Today, in Mercy, Paul blesses us with some of his most powerful words:
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us.
How often, over the ensuing centuries, have these words uplifted and embravened a struggling heart! Paul reminds us of what he so passionately believed – that we are not here for this world alone; that we, with all Creation, are being transformed for eternal life in God.
Jesus too reminds us that our life in faith is so much bigger than we perceive. We see a tiny mustard seed, but God sees the whole tree of eternal life blossoming in us.We see a fingertip of yeast, but God sees the whole Bread of Life rising in us.
Paul tells us to be People of Hope who do not yet expect to see the object of their hope but who, nonetheless, believe and love with all their hearts.
May we pray this today for ourselves, and for anyone burdened by suffering or hopelessness at this time in their lives.
Today, in Mercy, we celebrate the feast of the Apostles Simon and Jude. Not much is really known about either of these men. One tradition suggests that after the Ascension, they went together to carry the Gospel to Persia where they were eventually martyred.
Since we have so few facts, many legends and interpretations have grown up around these two men. Probably the strongest and most familiar of these is of St. Jude as the patron of hopeless cases.
There are probably very few of us who haven’t asked at least one favor from St. Jude in our lifetimes. This probability begs the question of why and how do we pray with the saints.
Our tradition holds that we exist in the Communion of Saints with all of God’s creatures, and that we inspire and support one another by the sharing of our lives. This sharing is not limited by time, nor is it constricted by death.
When we pray with the saints, we draw on their faithful witness to inspire, motivate and sustain us in our lives.
Today, we might pray within the spirit of these two great Christians whose witness, though historically muted, transcends time. May they inspire in us the passion and joy to speak Christ in our lives.
Music: Apostles’ Creed – sung here by Rebecca Gorzynska, a beautiful and talented artist (Latin and English text below.)
Sirach assures us that the prayer of the humble reaches the ear of God
Paul readies himself for death
Jesus gives us one of his most memorable parables.
The thread running through all of these? Humility- that beautiful virtue which allows us to be who we truly are before God and humanity.
Oh my goodness friends, how many times have we been with “the Pharisees”, such as Jesus describes, at a meeting or dinner? They are so unsure and unaware of their true value in God, that they begin to create an illusion to protect their fear.
We know the statements (or attitudes) by heart. Sometimes, they’re harmless; sometimes not. We may be guilty of a few of them ourselves:
But there are other statements, such as the Pharisee’s, that can certainly make us question a person’s self- perception:
There has never been a better leader, CEO, deal-maker,neighbor, human being
I am smarter than the generals, the lawyers, the financiers, the scientists
Nobody does things better than me
I am the smartest person of all time
Certainly, it’s angering, but more than that, it’s sad. It’s really sad to miss the whole point of one’s true greatness: that we are beloved and redeemed by God – just like every Creature! That we are called, in that belovedness , to serve God in our sisters and brothers. Knowing this inalienable truth is the source of all humility, courage, joy, and perseverance in faith. It is the whole reason we were created. What a tragedy to, like the Pharisee, miss the whole point!
Let us pray with Paul and the humble tax collector today. “O God, be merciful to me a sinner – a redeemed, grateful, and joyful sinner.”
Today, in Mercy, our Gospel takes on some difficult themes.
Jesus gives a parable which, at first, appears to say, “Get your act together fast, or God might zap you.” From Jesus’s words, we can assume that some public disasters have recently occurred. The gathered crowd are unnerved by these events.
Jesus uses that nervousness to talk about repentance. He tells the people that tragedy can make us wake up to the fact that life is fragile and fleeting. That awareness should make us want to use our time on earth well, to give glory to God.
The repentance Jesus encourages is not just a contrition, or turning from sin. It is an opening of the soul’s eyes to see our lives and circumstances as God sees them.
Is God going to zap us if we don’t have that kind of repentance? No.
With the parable of the fruitless fig tree, Jesus assures us that God is with us, giving us every grace and opportunity to bear spiritual fruit. God is patient and nurturing. But, in every human life, there is a limit to the time we have to respond.
Today, in Mercy, Paul sounds a lot like someone approaching the microphone at “Sinners Anonymous“:
I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.
Paul basically attests to the fact that for human beings, even him, will and actions often don’t synch up. Sure, we want to be good people, but as Nike says, do we:
Paul’s says no. The only way we do the good we will to do is by the grace of Jesus Christ.
In our Gospel, Jesus affirms the slowness of the human spirit to act on the realities around us. In some translations, Jesus uses a phrase which caught on with the architects of Vatican II: the signs of the times.
In our Gospel, Jesus is telling his listeners and us that we need to be alert to the circumstances of our world. It both weeps and rejoices. Where it weeps, we must be a source of mercy and healing. Where it rejoices, we must foster and celebrate the Presence of the Spirit.
In the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes (The Church in the Modern World), we read:
In every age, the church carries the responsibility of reading the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel, if it is to carry out its task. In language intelligible to every generation, it should be able to answer the ever recurring questions which people ask about the meaning of this present life and of the life to come, and how one is related to the other. We must be aware of and understand the aspirations, the yearnings, and the often dramatic features of the world in which we live.
Although written in the 1960s, these powerful words hold true today. We are the Church of which the document speaks. We are the ones whom Jesus calls to respond with authentic justice and mercy to the signs of the times. Read the newspaper in that light today. Watch the news in that light. Meet your brothers and sisters in that light today.
Music: The Times They Are A’changin’ – Bob Dylan whose songs in the 50s and 60sbecame anthems for the Civil Rights and anti-war movements. His lyrics during this period incorporated a wide range of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences, defied popular music conventions and appealed to the burgeoning counterculture. (Wikipedia) (Ah, it was a good time to be young!)
