Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 98 which we reflected on just this past Saturday on the feast of St. Augustine. Here’s a refresher if you’d care to glance back.
Because they proclaim God’s faithfulness, today’s psalm verses ready us to receive the Gospel’s expansive injunction:
As we pass through the waters of life, we each meet our own “deeps”. Sometimes we do not recognize them as the sacred places where we are to meet God’s call.
Sometimes we see only their choppy surface, their tangled riptides, their frightening shadows.
Sometimes we miss the bounty held in the mystery of these moments. We fold our nets and try to sail away.
As he did for the weary disciples, Jesus
lovingly contradicts our fear,
releases our hope,
fills the flimsy net of our faith to bursting …
… if we will just trust his Word, and cast out with him over the waters of our lives.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 98, the scripture which inspired “Joy to the World”.
Psalm 98 describes God’s redemption of Israel and the jubilation that will ensue. In other words, it is a song of “rejoicing in the future tense”. When the community sang it for their great occasions, they had not yet seen the Savior. But their profound faith allowed them to celebrate in spirit what they believed would be accomplished – as the psalm’s concluding verse asserts:
In righteousness shall God judge the world and the peoples with equity.
Psalm 98:8
We too are called to let our lives sing to the Lord in hope and confidence because we know that what we believe is true. That kind of faith in action is called “witness”. And we, my dears, in ALL circumstances of our lives, are charged to be WITNESSES!
Like the seas who sing in either still or storm
Like rivers who clap in ebb or the neap
Like the mountains who sing in all seasons
Let the sea and what fills it resound, the world and those who dwell in it; Let the rivers clap their hands, the mountains shout with them for joy.
Psalm 98:7-8
Like our hearts that believe even through life’s intermingled joys and sorrows
This is your life, joys and sorrow mingled, one succeeding the other.
Catherine McAuley: Letter to Frances Warde (May 28, 1841)
Poetry: Flickering Mind – Denise Levertov
Lord, not you it is I who am absent. At first belief was a joy I kept in secret, stealing alone into sacred places: a quick glance, and away -- and back, circling. I have long since uttered your name but now I elude your presence. I stop to think about you, and my mind at once like a minnow darts away, darts into the shadows, into gleams that fret unceasing over the river's purling and passing. Not for one second will my self hold still, but wanders anywhere, everywhere it can turn. Not you, it is I am absent. You are the stream, the fish, the light, the pulsing shadow. You the unchanging presence, in whom all moves and changes. How can I focus my flickering, perceive at the fountain's heart the sapphire I know is there?
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 97, one of several psalms categorized as “enthronement psalms”. These psalms celebrate God as king, a king exponentially greater than any human sovereign.
But Psalm 97 shows us that this Divine Ruler is also exponentially different from the flawed and often oppressive human rulers Israel (and others throughout history)has/have experienced.
For that reason, God is the only one who should rule our lives, and all human authority should mirror God’s perfect balance of love, mercy, and justice.
The psalm indicates how God is uniquely supreme:
JUSTICE – God’s reign is founded on justice, not domination
The LORD is king; let the earth rejoice; let the many isles be glad. Justice and judgment are the foundation of his throne.
97:1-2
UNIVERSALITY – God’s power moves earth and heaven, beyond any human ability
The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, before the LORD of all the earth. The heavens proclaim his justice, and all peoples see his glory.
97:5-6
GOODNESS – God loves goodness, not evil; uprightness, not power plays
The LORD loves those who hate evil; he guards the lives of his faithful ones; from the hand of the wicked he delivers them.
97:10
JOY – God’s reign brings universal joy, not subjugation. It inspires gratitude, not fear:
Light dawns for the just; and gladness, for the upright of heart. Be glad in the LORD, you just, and give thanks to God’s holy name
97:11-12
Psalm 97, though constructed on a metaphor that doesn’t speak to many of us, still has much to teach us.
How do we image God?
How does that image inspire, define, or control our behaviors and choices?
In whatever form we exercise authority, how do we reflect God’s authority?
Especially in our influence over younger, or vulnerable persons, what image of God would they learn from us?
