Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, many of our readings this week prepare us for the Ascension event, a leave-taking with deep gifts and emotions attached.
Our readings from Acts assure us that the early Church, despite the physical absence of Jesus, burst into blossom throughout much of Asia Minor. Today’s passage notes this flowering even in Samaria, where the Jewish faith had been truncated ever since the reign of Jereboam a thousand years before Christ. We read today about the Samaritans receiving their Confirmation:
Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, who went down and prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for it had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.
Acts 8: 14-17
In our Gospel, we see Jesus preparing the disciples for their own Confirmation which will come on Pentecost. Jesus is tender yet intentional in his instruction of the disciples. He knows that it will be challenging for them to move the Gospel forward without him right beside them. But he assures them that the Holy Spirit will sustain them through that challenge.
Jesus said to his disciples: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows him. But you know him, because he remains with you, and will be in you.
John 14:15-18
What about us – those charged with moving the Gospel forward today. We, like the disciples, must garner the courage to do this even though Jesus is not physically with us.
And we too have been given the amazing gift of the Holy Spirit! Do we ever think about our Confirmation? Or do we remember it only as a symbolic event that happened in our childhood?
How foolish we are if that’s the case! We have buckets of supernatural gifts to empower and nourish us if only we pay attention and ask. We, like the disciples, have not been left orphans of grace!
(Click on the buckets to enlarge if you wish.)
Poetry: God’s Grandeur – Gerard Manley Hopkins
The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings:
Music: I Will Not Leave You Orphans – Carey Landry
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings can serve to remind us that Christian discipleship is not always a smooth ride. There are “potholes” — as in all of life.
Pothole 1: Rejection in Lycaonia Paul, after being stoned, rejected and otherwise harassed, takes off for Derbe and Lystra to test the readiness of that community to receive the Gospel. There, Paul meets Timothy who would become a beloved friend and companion, traveling and ministering with Paul for the next decade.
Pothole 2: Sorry, Tim! But the relationship starts out with a problem. Timothy’s dad was Greek and, per custom, did not have Timothy circumcised at birth. Even though the Jerusalem apostles had adjudicated circumcision as unnecessary, Paul – who had been its main critic – requires the rite for Timothy. Paul was convinced that the Jews to whom they would be preaching would reject Timothy otherwise.
Pothole 3: Rejection in Asia They traveled through the Phrygian and Galatian territory because they had been prevented by the Holy Spirit from preaching the message in the province of Asia. (Acts 16:6)
Pothole 4: Bypassing Bithynia When they came to Mysia, they tried to go on into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them, so they crossed through Mysia and came down to Troas. (Acts 16:7)
When we see the massive success and widespread influence of the Church today, we might think it was easy to get this whole thing started – to light the fire of faith in the early years. It wasn’t! And it’s still not easy, despite some appearances.
Jesus counseled his disciples that it would be this way, and encouraged them:
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
That encouragement was enough for Paul and Timothy to keep going. May it be so for us, and for all who would lead the Church into the future Jesus desired for us..
Poetry: Portia Nelson, There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk from The Romance of Self-Discovery
I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost… I am helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.
I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I am in the same place. But, it isn’t my fault. It still takes me a long time to get out.
I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in. It’s a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.
walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.
I walk down another street.
Music: just for some pothole fun today – I Love My Juggernaut – an Irish lorry driver bemoans the pothole problem. Lyrics below.
This is an enjoyable Irish song highlighting a long-standing pothole problem in Cavan, a small city near the border with Northern Ireland. The town is located on the junction of two national routes, the N3 to Dublin and N55 to Athlone. Until recently there was no bypass around Cavan town to eliminate the heavy traffic passing through an already congested town –thus, the legendary pothole problem!
Oh believe it or believe it not, I love me Juggernaut !! I’ve been all over Ireland, to the North I’ve seen the lot. I’m hauling great big bales of hay, I’m heading for Mayo. With potholes all through Cavan, sure I’ll have to drive so slow.
In the morning I’m up early on the road at half past five. The air is fresh and crispy boy it’s great to be alive. I fall in behind a crawler put me foot down on the gas. But the roads are to bumpy for me Juggernaut to pass.
Chorus
Oh believe it or believe it not i love me Juggernaut !! I’ve been all over Ireland, to the North I’ve seen the lot. I’m hauling great big bales of hay, I’m heading for Mayo. With potholes all through Cavan, sure i’ll have to drive so slow.
