O Emmanuel,
Who loved us so
You took our flesh,
come,
open our eyes
to see You here
ever near,
ever within us.
As Earth turns –
in so many ways –
to greatest darkness,
light the candle of
Your Indwelling
deep within our
longing hearts.
As Mary knew your
Closeness,
let us know You.
As Joseph held You
in mutuality of trust,
let us hold You and
be held by You.
Be born again
in the love that
we return to You
by loving one another
well and tenderly.
Cleave us to
Your Brilliant Light
though hidden in
life’s puzzling shadows,
God with Us,
God ever with Us!
O Emmanuel, come
be with us
on our longest nights.
Let us lean soft into You
on our hardest days.
Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!
Music: Winter Cold Night – John Foley, SJ
(Lyrics below)
Winter Cold Night – John Foley, SJ
Dark, dark, the winter cold night, lu-lee-ley
Hope is hard to come by, lu-lee-ley
Hard, hard, the journey tonight, lu-lee-ley.
Star, guide, hope, hide
our poor, winter cold night.
And on earth peace, good will to men.
Lean, lean, the living’ tonight, lu-lee-lay.
Star seems darker sometimes, lu-lee-lay.
Unto you is born this day a Savior.
Pain, yes, in the bornin’ tonight, lu-lee-lay.
Star, guide, hope, hide
our poor, winter cold night.
Around us,
and at times within us,
there is a foolishness
that has forgotten You.
There is a shallowness
that skims this
sacred well of life
on the thinest surface of
our pretenses,
our distractions,
our frightened preoccupations.
Take us to the depth
where Your Wisdom
dwells within us.
There let us find
peace
undisturbed by circumstance;
justice
fed by lavish mercy;
Love
beyond boundaries,
beyond definition,
beyond imagination,
beyond time.
Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!
Music: Who Has Known – John Foley, SJ
O the depth of the riches of God;
and the breadth of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
For who has known the mind of God?
To Him be glory forever.
A virgin will carry a child and give birth,
and His name shall be called Emanuel.
For who has known the mind of God?
To Him be glory forever.
The people in darkness have seen a great light;
for a child has been born, His dominion is wide.
For who has known the mind of God?
To Him be glory forever.
Today, in Mercy, we celebrate Gaudete Sunday, a name which comes from the first word of the Introit of today’s Mass:
Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.
Our readings, too, counsel us to rejoice, and to do so with patience and honesty before God.
REJOICE: Those whom the LORD has ransomed …. will meet with joy and gladness (Isaiah 35:10)
BE PATIENT: You too must be patient. Make your hearts firm, because the coming of the Lord is at hand. (James 5:8)
SPEAK HONESTLY WITH GOD: When John the Baptist heard in prison of the works of the Christ, he sent his disciples to Jesus with this question, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” (Matthew 11:2)
As we pray with these verses, we might ask, similarly to John the Baptist:
Is the coming of the Lord really at hand?
Is our long wait to be complete in God really over?
Hasn’t this gone on for 2000 years with no Second Coming?
Well, it all depends on how we look at it.
With our feet and our experiences firmly planted in a time-bound world, it is hard for us to enter God’s timeless view of our salvation.
With God there is no waiting. We already live in the fullness of God’s eternal life.
Our time-bound life is our chance to open ourselves to that Fullness by allowing our experiences to fashion us in the image of Christ.
Every moment, every encounter, every experience carries the invitation to this Complete Love. Continually answering this invitation brings us into an ever deeper transparency with God.
When we see and live our lives this way, joy captures us. Circumstances may not always leave us happy or satisfied (I mean, look at John, he was imprisoned). But they cannot claim our joy, because we see patiently through time’s veil to the eternity already within us.
This sacred insight is the gift of our Baptism in Christ.
Today, we draw closer to the celebration of his presence with us in history by his birth on Christmas. But the deeper celebration is Christ’s continual rebirth in our lives of joy, patience and honest relationship with God.
Music: Patience People – John Foley, SJ (Lyrics below)
Patience, people, till the Lord is come.
See the farmer await the yield of the soil.