For Christians, Psalm 97 points to a most contradictory “king”, one who loves the “beatitude person” and is willing to suffer and die for them. The psalm so clearly foreshadows Christ that it is the psalm prayed at Mass on Christmas Day.
In Christmas the Church does not simply celebrate the birth of a wondrous baby. Through that birth we celebrate the cosmic reality that God has entered the process of the world in a decisive way that changes everything toward life. The entry of God into the process of the world is the premise of the poem in Psalm 97.
Walter Brueggemann, Psalm 97: Psalm for Christmas Day
Poetry: The Kingdom – R. S. Thomas
It’s a long way off but inside it There are quite different things going on: Festivals at which the poor man Is king and the consumptive is Healed; mirrors in which the blind look At themselves and love looks at them Back; and industry is for mending The bent bones and the minds fractured By life. It’s a long way off, but to get There takes no time and admission Is free, if you will purge yourself Of desire, and present yourself with Your need only and the simple offering Of your faith, green as a leaf.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 145, a luxuriant song of praise to a God who overwhelms us with generosity.
I will extol you, my God and king; I will bless your name forever and ever.
Every day I will bless you; I will praise your name forever and ever.
Great is the LORD and worthy of much praise, whose grandeur is beyond understanding.
Psalm 145: 1-3
Citing verses 13-20 which are structured around the word “all”, Walter Brueggemann says:
The image is an overflow of limitless blessing given without reservation to all who are in need and turn to the Creator.
Which brings us to Nathaniel and how this prayer might have sung in his heart.
I got to be friends with Nathaniel over 50 years ago when, at my reception in our community, Mother Bernard decided to give me his name. And after an initial shock, I came to love it.
Nathaniel and I have spent countless hours under his fig tree sharing both our lives. I’ve asked him many times what he was thinking about when Philip came to invite him to meet Jesus. Nathaniel always has a different answer… one amazingly similar to whatever happens to be preoccupying me at the time.😇
a favorite old book that started some of my conversations with Nathaniel
One element remains constant in every circumstance: in his quiet moment, Nathaniel sought God’s Light. As our Gospel shows, that Luminous Word came to him and he responded.
I think that in our “fig tree moments”, we have finally sifted through all that we are capable of in order to find Grace in our lives. Now we wait, in the shade and quiet of prayer, for the True Answer.
When that answering Word comes, it shatters our doubts and pretenses like an egg. And like a shattered egg, the Word releases new life in us. We move deeper into the unbreakable Wholeness and Infinity. Like Nathaniel, even in our ordinary lives, we begin to “see greater things” than we had ever imagined.
Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.” Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this.” And he said to him, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
After that momentous afternoon when he was drawn from the shade into the Light, Nathaniel’s life became a hymn of praise and thanksgiving.
Let all your works give you thanks, O LORD, and let your faithful ones bless you. Let them discourse of the glory of your Kingdom and speak of your might.
Poem-Prayer from Christine Robinson
Psalm 145 – Opening Heart
I exalt you, Holy One, and open my heart to you by remembering your great love. Your expansiveness made this beautiful world in a universe too marvelous to understand. Your desire created life, and you nurtured that life with your spirit. You cherish us all—and your prayer in us is for our own flourishing. You are gracious to us slow to anger and full of kindness You touch us with your love—speak to us with your still, small voice, hold us when we fall. You lift up those who are oppressed by systems and circumstances. You open your hand and satisfy us. You ask us to call on you— and even when you seem far away, our longings call us back to you. Hear my cry, O God, for some days, it is all I have.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, as we pray with Psalm 34, our Sunday readings present us with spiritual ultimatums.
In our first reading, sensing his impending death, Joshua gathers the tribes on the Great Plains of Shechem – the land of their father Abraham. Joshua requires a commitment from the people:
“If it does not please you to serve the LORD, decide today whom you will serve … As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”
Joshua 24:15
In other words, “fish or cut bait” – you’re either with God, or you’re not. And your lives should reflect the choice.
