We hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 2 Corinthians 4:7-11
Today’s passage from Corinthians reminds us that any beauty and goodness in us is a gracious gift from God. That gift strengthens us beyond any human or personal capacity so that our lives may give God glory.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We prayerfully relax in the Potter’s hands Who shapes our lives according to Mercy. We realize with Paul that, even in affliction, we give glory to God by our fidelity and trust.
Poetry: Within this earthen vessel – Kabir, (1398–1518) a well-known Indian mystic poet and saint.
Within this earthen vessel are bowers and groves, and within it is the Creator: Within this vessel are the seven oceans and the unnumbered stars. The touchstone and the jewel-appraiser are within; And within this vessel the Eternal soundeth, and the spring wells up. Kabir says: “Listen to me, my Friend! My beloved Lord is within.”
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you. “Ah, Lord GOD!” I said, “I know not how to speak; I am too young.” But the LORD answered me, Say not, “I am too young.” To whomever I send you, you shall go; whatever I command you, you shall speak. Have no fear before them, because I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD. Jeremiah 1: 5-8
This passage recounting the call of Jeremiah is full of tenderness and encouragement. God assures Jeremiah that the world is bigger than his present hesitations, fears, and inadequacies.
God has known him and been with him even before he was born.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We give thanks that God has been with us always, even before we were born. God accompanies us through whatever fears and hesitations we have in living a good and holy life. Trust is the key that opens our hearts to this blessed truth.
Poetry: Before the World Was Made – W.B. Yeats
In this intriguing poem, Yeats writes from the perspective of a woman whose efforts at physical beauty leave her unfulfilled. She longs for the spiritual beauty she possessed “before the world was made”.
If I make the lashes dark And the eyes more bright And the lips more scarlet, Or ask if all be right From mirror after mirror, No vanity’s displayed: I’m looking for the face I had Before the world was made.
What if I look upon a man As though on my beloved, And my blood be cold the while And my heart unmoved? Why should he think me cruel Or that he is betrayed? I’d have him love the thing that was Before the world was made.
The Bride says: On my bed at night I sought him whom my heart loves– I sought him but I did not find him. I will rise then and go about the city; in the streets and crossings I will seek Him whom my heart loves. I sought him but I did not find him. The watchmen came upon me, as they made their rounds of the city: Have you seen him whom my heart loves? I had hardly left them when I found him whom my heart loves. Song of Songs 3:1-48
This exquisite poem from the Song of Songs captures the spirit of Mary Magdalen who, throughout her life, sought a deep and transformative relationship with God.
When she anointed his feet, when she relentlessly sought him at the tomb, Mary longed for the Presence of Jesus. When she found Him whom she had sought, this premier Apostle of the Resurrection preached the first Easter news to her companions.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We honor Mary Magdalen, so long mischaracterized in Church history. We ask to be inspired by her deep love of Jesus and resolute desire to be united with him.
Poetry: The Magdalen, a Garden, and This – Kathleen O’Toole
She who is known by myth and association as sinful, penitent, voluptuous perhaps… but faithful to the last and then beyond.
A disciple for sure, confused often with Mary, sister of Lazarus, or the woman caught in adultery, or she who angered the men
by anointing Jesus with expensive oils. She was the one from whom he cast out seven demons-she’s named in that account.
Strip all else away and we know only that she was grateful, that she found her way to the cross, and that she returned
to the tomb, to the garden nearby, and there, weeping at her loss, was recognized, became known in the tender invocation
of her name. Mary: breathed by one whom she mistook for the gardener, he who in an instant brought her back to herself-
gave her in two syllables a life beloved, gave me the only sure thing I’ll believe of heaven, that if it be, it will consist
in this: the one unmistakable rendering of your name.
Music: I Know That My Redeemer Liveth – G. F. Handel
Today’s Alleluia Verse encapsulates the theme of all the readings:
My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord; I know them, and they follow me.
John 10:27
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We LISTEN – one of the hardest things to do in life. Really listen – to what we hear with our ears, but more importantly, what we hear with our hearts. God is always speaking to us. May we listen.
Poetry: You, Neighbor God – Ranier Maria Rilkë
You, neighbor god, if sometimes in the night I rouse you with loud knocking, I do so only because I seldom hear you breathe and know: you are alone. And should you need a drink, no one is there to reach it to you, groping in the dark. Always I hearken. Give but a small sign. I am quite near.
Between us there is but a narrow wall, and by sheer chance; for it would take merely a call from your lips or from mine to break it down, and that without a sound.
The wall is builded of your images.
They stand before you hiding you like names. And when the light within me blazes high that in my inmost soul I know you by, the radiance is squandered on their frames.
And then my senses, which too soon grow lame, exiled from you, must go their homeless ways.
Jesus began to reproach the towns where most of his mighty deeds had been done, since they had not repented. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes. Matthew 11:20-21
Chorazin and Bethsaida were privileged. They had been blessed to see God’s power miraculously displayed in Jesus. And yet they failed to believe! How can that be? Hard-heartedness? Stupidity?