(Johnny) “Breaker, Breaker, I’m looking for a copy” (Richie) “10/4…This is big Rich’ come back” (Johnny) “Ah, this is your auld pal Johnny” (Richie) “A, Johnny what’s your 20”
I’m in the County Offaly and I’m awfully sorry now. I broke the mirrors of me cab and I’d like to tell you how. With sceachs, bows and bushes rubbing of me load. I wish the county council would trim along the road.
Chorus
Oh believe it or believe it not I love me Juggernaut !! I‘ve been all over Ireland, to the North I’ve seen the lot. I’m hauling great big bales of hay, I’m heading for Mayo. With potholes all through Cavan, sure I’ll have to drive so slow.
(Richie) “Come back Johnny, come back”
Some people call us Juggernaut’s, Artic’s or big trucks. Some people even give us horrid dirty looks. I know you’ve got your reasons, sometimes for to frown. But did you ever try to drive a Scania through your town.
Chorus
Oh believe it or believe it not I love me Juggernaut !! I’ve been all over Ireland to the North, I’ve seen the lot. I’m hauling great big bales of hay, I’m heading for Mayo. With potholes all through Cavan, sure I’ll have to drive so slow.
(Richie) “Stay wut her Johnny, stay wut her” (Johnny ) “That’s right, that’s the truth, rev’er on the corners” (Richie) “And face her for Mount Leinster”
I know I swing me volvo all around your market square. I know that you think lorry drivers we just don’t care. But the streets are so narrow, built so many years ago. They were built for horses carts, not juggernauts you know.
Chorus
Oh believe it or believe it not I love me juggernaut!! I’ve been all over Ireland, to the North I’ve seen the lot. I’m hauling great big bales of hay, I’m heading for Mayo. With potholes all through Cavan, sure I’ll have to drive so slow.
(Richie) “Come back Johnny, come back, we’ll leave the last one to you”
I’m in the County Offaly and I’m awfully sorry now. I broke the mirrors off me cab and I’d like to tell you how. With sceachs, bows and bushes the council will not cut. When I get back to the depot, the boss will do his nut. Oh when I get back to the depot, the boss will do his nut.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, there’s a lot of clipping going on and being talked about.
In Acts, we read about the hubbub around circumcision of the Gentile Christians. Basically, early Christianity was an offshoot of Judaism. All the very earliest Christians were Jews. In many ways, they still thought with Jewish minds not new Christian ones.
The question of circumcision is one of their first wake-ups. Jews considered circumcision a sign of their covenant with God. Greeks on the other hand abhorred the practice. The Apostles were faced with the dilemma:
If our new faith is for all people, how will that change some of our practices? Which pratices are essential to Christian life, and which are not?
As today’s reading ends, the Apostles are still sequestered on the issue. But the eventual resolution around circumcision proved to be a key factor in the cultural separation of Christianity from Judaism.
In our Gospel, Jesus talks about another kind of pruning, but the parallels are interesting.
A healthy and vigorous life in Christ is one that is “cultured” by God’s grace. That grace serves to cut away the unholy accretions that sometimes surface in our lives – sin, temptation, spiritual indifference, rampant self-interest, religious ennui……
Jesus said to his disciples: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.
John 15: 1-3
God’s Word touches us through scripture, through spiritual teaching, and through our reverent assimilation of our life experiences. We must listen to our lives to hear God’s Word. There is never a moment when God is not speaking to us in love – and often to a completely new understanding of what it means to be in covenant with God.
The Apostles finally come to the decision that one does not become a disciple by physical circumcision but rather by a grafting of one’s heart to God’s own heart. May we, the Church, learn from that openness for our own times. May we become more aware of those assumptions which cut off whole segments of humanity, relegating them to the ecclesiastical sidelines.
I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing…
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”
John 15: 5;7-8
Poetry: I Am the Vine – Malcolm Guite
How might it feel to be part of the vine? Not just to see the vineyard from afar Or even pluck the clusters, press the wine, But to be grafted in, to feel the stir Of inward sap that rises from our root, Himself deep planted in the ground of Love, To feel a leaf unfold a tender shoot, As tendrils curled unfurl, as branches give A little to the swelling of the grape, In gradual perfection, round and full, To bear within oneself the joy and hope Of God’s good vintage, till it’s ripe and whole. What might it mean to bide and to abide In such rich love as makes the poor heart glad?