In our Gospel, Jesus too feels death’s approach. His teachings have become more intense and direct, particularly regarding the Eucharist. This intensity has caused some of his listeners to waver. They’re not sure they can accept his words. Some drift away.
Jesus challenges the Twelve, those on whom he depends to carry his message after his death.
“Do you also want to leave?
These readings talk about the big choices, the soul’s orientation, either:
to seek and respond to God in our daily interactions
to be indifferent toward God’s Presence in our lives
Jesus’s question is before us all the time? Do we hear it?
(As for the unfortunate and contested second reading from Ephesians, this long but superb article from Elizabeth Johnson is worth your time.)
You see, I want a lot.
Perhaps I want everything:
The darkness that comes with every infinite fall
And the shivering blaze of every step up.
So many live on and want nothing
And are raised to the rank of prince
By the slippery ease of their light judgments
But what you love to see are faces
That do work and feel thirst…
You have not grown old,
And it is not too late to dive
Into your increasing depths where life
Calmly gives out its own secret.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 128. It describes the blessed scene that might ensue from the kind of hopeful and just community described in yesterday’s reflection. Because of its final verse, I like to think of it as a “Grandparents’ Blessing”.
Happy are they all who fear the Lord, and who follow in the ways of God! You shall eat the fruit of your labor; happiness and prosperity shall be yours. Your beloved shall be like a fruitful vine within your house, your children like olive shoots round about your table. The one who fears the Lord shall thus indeed be blessed. The Lord bless you from Zion, and may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life.
May you live to see your children’s children; may peace be upon your household.
In our Gospel, Jesus tells us that we achieve such blessedness by actions, not simply by words.
Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice.
Matthew 23: 1-3
I took that admonition to heart today. I do a lot of “preaching” on these pages. Following the example of Jesus, I need to see if those words come to life in my actions.
Are you with me?
Poetry: The Words We Speak – Hafiz
The words We speak Become the house we live in. Who will want to sleep in your bed If the roof leaks Right above It? Look what happens when the tongue Cannot say to kindness, “I will be your slave.” The moon Covers her face with both hands And can’t bear To look.
Music: Without Words – Bethel Music
Just a pretty cool instrumental to reflect with today.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 21, a companion piece to Psalm 20. In these verses, the king asks for victory, receives it, and rejoices in domination over his enemies. The psalm follows our first reading from Judges which is a parable that criticizes Abimelech’s seizure of kingship over Israel by treacherous means.
Without getting too deep into the complex exegesis of these passages, suffice it to say that they invite us to consider the nature of leadership – its source, exercise, and meaning relative to our spiritual and moral life.
St. Augustine, in his commentary on the Psalms, teaches that Psalm 21 foretells the kingship of Jesus. This kingship (as opposed to that of Abimelech) is marked by humility, mercy, and obedience to the Creator.
We see a wide and confusing range of “leadership” in our world today, from figures like Pope Francis to Kim Jong-Un. But in our prayer today, we are given a very clear picture of what true leadership looks like.
A perfect leader is to God like the moon is to the sun. The leader only reflects the True Light given to them as a gift.
Recognizing fruitful leadership as a gift, they dispense it graciously to others as in our Gospel parable, imparting mercy even to those considered last in line for it.
In various circumstances, we can be either leader and follower. How do we invite Grace to inform us in either case?
Poetry-Prayer: A Leader’s Prayer – from xavier.edu
Leadership is hard to define.
Lord, let us be the ones to define it with justice.
Leadership is like a handful of water.
Lord, let us be the people to share it with those who thirst.
Leadership is not about watching and correcting.
Lord, let us remember it is about listening and connecting.
Leadership is not about telling people what to do.
Lord, let us find out what people want.
Leadership is less about the love of power,
and more about the power of love.
Lord, as we continue to undertake the role of leader let us be
affirmed by the servant leadership we witness in your son Jesus.
Let us walk in the path He has set and let those who will, follow.
Let our greatest passion be compassion.
Our greatest strength love.
Our greatest victory the reward of peace.
In leading let us never fail to follow.