I think that, more likely, it was fear – the woeful condition that holds us back from giving ourselves to the truth. What would be required of them if they believed? What changes would they have to make in their lives? How would their comfortable world be turned upside-down?
Repentance: that would be the fruit of faith in Jesus. Many of them just couldn’t face it.
Today in God’s Lavish Mercy:
How committed is my faith? How is the Truth of Jesus alive in my life? What repentance, large or small, do I need to offer God?
Poetry: Savior – Maya Angelou
Petulant priests, greedy centurions, and one million incensed gestures stand between your love and me.
Your agape sacrifice is reduced to colored glass, vapid penance, and the tedium of ritual.
Your footprints yet mark the crest of billowing seas but your joy fades upon the tablets of ordained prophets.
Visit us again, Savior. Your children, burdened with disbelief, blinded by a patina of wisdom, carom down this vale of fear. We cry for you although we have lost your name.
Jesus said to his Apostles: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s enemies will be those of his household. Matthew 10:34-36
I would not have liked hearing these words from Jesus, would you? The last thing I would have ever wanted was to be set against my precious mother! So WHAT is Jesus talking about?
These words are central to Christ’s mandate to his disciples. He is telling them that they will inevitably meet painful conflict while living out his mission. Sometimes the conflict will even be within their families and among their friends.
This is because God’s Peace is not quiet indifference but the striving for just equanimity for all people. This is the sword of discipleship – we must cut ourselves away from anything that turns us from a just and merciful God.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, We pray for graced insight that we may see where the sword is pointing in our lives, and for courage that we may do the necessary cutting to be worthy disciples and build an honest peace in our world.
Poetry: Swords Into Plowshares – Daniel Berrigan, SJ This poem was written in response to the conviction of the Plowshares Eight, of whom Berrigan was a member, for their civil disobedience against nuclear war.
Whatever town or village you enter, look for a worthy person in it, and stay there until you leave. As you enter a house, wish it peace. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; if not, let your peace return to you. Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words— go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet. Matthew 10: 11-14
Jesus gives his disciples a lesson on how to deal with disappointment and frustration as they spread the Gospel. Not every heart is going to be open to them. Jesus wants them to give their mission a heartfelt try. But if it meets a wall, they should not bang their head against it. Just turn around, let it go, and shake off their concern. Let it be like so much “dust in the wind”.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
All disciples of Jesus, all who sincerely live and preach the Gospel, are going to meet frustration at many points in their lives. We live in a world that is often diametrically opposed to the Beatitudes, the Magnificat, the Our Father. We live with people who cover classroom walls with the Ten Commandments while breaking every one of them in personal practice.
It can be frustrating, but Jesus says not to get caught in that frustration. Rather, he teaches, shake it off and move on to more receptive ground.
Jesus was serious about this and, in another passage, used some harsh words to make his point:
Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces. Matthew 7:6-7
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Over the course of our lives, we will find ourselves somewhere in these passages – disciples or frustraters, pearl- givers or swine! Wherever we stand, God’s grace awaits us.
Poetry: Shake Thyself from the Dust – Mary Hoyt Loveland
Shake thyself from the dust, faint heart; Loose thyself from bands that bind. Thou art not Assyria’s thrall; Captive, rise and freedom find!
Captive, this is Love’s own realm! Lo! the very hills rejoice That oppression is cast down; Yea, the streams lift up their voice.
Yea, each dewy blossom glows, Freed from error’s withering blight. Loosed from tyranny and fear, Captive, turn ye to the light!
Turn ye to the light, and see That no evil can dismay, Gathering clouds of bitterness, Hiding harmony from day.
Turn ye to the light, faint one; In the truth is freedom won!
That I, Paul, might not become too elated, because of the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 13:6-9
Two millennia of believers have speculated about Paul’s “thorn”. Was it a bad hip, sciatica, or maybe eczema? And why didn’t he just come right out and tell us what it was?
Such useless speculation may make us miss the point of this powerful passage. Paul was immensely graced by God to the point that he could easily have become proud. Although he begged for the “thorn” to leave him, he received it as a gift. That gift allowed Paul to give not only his strengths to God’s service, but also his weaknesses.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Do you have a little “thorn” somewhere that bothers and distracts you from full trust in God? Maybe an inability to forgive, an excessive need for control, an uncharitable judgment, a fear of change, an intolerance toward certain personalities, a fascination with personal achievements?
God invites us to transform these “thorns” into blessings by giving them to the Divine Energy Who calls us to love fiercely like Paul did.
Quote:
“The thorn from the bush one has planted, nourished and pruned pricks more deeply and draws more blood.”
Maya Angelou
Music: A Thorn Tree – from Trinity UMC in Montpelier, VT
I came upon this lovely rendition by accident, and I thought it was beautiful in its simplicity.