He watches it in winter and in spring rain.
Patience, people,
for the Lord is coming. Patience, people, till the Lord is come.
You have seen the purpose of the Lord.
You know of His compassion and His mercy.
Patience, people,
for the Lord is coming. Patience, people, till the Lord is come.
Steady your hearts for the Lord is close at hand.
And do not grumble, one against the other.
Patience, people, for the Lord is coming.
Today, in Mercy, we think about John the Baptist. For several days in this middle part of Advent, our Gospel makes reference to John, the Precursor of the Messiah.
John the Baptist by Anton Raphael Mengs – looking a lot better than he probably really looked!!!!
Faithful Jews had an expectation that there would be a Messiah, and that a fiery Precursor would announce him. They identified this forerunner with the prophet Elijah, based on writings like today’s from Sirach:
How awesome are you, Elijah, in your wondrous deeds! Whose glory is equal to yours? You were taken aloft in a whirlwind of fire, in a chariot with fiery horses. You were destined, it is written, in time to come to put an end to wrath before the day of the LORD…
Elijah, a prophet and a miracle worker, Gračanica monastery
In our Gospel, Jesus indicates that John the Baptist is the new Elijah, preparing the way for Jesus’s ministry.
Scripture scholars can get pretty bundled up in trying to explicate the meanings around Elijah and his return. For the purpose of our prayer, I find it helpful to take another approach.
What is it in my life that prepares me to receive God in my heart?
What inspires me “prepare the way of the Lord” in the worlds that I touch?
Do I pay attention to God’s “announcements”, those quiet inklings that tell me God is trying to make something new in my life?
Jesus says that Elijah “has already come” but has been rejected by the people.
Are there habits and choices in my life that make it hard for God to get through to me?
Maybe God is sending an “Elijah”or “Baptist” my way today. Will I recognize that Precursor? Will I be open to the message?
Music: Days of Elijah – Robin Mark.
The commentary in the Worship & Song Leader’s Edition contains a good summary of this hymn’s text: “This is a song of victory and of hope, of God’s triumph forever over death and of Christ’s eternal reign. It also calls believers to stand fast, even in the face of troubles, and to witness to the promised coming of Christ.”
Today, in Mercy, Isaiah paints a poetic picture of the soul fully taught by God. He describes that sacred obedience, or heart’s listening to God, which leads to fullness of joy, peace and eternal life.
When looking for music to complement Isaiah’s passage, I found a hymn written in 1876 by Frances R. Havergal, an English Anglican poet and hymn writer.
Her hymn Like a River Glorious, although written in older style language, contains several beautiful metaphors, many reflective of today’s passage from Isaiah.
You might want to pray with one or two of these images today:
A river of grace – perfect, yet deepening
Our hearts “stayed” upon God, anchored in faith
Being hidden in the hollow of God’s hand
“no blast of hurry” to disturb our peace (so appropriate to this busy season)
Our joys and sorrows falling like shadows across the sundial of our lives
I hope enjoy praying with this hymn, and the accompanying pictures, as much as I did.
Music: Like a River Glorious – Frances R. Havergal – 1876; performed here by the Parkview Mennonite Church. Follow the images and verses below.
A river of grace – perfect, yet deepening
Like a river glorious is God’s perfect peace,
Over all victorious, in its bright increase;
Perfect, yet it floweth fuller every day,
Perfect, yet it groweth deeper all the way.
Our hearts “stayed” upon God, anchored in faith
Refrain: Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blest
Finding, as He promised, perfect peace and rest.
Being hidden in the hollow of God’s hand
Hidden in the hollow of His blessed hand,
Never foe can follow, never traitor stand;
“no blast of hurry” to disturb our peace (so appropriate to this busy season)
Not a surge of worry, not a shade of care,
Not a blast of hurry touch the spirit there.
Our joys and sorrows falling like shadows across the sundial of our lives
(Refrain then …)
Every joy or trial falleth from above,
Traced upon our dial by the Sun of Love;
We may trust Him fully, all for us to do;
They who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true.