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Paul and Barnabas get into a bit of a pickle – actually two pickles.
1- The passage from Acts opens with a planned attempt on their lives:
There was an attempt in Iconium by both the Gentiles and the Jews, together with their leaders, to attack and stone Paul and Barnabas.
Acts 14:5
2- They escape that attempt and flee to Lycaonia where the residents, rather than stoning them, want to idolize them:
When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they cried out in Lycaonian, “The gods have come down to us in human form.” They called Barnabas “Zeus” and Paul “Hermes,” because he was the chief speaker. And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates, for he together with the people intended to offer sacrifice.
Acts 14: 11-13
In both these situations, the listeners cannot accept the good news being preached to them – One Living God who indwells them and all Creation:
We proclaim to you good news that you should turn from these idols to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.
Acts 14:15
In our Gospel, Jude asks Jesus about this. He wants to know why he has received the gift of faith and others haven’t:
Jesus said to his disciples: “”Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”” Judas, not the Iscariot, said to him, “”Master, then what happened that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?””
John 14:21-22
Jesus tells Jude that it’s pretty simple. You have to love God and do God’s work. If you don’t, no deal:
Jesus answered and said to him, “”Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me.
John 14:23-24
In Acts, the two resistant crowds resort to stones as means to reject the invitation to a Gospel life.
The gang from Iconium would use stones to kill the bearers of the Word.
The Lystra crowd wants to “idolize” Paul and Barnabas, a word which means “to convert to an image”, like a stone statue.
When we try to kill or to idolize something or someone, we distance ourselves from it. We make it “other”, unlike us, unattainable to relationship.
Jesus is real, not stone. He wants to live in us, not be enshrined.
The Gospel is real and needs to be expressed in our real lives – in our actions, choices and relationships.
We must look deep into ourselves for even the smallest place where we kill or petrify the Infinite Love that calls us to become Real within It’s Heart.
Prose: ― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit
“Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’
‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.
‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’
‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’
‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
Music:What Is Real – adapted by Glyn Lehman form The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
Velveteen Rabbit What is real? What is real? And how does it feel? Does it happen all at once? Does it happen all at once, or bit by bit? What is real? What is real?
Skin Horse Real is when somebody cares And you feel alive for the very first time It won’t happen at once You will slowly become You will see yourself through their eyes See yourself through their eyes
Velveteen Rabbit What is real? What is real? And how does it feel? Does it hurt a little bit? Does it hurt a little bit to make that change? To be real To be real
Skin Horse Real is when somebody cares And you feel alive for the very first time Sometimes real can hurt But you really won’t mind If that’s what it takes to be real What it takes to be real
It’s like magic when you are loved Though you are worn, your seams are torn There’s a glow inside That is real
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, and as we come closer to the end of the Easter season, our Sunday readings repeat essential themes which invite us to the Beloved Community:
In Acts, the nascent Christian community grows, organizes, reflects and preaches the Good News.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus reiterates his enduring presence and love for all who live in his Word.
In his letter, Peter calls the growing community to recognize themselves as God’s dwelling place whose foundation has been secured in Christ.
This Sunday’s readings invite us, for the sake of the whole Church, to draw power for our Christian lives today:
They ask us to reflect on the experience of the early Church and to learn from the way these Christians grew in their understanding of faith and discipleship.
As the number of disciples continued to grow… the Twelve called together the community of the disciples…. The proposal was acceptable to the whole community… The word of God continued to spread, and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly
Acts 6
They ask us to respond to the timeless call to be God’s Presence in the world.
Come to him, a living stone, rejected by human beings but chosen and precious in the sight of God, and, like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house… acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 2:4-5
They assure us that Jesus indwells and blesses our faithful commitment to this call.
Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places…
Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father.
John 14:1-2;12
Let’s face it, we live a long way in time from that bubbling little faith community described in Acts. Peter’s and Jesus’ encouragement have to echo down two thousand years to reach us! It’s not easy to stay plugged in to the dynamic power offered in today’s readings. How do we do that?
