boss, your spouse, yourself?… Do you think peace will come some other place than here? Some other time than Now? In some other heart than yours? Peace is this moment without judgment. That is all. This moment in the Heart-space where everything that is is welcome. Peace is this moment without thinking that it should be some other way, that you should feel some other thing, that your life should unfold according to your plans. Peace is this moment without judgment, this moment in the Heart-space where everything that is is welcome.
Music: Heart of Gold – Nicholas Gunn
I think this song can be like a prayer asking God’s warmth and mercy in our judgments and prayers.
Memorial of Saint Agatha, Virgin and Martyr Monday of the Fifth week in Ordinary Time February 5, 2024
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, both our readings lead us to pray with the mystery of God’s Presence.
In the passage from Kings, Solomon has completed his most memorable task – the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. Today’s verses describe the transfer of the Ark of the Covenant from its holding place to its permanent home in the Temple.
Upon the completion of that festive transfer, the Divine Presence is manifested by a cloud which fills the Holy of Holies.
When the priests left the holy place, the cloud filled the temple of the LORD so that the priests could no longer minister because of the cloud, since the LORD’s glory had filled the temple of the LORD. Then Solomon said, “The LORD intends to dwell in the dark cloud; I have truly built you a princely house, a dwelling where you may abide forever.”
1 Kings 8:10-11
In Mark’s Gospel today, the townspeople of Gennesaret become aware that Jesus is present in their vicinity. They have heard about his miracles. As Mark puts it, they scurry to gather all their needy friends and relatives into Christ’s healing Presence.
After making the crossing to the other side of the sea, Jesus and his disciples came to land at Gennesaret and tied up there. As they were leaving the boat, people immediately recognized him. They scurried about the surrounding country and began to bring in the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. Whatever villages or towns or countryside he entered, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak; and as many as touched it were healed.
Mark 6:53-56
As we pray these passages, we might long for the tactile presence of God in the cloudiness of our own lives. Sometimes God seems far away, hidden somewhere beyond the stars – disconnected from the flesh-and-bone challenges of our existence.
But as we pray today we might remind ourselves that we are a Temple. God dwells in us as truly as God dwelt in the Holy of Holies. Any felt distance is not on God’s part, it is on ours and our restrained and anxious faith.
May these readings inspire us to be as sincere in our prayer as were the Gennesarenes – to scurry to the hem of Christ’s garment, to grasp its tassel in the fullness of faith, hope, and love.
Thought:
‘The mystery of God hugs you in its all-encompassing arms.”-
Hildegard von Bingin
Music: Invocation: Hildegard von Bingen ~ Written by Emma Bergen, sung by Anonymous 4
Traditionally the Hebrew term Shekinah שכינה means ‘dwelling’, as a way of describing the Presence of the Divine. As the term is feminine, it also has come to be used to describe the feminine aspect of the divinity: the Divine Feminine.
Emma Bergen writes: “I came to learn about the Shekinah while I was writing about the Gnostic Sophia, and was inspired to write my ‘Invocation’ as a way, both of expressing what such a contact means to me personally, and to reach out in the spirit (and within myself) to what has been described as ‘the feminine face of God’. Oppression has many faces, some serious, and others so subtle that they might remain unnoticed by others. I invite you to join me in this invocation, written for all women everywhere, in whatever circumstances they might find themselves.”
(To see the words more clearly in the video, click on the little white square in the lower right-hand corner of the YouTube screen.)
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings offer us insights into the ministry of leadership. They are insights worth pondering for at least these two reasons:
We are all called to be leaders in some way in our lives, be it as parent, teacher, supervisor, team captain, committee lead, board chair … you name it.
We need to be able to recognize good leaders in order to follow wisely, otherwise we are following self-interested fools determined to re-create us in their likeness.
In both our readings, leadership is characterized by this key element: selflessness.
Solomon, when given the chance to ask for anything he wants, asks for a gift that will benefit the community.
Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.
1 Kings 4:9
Jesus and the disciples, exhausted from the press of the crowd, still respond in mercy to their relentless needs
Jesus said to the disciples, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” People were coming and going in great numbers, and they had no opportunity even to eat. So they went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place. People saw them leaving and many came to know about it. They hastened there on foot from all the towns and arrived at the place before them.
When Jesus disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.