In loving let us never fail.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 85, a prayer celebrating what God will accomplish through a listening heart:
I will listen to what you, Lord God, are saying, for you are speaking peace to your faithful people and to those who turn their hearts to you. Truly, your salvation is very near to those who fear you, that your glory may dwell in our land.
Psalm 85: 8-9
Our psalm flows naturally from our first reading in which Gideon listens to God’s messenger who has a nice visit with him under a terebinth tree. In scripture, many great revelations and conversions happen under trees and bushes – for example, consider the stories of Moses, Jacob, and Ezekiel.
Gideon and the Angel of the Lord by Julius Schnorr Von Carolsfeld
Gideon’s Angel is patient, lingering in the shade while Gideon lets the lamb (and the angel’s suggestion) stew a while in the quiet. It’s like that sometimes when we are trying to listen to God. We need a little time to hear through our circumstances to the real Word God is whispering to us.
It helps sometimes to go among the trees where angels always seem to nestle. It helps sometimes to mull over grace as we simmer a fragrant stew. It helps sometimes to quietly work a knitting needle or finger a rosary’s cool beads.
It helps to take a little time, a little silence and let God speak to us.
The range of Divine sound may be as gentle as a soft kiss, so that we must listen with a delicate heart. Or it may be as loud as an exploding volcano, so that we must resist the temptation to hold our ears:
Kindness and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss. Truth shall erupt from the earth, and justice shall look down from heaven.
Psalm 85: 11-12
However God wants to speak in our lives today, let’s invite that transforming Word. And let’s not only hear, but listen.
Poetry: God’s Word – Hildegard of Bingin
The Word is living, being, spirit, all verdant greening, all creativity. This Word manifests itself in every creature.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we meet the rich young man of Mark 19. Since the first reading and psalm would be challenging to pray with, I would like to offer this homily I wrote some years ago on our Gospel for today
Christ and the Rich Young Man by Heinrich Hoffmann
Most had come to the rolling hills beyond the Jordan because of the miracles: the crippled walking, the dead raised, the demons cast out. Who wouldn’t take an afternoon hike to witness such amazing things? They came with their blankets and lunch baskets. They came to see.
But today, Jesus is not about miracles. He is about teaching. And it is hard to listen to him. The words are gentle but incisive. Like small scalpels, they deftly strip away the listeners’ harbored illusions. He says things like this:
Become humble like a child.
The last will be first and the first last.
If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off.
Forgive seventy times seven.
His words challenge everything they had learned, believed, based their lives on! Nobody got anywhere in life by behaving the way he described! Jesus can see their consternation. What they had relied on – all that had justified their self-satisfied successes – lay now at his feet like a sculptor’s remnants.
Jesus pauses to allow a long silence to envelop their startled hearts. Quietly, he retires to a shaded grove to let his own heart settle. On the hillside, it is lunchtime. The large crowd bundles into small neighborly bands. They open their baskets and uncork their water-skins while the curative words begin the hard transformation of their souls.
But one man is not hungry – at least not for earthly food. He slowly approaches Jesus in his solitude, perhaps with a shy glance that asks, “May I come closer?” Jesus nods for the young man to join him. Settling beside Jesus, he asks, “Master, what must I do to gain eternal life?”
There is no lack of directness in this man. He comes bluntly to the point. But there is, nonetheless, a blindness in him. Jesus has already taken its measure even as the young man approached. His garments distinguish him from the rest of the crowd. His robe is fine linen not rude camel hair. He is not unshod, but rather wears sandals of expertly tooled leather. He carries no basket; it is held by a servant standing off at a modest but ready distance. He is so accustomed to his privilege that he is unaware of his difference from all those who surround him. He no longer sees his wealth, just as he no longer sees their poverty.
Commemorative Cross for the 150th Anniversary of the Philadelphia Sisters of Mercy, featuring the Works of Mercy. Designed by the late Robert McGovern
Jesus at once pities his obliviousness yet loves his sincerity. He tests the young man even though he already reads his heart. The questions are not intended to derail the man. Instead, Jesus leads him by a rabbinical path through the levels of spiritual commitment.
Do you understand true goodness?