Today, in Mercy, Our readings counterbalance each with other peace and urgency.
A Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks
Isaiah, on the one hand, describes the Peaceable Kingdom where:
the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them. The cow and the bear shall be neighbors, together their young shall rest; the lion shall eat hay like the ox. The baby shall play by the cobra’s den, and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair. There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the Lord As water covers the sea.
Matthew, on the other hand, presents us with John the Baptist, who preached a fiery message. No doubt shocking in his camel hair tunic, a scrap of leather holding it in place, John railed at the pompous Pharisees for their deceitful, pretentious lives:
You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones. Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees.
The message of this Second Sunday is clear for us. We may have lived a half-hearted faith at times in our lives and gotten away with it. Those times are over.
For the One is coming who will “baptize with the Holy Spirit and with Fire”.
“Fake” will not hold up against his mighty gaze.
So this Second Sunday is a time to test the sincerity of our faith as proven by our actions. It is a time to check what kind of fruit we bear for the world. As we pass through the circumstances of our lives, do we leave a trail of peace, wisdom, counsel,and all the other blessings Isaiah envisions?
We can do this only by uniting ourselves in prayer and actions to the One rising today from the Root of Jesse, the One to whom both Isaiah and John tied their souls in unquenchable hope.
Music: A song of peace (Charles Villiers Stanford, (30 September 1852 – 29 March 1924) an Irish composer, music teacher, and conductor.) Lyrics below
1 And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse,
and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:
2 And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord;
3 And he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes,
neither reprove after the hearing of his ears:
4 And with righteousness shall he judge the poor,
and reprove with equity the meek of the earth:
and he shall smite the earth: with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.
5 And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins,
and faithfulness the girdle of his reins.
6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together;
and a little child shall lead them.
9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain:
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord,
as the waters cover the sea.
10 And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse,
which shall stand for an ensign unto the people;
and his rest shall be glorious.
Today, in Mercy, Isaiah promises the people that they will sing a song in the land of Judah.It will be a song that celebrates confidence in God, justice, enduring faith, peace and trust.
Do you ever sing to God when your heart is filled like that? I don’t mean Church-singing or words somebody else wrote.
I mean that sweet, indecipherable whisper a mother breathes over her child, or the mix of a hundred half-remembered melodies we hum when we are lost in the fullness of our lives.
And I don’t just mean the happy songs.
I mean the songs of loss and longing, awe and wonderment at life’s astounding turns. I mean even the sounds of silence when the refrain within us cannot be spoken.
When your heart is really stuck, unable to find the words to express the depth of your joy, longing or sorrow, try singing to God like that. So many times, I have done this while out on a solitary walk, or sitting by the water’s edge, or even driving on an open road. Sometimes, God even sings back!😉
(In a second post today, I will share a lovely poem which reminds me of a special prayer time in nature.)
Isaiah’s people were able to sing their song because they held on to faith and acted in justice. In our Gospel, Jesus tells us that this must be the way of our prayer too. He says that simply saying, “Lord, Lord” won’t cut it!
Real prayer is not just words. It is a life given to hearing God’s Word and acting on it. Real prayer is about always singing our lives in rhythm with the infinite, merciful melody of God.
Today, in Mercy, our readings take us to the Lord’s banquet. It is a rich image that threads through scripture and helps us understand what characterizes the perfect reign of God.
The readings, coming just on the heels of Thanksgiving, present familiar images to us. You may have been part of the preparation of the feast for your family and friends. Maybe you’re the master carver, or brought sides of old family recipes. Or you might be the table decorator or, most important, the clean-up guru!
Or maybe you were the one who steered the conversation so that all felt welcomed and included in the gathering. Maybe you were the one who took someone aside if they needed an extra portion of care. Maybe you were the one who invited someone with no other place to go.
That Thanksgiving meal, and every meal, can be a symbol of the heavenly banquet.
Isaiah’s banquet is all elegance and fullness. He describes an end-time when, despite a path through suffering, all is brought to perfection in God:
On this mountain the LORD of hosts will provide for all peoples A feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines.