We have these amazing gifts to draw on:
the capacity to pray
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit resident in our souls
the blessing of a sacramental life
the living Word of the scriptures
the rich legacy of spiritual writings stored up through history
the current library of spiritual and theological literature
the sacred gifts of poetry, music and art
the beauty of God’s Creation in nature
the witness of our surrounding faith communities both living and dead
How unfortunate if we fail to recognize these gifts, given as means to open our hearts to our shared call to holiness!
Poetry: Mysteries, Yes – Mary Oliver
Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings again draw our hearts to the power of the Resurrection to transform our lives.
The passage from Acts gives us the first half of Paul’s sermon in Pisidian Antioch, to a gathering of both Jews and Gentiles. Paul, who did not know Christ before the Resurrection, calls on the witness of the original disciples who shared earthly ministry with Jesus:
For even though (the inhabitants of Jerusalem and their leaders) found no grounds for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have Jesus put to death, and when they had accomplished all that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and placed him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. These are now his witnesses before the people.
Acts 13:28-31
These witnesses attest to the primordial element of our faith:
Jesus Christ conquered death and, in doing so, gave all of us the gift of eternal life in him.
This amazing truth is not something outside or distant from us. This truth is the core of our lives in faith. By believing it, remembering it, calling its dynamism into our dailyness, we are endowed with the power of God to live beyond death even in the midst of it.
In the life of my religious community, spring is always a time of Jubilee – a time to acclaim God’s rejuvenation of nature and life.
Just after Easter, we capture Alleluia grace to celebrate our sisters and their decades of fidelity. These Silver, Golden and Diamond years unfold in a perpetual wave from the time of Catherine McAuley. At Jubilee, we bathe in their awesome and unwordable grace. Last Friday evening, we held this year’s celebration, one bursting with the sentiments of “L’chiam” – To Life!
But just on that same Friday afternoon, one of our venerable sisters had died after living over 70 years in Mercy. I know the contrasting emotions struck many of us in our jubilant chapel. These feelings became even more evident as we read the back cover of our program naming all those Jubilarians who had preceded us to heaven.
Will we all meet in heaven?
O what joy even to think of it.
Catherine McAuley: Letter to Teresa White February 3, 1841
And that, my dear friends, is the key word: HEAVEN – another word for the eternal life given us in the Resurrected Christ. We don’t always realize it but, through Easter grace, we are living in heaven right now. Death, transformed forever in Jesus, is the unmasking which allows our full realization.
This is what Jesus conveyed to his disciples in today’s Gospel. Don’t be afrain of anything – not even death. I am already completely with you.
Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. Where I am going you know the way.”
John 14:1-4
In Greek, the phrase for “do not be troubled” ( ταρασσεσθω – tar-as’-so) pertains particularly to the dread of death natural to the human condition. This is the fear that Jesus wishes to alleviate for his disciples, especially as he moves into the Paschal event.
He wishes to soothe that fear in us as well. We have the inifinite assurance of eternal life. When we face death, the loss of friends, or the overwhelming weight of the passing years, we can reach through any heaviness to that Resurrecting Light. By the life-giving invitation of Christ, we – and all whom we ever love – are already residents in the mansion of God.
Alleluia – Jubilate
The Jubilarian celebrants, most in the video above, are:
75 years: Sister Mary Jude DiSciascio, Sister Mary Klock, Sister Eileen Trinity
70 years: Sister Maryann Burgoyne, Sister Maria Madonna Johnson, Sister Joanne McIlhenney, Sister Rosemary Powers
60 years: Sister Sara Anne Condart, Sister Maureen Crissy, Sister Georgia Greene, Sister LaVerne Marie King, Sister Patricia Leipold, Sister Dorothea Maholland, Sister Mary Mulholland, Sister Beverly Palumbo, Sister Benvinda Ann Pereira, Sister Elaine Schaeffer, Sister Monica Sheehy, Sister Bonita Marie Smith, Sister Renee Yann
50 Golden Years: Maureen Roe, Terry Saetta, Susan Walsh and Regina Ward.
Poetry: Near Sunset on the Shore – Renee Yann, RSM
Four o’clock, life’s waning autumn afternoon; daylight spent against the salted sea. Tide, this moment, turns to imperceptible ebb. Evening imagines its own midnight, indigo.
Same shore; same horizon. Only sky, drunk deep, betrays change. Jigger of sunset, rubied brandy, introduced to unintoxicated day.
Now come the memories, wave upon wave, inviting immersion. Now come the lingering hopes, vortex of longing for all that has or might have been loved.