Mark 6: 30-34
As we daily focus our lives on becoming more like Christ, the practice of selflessness can be tricky – how to live selflessly without losing one’s self; how to foster common and individual good without depleting one’s own spiritual strength. To my mind, these things are important:
Honesty: I think the grounding virtue of a good leader is honesty – with others and with self. Once a leader starts to pretend, deceive, equivocate, feign ignorance, or outright lie, (even to themselves), they are no longer fit to lead.
Spiritual Discipline: When we look at Jesus’s life, we see that he practiced a cycle of ministry and prayer. Several times in the Gospel, Jesus withdraws to commune with the Father. Although Christ was in union with the Father at all times, he exercised his ministry around a personal discipline of solitude and prayer.
Discernment: Solomon understands the importance of this gift. What Solomon actually prays for is the sensitivity to practice the “cardinal virtues” that we learned long ago in catechism class. Remember? Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance.
Prose: Remember the Baltimore Catechism? Well, maybe some of you are too young to remember, Here’s how wikipedia defines it:
A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, Prepared and Enjoined by Order of the Third Council of Baltimore, or simply the Baltimore Catechism, was the national Catholic catechism for children in the United States, based on St. Robert Bellarmine’s 1614 Small Catechism. The first such catechism written for Catholics in North America, it was the standard Catholic school text in the country from 1885 to the late 1960s. From its publication, however, there were calls to revise it, and many other catechisms were used during this period. It was officially replaced by the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults in 2004, based on the revised universal Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Throughout my adult life, I have retained an appreciation for what I learned from the now-defunct edition of the Baltimore Catechism. While it conveyed the impression that a recipe for holiness could be compacted into a small manual, its inimitable Thomistic logic left valuable lessons with me to which I often return. Here are a few that informed my prayer today as I reflected on “selflessness”:
Besides the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity there are other virtues, called moral virtues.
These virtues are called moral virtues because they dispose us to lead moral, or good lives, by aiding us to treat persons and things in the right way, that is, according to the will of God.
The chief moral virtues are: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance; these are called cardinal virtues.
These virtues are called cardinal virtues because they are like hinges on which hang all the other moral virtues and our whole moral life. The word “cardinal” is derived from the Latin word “cardo” meaning hinge.
Prudence disposes us in all circumstances to form right judgments about what we must do or not do.
Justice disposes us to give everyone what belongs to them.
Fortitude disposes us to do what is good despite any difficulty.
Temperance disposes us to control our desires and to use rightly the things which please ourselves.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, as February’s deep season unrolls, we are just about two weeks away from the beginning of Lent. Our first readings during this time will give a little taste of 1 Kings and then briefly shift to James’s epistle before we pick up the treasured readings of the Lenten Season.
The passage today bears a royal gravity. After preparing his son Solomon for kingship, David solemnly dies.
Keep the mandate of the LORD, your God, following his ways and observing his statutes, commands, ordinances, and decrees as they are written in the law of Moses, that you may succeed in whatever you do, wherever you turn, and the LORD may fulfill the promise he made on my behalf….
… David rested with his ancestors and was buried in the City of David. The length of David’s reign over Israel was forty years: he reigned seven years in Hebron and thirty-three years in Jerusalem.
Solomon was seated on the throne of his father David, with his sovereignty firmly established.
1 Kings 2; 3-4;10-12
David’s advice to Solomon is basically this: there is work to be done for God and God’s People. And now it’s your responsibility. Keep the course!
In our Gospel, Jesus gives the same sort of mandate to this disciples:
Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits. He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick –no food, no sack, no money in their belts.
Mark 6:7-8
The disciples are ready. It is now their turn to spread the Gospel and to continue the ministry that they have learned at Jesus’s side:
So they went off and preached repentance. The Twelve drove out many demons, and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.
Mark 6:12-13
If any of us are wondering what we are supposed to do today for the Reign of God, our answer may be somewhere in these readings as we pray them with an open heart.
Poetry: The Poem of Tecumseh – Tecumseh (1768 –1813) was a Shawnee chief and warrior who promoted resistance to the expansion of the United States onto Native American lands. A persuasive orator, Tecumseh traveled widely, forming a Native American confederacy and promoting intertribal unity. Even though his efforts to unite Native Americans ended with his death in the War of 1812, he became an iconic folk hero in American, Indigenous, and Canadian popular history. (Wikipedia)
Lavish Mercy 