Do you then keep the commandments?
Do you then seek perfection?
Will you then give everything you have to embrace it?
At this final question, the young man goes away sad, “for he had many possessions”.
Here Jesus defines for us the ultimate sticking point for a nearly committed person: “All you possess”. In other words, can we give everything in Christlike love?
The Christian ethic teaches us that this kind of self-donation is the only path to joy and salvation. Yet, it is a perfection few achieve. This failure in achievement leads to broken marriages, fractured families, rescinded vows and unfulfilled hopes. What is the secret to meeting its challenge?
Jesus may have given an answer two chapters earlier in Matthew’s Gospel. A desperate father has brought his possessed son to the disciples, but they are unable to cast out the demon. Jesus is frustrated with their impotence, saying, “How long must I be with you (before you learn)?” What is it that these disciples have yet to learn? Jesus goes on to tell them that if their faith were even the size of a tiny mustard seed, they would have the power, not only to cast out this demon, but to move mountains.
To live fully by faith is to live in the understanding that we possess nothing. Everything we think we have, including life itself, is a pure gift of God’s mercy to us. Abandonment to such understanding makes us truly rich and renders us divinely powerful. This is the continuing lesson Jesus is teaching his beloved disciples. This is the secret of eternal life to which Jesus tries to lead the rich young man. This is the daily invitation God places before us within the circumstances of our lives. Will we embrace it or will we go away sad?
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 112, particularly chosen for the Feast of St. Lawrence
Blessed the one who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in God’s commands. That one’s posterity shall be mighty upon the earth; the upright generation shall be blessed. Well for the one who is gracious and lends, who conducts all affairs with justice; That person shall never be moved; the just one shall be in everlasting remembrance.
After the martyrdom of Pope Sixtus II in 258 AD, the prefect of Rome demanded that Lawrence turn over the riches of the Church. St. Ambrose is the earliest source for the narrative that Lawrence asked for three days to gather the wealth. He worked swiftly to distribute as much Church property to the indigent as possible, so as to prevent its being seized by the prefect. On the third day, at the head of a small delegation, he presented himself to the prefect, and when ordered to deliver the treasures of the Church he presented the indigent, the crippled, the blind, and the suffering, and declared that these were the true treasures of the Church. One account records him declaring to the prefect, “The Church is truly rich, far richer than your emperor.” This act of defiance led directly to his martyrdom.
Wikipedia
There are many lessons for us in the life of St. Lawrence. The most striking for me is his gift for seeing the most vulnerable people as the Church’s greatest treasures.
Praying Psalm 112 today, we might ask God to deepen that gift of sublime generosity which imitates God’s own Mercy to us:
Lavishly they give to the poor, Their generosity shall endure forever; Their name shall be exalted in glory.
Poetry: Khalil Gibran- On Giving
You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
For what are your possessions but things you keep
and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring
to the over-prudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand
as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?
And what is fear of need but need itself?
Is not dread of thirst when your well is full,
the thirst that is unquenchable?
There are those who give little of the much which they have–
and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire
makes their gifts unwholesome.
And there are those who have little and give it all.
These are the believers in life and the bounty of life,
and their coffer is never empty.
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving,
nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.
Through the hands of such as these God speaks,
and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.
It is well to give when asked,
but it is better to give unasked, through understanding;
And to the open-handed
the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving.
And is there aught you would withhold?
All you have shall some day be given;
Therefore give now, that the season of giving
may be yours and not your inheritors’.
You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.”
The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.
They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.
Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights,
is worthy of all else from you.
And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life
deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.
And what desert greater shall there be,
than that which lies in the courage and the confidence,
nay the charity, of receiving?
And who are you that the poor should rend their bosom and unveil their pride,
that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?
See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving.
For in truth it is life that gives unto life
while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.
And you receivers… and you are all receivers…
assume no weight of gratitude,
lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives.
Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings;
For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity
who has the freehearted earth for mother, and God for father.
Music: God Loves a Cheerful Giver – Steve Green has fun with the kids. I hope you do too!🤗
Lavish Mercy 