Our Gospel today recounts the call of Matthew to be Jesus’ disciple. The master artist Caravaggio has beautifully captured that “Who me?” moment. We see the summoning hand of Jesus out of the shadows on the right. Matthew and his companion are flushed with Light. Matthew, on the left, points to his chest in the implied question, “Are you talking to me?”.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: Yes, God is talking to me. Do I see God’s Presence, perhaps out of the shadowy circumstances of my life? Do I listen? What do I hear? Do I follow?.
Matthew stood right up and followed. What can we learn from him?
Poetry: The Calling of St. Matthew – James Lasdun
Not the abrupt way, frozen In the one glance of a painter’s frame Christ in the doorway pointing. Matthew’s face Bright with perplexity, the glaze Of a lifetime at the countinghouse Cracked in the split second’s bolt of being chosen.
But over the years, slowly, Hinted at, an invisible curve; Persistent bias always favoring Backwardly the relinquished thing Over the kept, the gold signet ring Dropped in a beggar’s bowl, the eye not fully
Comprehending the hand, not yet; Heirloom damask thrust in a passing Stranger’s hand, the ceremonial saddle (Looped coins, crushed clouds of inline pearl) Given on an irresistible impulse to a servant. Where it sat
A saddle-shaped emptiness Briefly, obscurely brimming … Flagons Cellars of wine, then as impulse steadied into habit, habit to need, Need to compulsion, the whole vineyard The land itself, graves, herds, the ancestral house,
Given away, each object’s Hollowed-out void successively More vivid in him than the thing itself, As if renouncing merely gave Density to having; as if He’s glimpsed in nothingness a derelict’s
Secret of unabated, Inverse possession … And only then, Almost superfluous, does the figure Step softly to the shelter door; Casual, foreknown, almost familiar, Calmly received, like someone long awaited.
So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But Thomas said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” John 20:25
There’s that tiny word for which, despite a magnanimously holy life, Thomas remains famous:
Unless …
At that particular moment in his life, Thomas’s faith was conditional. He would not believe Jesus was alive unless he saw and touched him.
I doubt that Thomas was alone in his “conditionality”. The faith of many of those scared disciples was probably a bit shaky. Thomas was just more forthcoming in his doubts and hadn’t, like some of them, already seen the Risen Lord.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We all know what it’s like to have doubts – about big things, like our faith, and about little things like our appearance. It feels like we’re being dropped into a safety net that might have a hole in it. Will it hold, or will it fall through? And what happens to us in either case!
Decades ago, when I taught eighth grade, one of my brightest students asked me this: “Sister, you’ve dedicated your whole life for the faith. What if, in the end, there is no God or heaven?”
I’m not going to tell you my answer. I’m going to suggest that you consider what your own answer would be. Is your faith conditional or unconditional?
Poetry: St. Thomas the Apostle – Bishop Edward Henry Bickersteth (1825-1906)
The Paschal feast was ended. Multitudes, Unweeting what was done, that day had left The gates of Zion for their far-off homes; And there was silence, where but yesterday Had been the hum of thousands. Olivet Slept calmly underneath the waning moon, And darkening shadows fell across the steeps And hollows of Jerusalem. Deep night Had drench'd the eyes of thousands. But, behold, Within the upper room where Jesus broke The bread of life, and pour'd the mystic wine The night before He suffer'd, once again The little band of those who loved Him most Were gather'd. On the morrow morn they thought To leave the holy city, holier now Than ever in their eyes, and go to meet Their Lord upon the Galilean hill.
All bosoms swell'd with gladness, all save one; One heart amid that group of light and love Was desolate and dark: nine weary days Of doubt, which shadow'd all eternity, Had written years of suffering on his brow. The worst he fear'd to him was realized, Life quench'd, for ever quench'd, and death supreme. Jesus was dead. And vainly others told, How they had seen and heard their risen Lord; Himself had seen the lifeless body hang Upon the cross; and, till he saw like them And like them touch'd the prints in hands and side, He would not, for he could not, hope again.
But there has been enough of sorrow now For that true mourner, sorely tried but true: And as they communed of an absent Lord Jesus was there, though doors were shut and barr'd, There in the midst of them; and from His lips, Who is Himself our Peace, the words of peace Fell as of old like dew on every heart, But surely sweetest, calmest, tenderest On one most torn and tost. The waves were still; Day broke; the shadows fled: nor this alone, Love offer'd all which bitterest grief had ask'd, And laying bare the inly bleeding wound Heal'd it, which haply else had bled afresh In after years, till faith adoring claim'd In One, whom sense no longer sought to touch, The Lord of life, the everlasting God.
O Master, though our eyes have never look'd Upon Thy blessèd face and glorious form, Grant us to trust Thee with a perfect trust, And love Thee and rejoice in Thee unseen, And prove the heaven of Thy beatitude On those who, though they see Thee not, believe.
Music: When I Survey The Wondrous Cross – Keith & Kristyn Getty
Lavish Mercy 