Now in near-dusk, understanding, feeble at first, then determined. Can so little really have mattered? Can the one truth simply have been
riveted presence, moment by moment, to pain and to joy; fascination, ennui? Has Sacred Fire smoldered so long In such innocent ashes?
The question, or is it the answer, hovers and stills. Sweet, purple evening rises like smoke from the embers Of the inessential and shorn. Once, some distant morning, hearts were set to this moment in brilliant, unproven vows.
The ocean of years, in hypnotic cadence, Allowed, then rescinded, distraction. Now, under its waves, tenacious and constant, deep diving down in the luminous darkness of God.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our two readings take us on a journey. We sail through Israel’s long and spectacular salvation history from Moses through David and forward to Jesus. And in the sailing, we get turned head over heels.
In our first reading, Paul encapsulates twelve hundred years in a few elegant verses. (Nice job, Paul!)
The touchpoints of his homily are these:
the sojourn in the land of Egypt.
forty years in the desert.
destruction of Canaan,
judges up to Samuel the prophet.
King Saul, for forty years.
King David whose descendants gave Israel …
JESUS
then a little mention of John the Baptist
Paul’s succinct preaching allows us to see God’s powerful arm reaching through the long sleeve of Isreal’s history, finally handing the Chosen People the ultimate gift — Jesus Christ the Messiah.
Ah, but then we have our Gospel – which does today what it always does so well. It turns everything upside down and inside-out.
Through the twelve hundred years of Israel’s pre-Christian history, we see an agonizingly slow rise to power and glory culminating in David’s reign. How deeply later Israelites longed for a future Savior who would shine like the royal David had – who would restore the glory of Israel. That was their cherished expectation.
But Jesus turns that long sleeve of salvation history inside out. He preaches an inverse power fueled by service, a glory dressed in humble acts of mercy and forgiveness.
His longing is not for a worldly restoration, but for a whole New Creation born of sacrificial love. His hope is not for a secular kingdom but for a transformational community enlivened in the Triune God.
When Jesus had washed the disciples’ feet, he said to them: “Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it.
John 12:16-20
As we read and pray the scriptures, we get better at seeing the sacred understory of grace sustaining us. Upside-down, inside-out, our daily life is filled with divine mystery and revelation. We just have to look at the flip side to catch hold of the sail.
I was a teenager during the golden age of the 33 and 45 rpm records. I had a slew of Elvis, Fats Domino, Roy Orbison, The Everley Brothers, Ray Charles, The Supremes and many others. Each record had a hit on one side, and I rarely bothered to look at the other side. One day I flipped one of my “Top 10s” (The Wildcat Blues) to take a look at the other side, only to find what would become one of my favorite songs of all time: Petite Fleur. After the 1950s, it faded from the top ten list, but it has stayed on my list for 60 years.
When I hear that song, it sinks into my spirit creating a feeling that resists words. Like much good music, it reorders something in my spirit so that I see the world a little differently. And I would never have found it if I hadn’t turned things upside down to listen to the understory.
If we allow ourselves to dive deep under the scriptures – to go to the “flip side” – as Jesus invites us to do in today’s Gospel, we will find our own “petite fleurs” of insight and grace.
If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it.
John 13:17
Prose: from Seeing by Annie Dillard
The secret of seeing is, then, the pearl of great price.
If I thought he could teach me to find it and keep it forever
I would stagger barefoot across a hundred deserts
after any lunatic at all.
But although the pearl may be found,
it may not be sought.
The literature of illumination reveals this above all:
although it comes to those who wait for it,
it is always, even to the most practiced and adept,
a gift and a total surprise…
I cannot cause light;
the most I can do is try to put myself
in the path of its beam.
It is possible, in deep space, to sail on solar wind.
Light, be it particle or wave, has force:
you rig a giant sail and go.
The secret of seeing is to sail on solar wind.
Hone and spread your spirit till you yourself are a sail,
whetted, translucent, broadside to the merest puff.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Gospel invites us to pray with the Apostle Philip on this his and James’ feast day.
St. James and St. Philip by Peter Paul Rubens
Philip is mentioned several times in John’s Gospel
In John 6:6, Jesus engages Philip regarding the feeding of the 5,000.
In John 12:21, Philip appears speaks for the Greek community, informing Andrew that they want to be introduced to Jesus.