The Swedish Academy awarded Dylan the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.
Today, in Mercy,Jesus says he has come to set fire on the earth! He says that, because of him, there will not be peace but division, setting households against one another. It’s not a comforting Gospel.
And guess what, we don’t live in a comforting world do we? We see human beings set against each other in war, political corruption, economic despoiling, human trafficking, ecological crime and other deeply ingrained systemic abuses.
Pope John Paul II in his encyclical EVANGELIUM VITAE refers to these realities as a “culture of death”.
Some threats come from nature itself, but they are made worse by the culpable indifference and negligence of those who could in some cases remedy them. Others are the result of situations of violence, hatred and conflicting interests, which lead people to attack others through murder, war, slaughter and genocide.
And how can we fail to consider the violence against life done to millions of human beings, especially children, who are forced into poverty, malnutrition and hunger because of an unjust distribution of resources between peoples and between social classes? And what of the violence inherent not only in wars as such but in the scandalous arms trade, which spawns the many armed conflicts which stain our world with blood? What of the spreading of death caused by reckless tampering with the world’s ecological balance, by the criminal spread of drugs, or by the promotion of certain kinds of sexual activity which, besides being morally unacceptable, also involve grave risks to life? It is impossible to catalogue completely the vast array of threats to human life, so many are the forms, whether explicit or hidden, in which they appear today!
Paul says that, through our Baptism, we are called and strengthened to bear witness against such a culture:
But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit that you have leads to sanctification, and its end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Every day, each one of us has the opportunity to stand up for mercy and justice by the choices we make, by the attitudes we affirm, by the values we stand for. But sometimes it’s hard, because it can set us against some of the people around and close to us. That’s when the rubber meets the road!
Today, in Mercy, Paul and Jesus both instruct and challenge their listeners and us.
Paul wants us to understand that, through our Baptism, we are living in a whole new power for goodness and grace. The world may look the same as it did before we belonged to Christ, but it isn’t.
To use a phrase from the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins,
The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
If we see with the new eyes of grace, we will be able to respond to Jesus’s challenge:
Stay awake! For you do not know when the Son of Man will come.
Stay awake. See the world and your life as they truly are – places where God awaits you in every moment. Give your heart to listen lovingly to the sound of the Holy Spirit in your life. That obedient heart is precious to God!
Today, in Mercy, Paul contrasts the sin of “Adam” to the gift of Jesus, demonstrating the specifics of Christ’s redemptive act.
A key phrase for our prayer might be the following. The concupiscence of human nature will always make the sinful choice a possibility. But we can gain courage and strength from this powerful line from Paul:
Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more….
Jesus teaches a lesson about perseverance in the spiritual life. He says if we stick with it, God will welcome us the way a generous master thanks and embraces a loyal servant. He adds a comforting thought for those of us of “a certain age”.
And should he come in the second or third watch and find them prepared in this way, blessed are those servants.
Yesterday, I attended a 95th birthday party for my Mistress of Novices. Fifty plus years ago, she guided a gaggle of hopeful and naive young nuns toward the depths of the spiritual life. She didn’t do it by words alone. She did it by faithful, humble, steadfast and joyful living in the Presence of God. Now, in the third watch, she is still doing the same thing – and she has done it for all the years in between…indeed, a blessed servant!
Sister Catherine Rawley, RSM Happy 95th Birthday
This is what Jesus is talking about today. Look around you and see the parables alive in your own life, your own history, your own heart.
Music: Song of a Faithful Servant
(A simple, childlike song. Please excuse the spelling. There’s no way for me to fix it although I desperately want to)
Today, in Mercy, Paul counsels us to be steadfast in our faith. Jesus counsels us to avoid greed. How might the two be connected?
Paul lauds Abraham whose faith convinced him that God’s promise to him would be fulfilled. Jesus promises us eternal life in a realm apart from any earthly treasure. If we believe in Jesus’s promise, we realize the futility of possessiveness, greed and consumerism.
That’s a really hard call in our society. Every type of media conspires to convince us that we are not enough as we are. We need a better car, house, clothes, haircut, and on and on to make us “acceptable”. Populism and racism ingrained in our politics convince us that we need to be a certain color, nationality, religion, speak a certain language to be worth anything.
Jesus says NO. You are beautiful as I created you. And you already have everything you need to merit my promise of eternal life. You have only one need in this world — to love yourself and one another so that my promise can be released in you and in all Creation.
Today, in Mercy, our scripture readings are a little heavy. I had to dig to get my inspiration. But there are gems in these dense words!
It was not through the law that the promise was made to Abraham and his descendants that he would inherit the world, but through the righteousness that comes from faith.
This is a spiritually freeing passage. It assures us that God is with us through our faith, not through the perfection with which we keep laws and rules.
Our Gospel reinforces the message:
Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven
The passage is a little scary when first read, because we all hope we haven’t done anything to offend the Holy Spirit. But what Jesus is telling his listeners is this:
If a person criticizes or rejects my life and teaching, forgiveness is still possible when they come to their senses and repent. It’s like cutting the bad spot out of an otherwise good apple.
But if a person chooses to live a life which blasphemes (mocks, dismisses) the Spirit of life, love, mercy and peace, that person can never be forgiven — because they can never repent. They will be rotten to the core.
So the advice of Paul and Jesus boils down to this, I think. Befriend the Holy Spirit by your life of faithful choices. Listen to Her inspiration. Help others to do the same. And do not worry. when you make a few mistakes. God stands by the promise to be with us always.
Lavish Mercy 