In today’s Gospel, Philip asks Jesus to be shown the Father. Jesus responds with a simple and perfect instruction on one of the most profound mysteries of our faith – the nature of the Trinity.
“Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.
John 14:9-10
Jesus seems surprised at Philip’s question. Maybe he didn’t think it was that hard to understand the Blessed Trinity! But writers ever since have found it pretty complex. Most notably, St. Augustine took over 15 years to write his masterpiece De Trinitate (On the Trinity). An excellent current English translation by Edmund Hill, OP contains fifteen books in over five hundred pages!
But Jesus makes it pretty simple for Philip. Here’s my interpretation:
Philip, You see me, you see the Creator. We are perfectly One. Perfect Love does that. My words are the Creator’s Words. My works are completing the Creator’s works Who dwells in me. It’s not a problem, Philip. You don’t need an answer. It’s a beautiful Mystery. Just believe and be with it.
The noted 20th century Christian existentialist Gabriel Marcel wrote about the difference between a mystery and a problem.
Marcel worried that a technical ethos was reshaping how we see the world and ourselves. He especially worried about a tendency to reduce mysteries to problems. A problem, for Marcel, is something external to us that can be determinatively understood and solved with a generalizable technique. A mystery, on the other hand, is something in which we are inextricably involved. It has roots deep within us, but it also reaches beyond us. While a problem can be definitively solved, a mystery can only be navigated in light of the concrete situation and the people involved.
Gabriel Marcel: Mystery in an Age of Problems – Steven Knepper
True faith requires that we trust the Mystery of God. Like Philip, we may want answers to the great challenges of life and religion. But these things are not like math problems or scientific equations which can reach human resolution.
Life and faith are more like poetry or music – both of which enter into us and change something deep inside of us. It is a change that cannot be put into words but is nevertheless real. It is mystery.
Knowing and loving our Triune God is the same kind of mystery. We are made of God and God dwells within us. Each of our life experiences offers a small revelation of this overarching Mystery which is far too infinite to ever be packaged in a “solution” such as Philip requests in our Gospel.
Sometimes we may hear ourselves trying to turn the mystery of God into a solvable problem. Do you ever think or voice questions like these:
Why does God allow good people to suffer?
Why didn’t God just create everybody to be good, to erase evil from the world?
Why is God letting THIS (whatever it is) happen to me!
At different times in our spiritual lives, we all suffer from the Big WHY. Some people never get over it, turning atheist or agnostic in their approach to life when they can’t reach an answer. Some, by the grace of God, abide in the questions and come to a place of undefinable peace in the Mystery of God.
Let’s pray to St. Philip today to be granted a measure of the grace he obviously received as he went on to carry the Gospel to Greece, Syria, and Phrygia.
And, although we have concentrated on Philip today, here’s a word about St. James who was obviously very special to Jesus. James, along with his brother John and Peter, formed an informal triumvirate among the Twelve Apostles. Jesus allowed them to be the only apostles present at three quintessential events:
Mark 5:37: the Raising of Jairus’ daughter
Matthew 17:1: the Transfiguration of Jesus
Matthew 26:37: the Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane
Poetry: If Only – Rainer Maria Rilke from The Book of Hours
If only there were stillness, full, complete. If all the random and approximate were muted, with neighbors’ laughter, for your sake, and if the clamor that my senses make did not confound the vigil I would keep —
Then in a thousandfold thought I could think
you out, even to your utmost brink,
and (while a smile endures) possess you, giving
you away, as though I were but giving thanks,
to all the living.
Music: Lux Beata Trinitas – the hymn, ascribed to St. Ambrose in the 4th century, is sung here by Harry Christophers and the Sixteen whose mission is “… a performing arts charity which exists to take beautiful and inspiring choral music, from the Renaissance to today, to as wide and diverse an audience as possible.” (English translation of hymn below)
O TRINITY of blessed Light, O Unity of sovereign might, as now the fiery sun departs, shed Thou Thy beams within our hearts.
To Thee our morning song of praise, to Thee our evening prayer we raise; Thee may our glory evermore in lowly reverence adore.
All laud to God the Father be; all praise, Eternal Son, to Thee; all glory, as is ever meet, to God the Holy Paraclete.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Gospel invites us, once again, to pray in the company of the Good Shepherd. (The Greek phrase could better be translated as “The Noble Shepherd“)
Just a bit earlier in his sermon, Jesus delivered this blockbuster to the gathered crowd:
I came so that you might have life and have it more abundantly.
John 10:10
I don’t know how those on the ancient hillside received this stunning announcement, but I know that I have heard and read it a thousand times with a dull and stupid heart.
We let ourselves get used to the scriptures. We hear the priest humdrumming the words while we entertain a tumble of distractions in our foggy heads. We pray the words in our quiet rooms while sleep nibbles away at their astounding meaning.
But here’s what our Gospel shouts to us this morning:
I am here to give you abundant life! For heaven’s sake, let your heart and soul stand up, open your arms, and embrace the gift I offer you.
Several deep lessons reside within today’s reading, but we might choose to focus on this:
I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep.
John 10: 11-12
Jesus is telling us that he is our “good shepherd” for this reason: because he knows and loves us with the same intensity that he and the Father know and love each other.
In other words, Jesus loves us with a love that absorbs us into the heart of God. There, we are fed with that love and given an infinitely abundant life – a life that demands to be given and shared.
Jesus tells us that he will lay down his life for his sheep, because this is the nature of Divine Love — it is fully self-giving. The Creator gave everything for us in the gift of Jesus. Jesus gave everything for us in the Paschal Gift. We, recipients of these infinite gifts, are called to give everything for the sake of God’s love in the world.
Does this mean we all have to run out and try to be martyrs? Certainly not. It might be even harder to respond to this call with consistent dailyness than it would be to do so with martyrish abandon.
Our reading from Acts helps us understand what this divine love looks like in an ordinary life. It looks like openness to the Holy Spirit, willingness to change for the sake of others’ good, inclusion of all people in the loving community, actions that build unity and reverence for one another.
The Good Shepherd is a Giving Shepherd who teaches us that we have such an abundance of life in him that we are safe giving our small portion of life for others. We do not need to bury, fortify, protect, and squirrel away our life like misers and hoarders – because, in God, all that we give is continually replaced with even greater plentitude.
We do not have to be first, smartest, prettiest, richest, most powerful, always right or all the other perfectionisms we sometimes are deluded by.
What we have to be is kind, merciful, open, forgiving, honest, generous and humble. These are the true currencies of abundant life in Christ. With the amazing gift we have been given, we are called to allow God to “shepherd” through us in our own particular “sheepfold”.
In his transcendent love, Jesus laid his life down willingly for our sake, and that utter willingness allowed him to take it up again in glory. We might be invited to do a little “life-laying down” ourselves today. Can we find Christ’s invitation, promise, and power within that ordinariness?
The Good Shepherd by James Tissot
Poetry: On Generosity – Walter Brueggemann
On our own, we conclude: there is not enough to go around we are going to run short
of money of love of grades of publications of sex of beer of members of years of life
we should seize the day seize our goods seize our neighbours goods because there is not enough to go around
and in the midst of our perceived deficit you come you come giving bread in the wilderness you come giving children at the 11th hour you come giving homes to exiles you come giving futures to the shut down you come giving easter joy to the dead you come – fleshed in Jesus.
and we watch while the blind receive their sight the lame walk the lepers are cleansed the deaf hear the dead are raised the poor dance and sing
we watch and we take food we did not grow and life we did not invent and future that is gift and gift and gift and families and neighbours who sustain us when we did not deserve it.
It dawns on us – late rather than soon- that you “give food in due season you open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.”
By your giving, break our cycles of imagined scarcity override our presumed deficits quiet our anxieties of lack transform our perceptual field to see the abundance………mercy upon mercy blessing upon blessing.
Sink your generosity deep into our lives
that your muchness may expose our false lack
that endlessly receiving we may endlessly give
so that the world may be made Easter new,
without greedy lack, but only wonder,
without coercive need but only love,
without destructive greed but only praise
without aggression and invasiveness….
all things Easter new…..
all around us, toward us and
by us
all things Easter new.
Finish your creation, in wonder, love and praise. Amen.
Music: The Lonely Shepherd – written by James Last and played here by Louis Grosari
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we prayerfully remember one of the great women of the Church, Catherine of Siena.
Catherine of Siena, TOSD (1347 – 1380) was a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic. She was a mystic, activist, and author who had a great influence on Italian literature and on the Catholic Church. Canonized in 1461, she is also a Doctor of the Church.
Three genres of work by Catherine survive: – Her major treatise is The Dialogue of Divine Providence. It is a dialogue between God and a soul who “rises up” to God. – Catherine’s letters are considered one of the great works of early Tuscan literature. – Twenty-six prayers of Catherine of Siena also survive, mostly composed in the last eighteen months of her life.
Wikipedia
The beauty of Catherine’s life and spirituality has blessed the world for nearly seven centuries. Still, it has never grown old because it was fully rooted in an eternal God.
Catherine’s sanctity was born of: transcendent FAITH, uncompromising TRUTH, and overarching LOVE for God and God’s Creation.
Our first reading today introduces another, much earlier, woman pillar of the Church – Tabitha, sometimes called Dorcas. She was so important to the Christian community in Joppa that they sent for Peter upon her death. They needed his intervention in order to hold the community together in the face of this profound loss.
Now in Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which translated is Dorcas). She was completely occupied with good deeds and almsgiving. Now during those days she fell sick and died, so after washing her, they laid her out in a room upstairs.
Acts 9: 36-38
St. Cyprian, writing in the 3rd century, implies that Dorcas merited Peter’s miraculous intervention because of her Christian generosity, her being “completely occupied with good deeds and almsgiving“.
Dorcas, Raised from the Dead by Peter – Jacob Jordaens (c. 1655)
Though little is given to describe Tabitha’s position in the community, one might imagine that she was a woman of some means. Many widows achieved a certain status living on the accumulated wealth of their deceased husbands and the dividends of their recovered dowries. This generous women seems to have gathered around her a community of less fortunate neighbors who came to depend on her for their livelihood.
In Tabitha/Dorcas, we find a model of women’s discipleship repeated through the centuries and into our own times.
She is aware of the needs around her and of her own capacity to meet those needs.
Inspired by the Gospel, she builds a community to embrace both the needs and the strengths she recognizes.
She acts FOR others, especially those who are in need, in imitation of Christ.
In the 14th century, Catherine of Siena manifested a similar pattern of discipleship.
Catherine of Siena – from Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale’s Golden Book of Famous Women (1919)
Catherine saw the whole Church as her community and recognized its need for reconciliation and unity. She confronted fracturing political allegiances and destructive ecclesiastical egos to advocate for the Roman Pope’s sovereignty over the global Church, thus influencing the entire flow of European history.
My sweet Lord, look with mercy upon your people and especially upon the mystical body of your Church. Greater glory is given to your name for pardoning a multitude of your creatures than if I alone were pardoned for my great sins against your majesty. It would be no consolation for me to enjoy your life if your holy people stood in death. For I see that sin darkens the life of your bride the Church – my sin and the sins of others.
from A Dialogue on Divine Providence
Catherine, whose profound spirituality was laced with miracles and mysticism, nevertheless taught an attainable spiritual discipline in her writings – a practical spirituality demonstrated, as was Tabitha’s, in generous acts of love:
The love which the soul sees that God has for her, she, in turn, extends to all other creatures. . . she immediately feels compelled to love her neighbor as herself, for she sees how supremely she herself is loved by God, beholding herself in the wellspring of the sea of the Divine Essence.
Letter to Raymond of Capua, dated February 17, 1376
In our Gospel, Jesus has just finished telling the people:
“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.”
They respond to this “hard saying” with hesitancy and “shock”. Jesus tells them that he knows that this level of faith is impossible to reach on one’s own and so…
“For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”
John 6: 64-65
Tabitha and Catherine of Siena, by the power of the Holy Spirit granted through our Creator, attained a beautiful faith expressed in generous works for their communities. As we pray with them today, let us ask God for the grace of such faith for ourselves and for our whole Church.
Poetry: Consumed in Grace (Catherine of Siena) – from Daniel Ladinsky’s “Love Poems from God”
I first saw God when I was a child, six years of age. The cheeks of the sun were pale before Him, and the earth acted as a shy girl, like me.
Divine light entered my heart from His love that did never fully wane,
though indeed, dear, I can understand how a person’s faith can at times flicker,
for what is the mind to do with something that becomes the mind’s ruin: a God that consumes us in His grace.
I have seen what you want; it is there, a Beloved of infinite tenderness.
Music: The Mystical Ecstasy of Catherine of Siena – from the opera Santa Caterina da Siena by Marco Enrico Bossi
Lavish Mercy 