Jesus’s feast in more “now”, and more rustic. He takes the ordinary stuff of present life and transforms it to satisfy the needs of those gathered. With sparse and simple ingredients, Jesus creates the “miracle meal” for the poor and hungry.
He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground. Then he took the seven loaves and the fish,
gave thanks, broke the loaves,
and gave them to the disciples,
who in turn gave them to the crowds. They all ate and were satisfied.
Christ’s presence with us in the Eucharist is both kinds of meal.
It points us to the perfection of heaven, where the “web” will be lifted from our eyes and we will see ourselves as one in Christ.
It calls us to be Christ for one another in this world – creating miracles of love and mercy so that all are adequately fed, in body and soul, for the journey we share.
Music:Banquet- Graham Kendrick (Lyrics below)
There’s no banquet so rich
As the bread and the wine
No table more holy
No welcome so kind
There’s no mercy so wide
As the arms of the cross
Come and taste, come and see
Come find and be found
There’s no banquet so rich
For what feast could compare
With the body of Jesus
Blessed, broken and shared?
Here is grace to forgive
Here is blood that atoned
Come and taste, come and see
Come know and be known
Take the bread, drink the wine
And remember His sacrifice
There’s no banquet so rich
As the feast we will share
When God gathers the nations
And dines with us here When death’s shadow is gone
Every tear wiped away
Come and eat, come and drink
Come welcome that day
There’s no banquet so rich
For our Saviour we find
Present here in the mystery
Of these humble signs
Cleansed, renewed, reconciled
Let us go out as one
Live in love, and proclaim
His death till he comes
Today, in Mercy, both Jesus and Isaiah offer us comforting visions.
Jesus talks about the innocence of children and the childlike. He blesses their ability to see things that our “adult” preoccupations often block from us.
I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.
Reading this, we might be reminded of verses from Clement Clarke Moore’s beloved poem, The Night Before Christmas:
The children were nestled all snug in their beds; While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads…
Jesus and Isaiah invite us to allow their hope-filled visions to dance in our heads. They call us to be in a state of innocent anticipation for the glorious Kingdom to reveal itself in our lives.
Read and relish Isaiah’s powerful description of the Lord of this Kingdom!
The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him: a Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, A Spirit of counsel and of strength, a Spirit of knowledge and of fear of the LORD, and his delight shall be the fear of the LORD.
Open your hearts to receive the revelation Jesus wants to give us:
Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.
Unlike Clement Moore’s sugar plums, these holy promises are not about tomorrow. Even though we re-enact our waiting in the season of Advent, Christ is already born in us through our Baptism. We already live in the Kingdom described by Jesus and Isaiah.
Hard to believe, isn’t it? Hard to see it for all the worldly upset blocking our sight, for all the Culture of Death around us?
That’s where the sacred vision comes in. Even in the midst of frenetic contradiction, we are called to find, proclaim and practice the redeeming reign of God!
Go deep with Jesus and Isaiah today. Find the inner well your Baptism has planted in your soul. Ask for the grace of boundless, childlike faith. Then joyfully live your life knowing the Kingdom is already within you!
Music: There Blooms a Rose in Bethlehem – Sovereign Grace Music
Today, in Mercy, we begin a series of readings from the Book of Daniel. It is the only time throughout the Liturgical Year that we get a good dose of Daniel. And it is well placed, coming in this final week before Advent.
Daniel is apocalyptic literature, a genre which conveys the author’s perception of the end times through dreams, visions and prophecies. Like many of our readings of the past weeks, Daniel focuses us on God’s Final Coming into time by interpreting current circumstances in a spiritual light.
Today’s Gospel does the same thing, but in a little different way.
Jesus tells the story of the poor widow who gave everything she had for the sake of the poor. This widow, in a sense, already lives in the “end times”, a time when our only “possessions” will be the good we have done in our lives.
Both these readings set us up to reflect on our lives and times as we approach Advent. This sacred season is the annual reenactment of Christ’s First Coming in order to prepare us for:
Christ’s daily revelation in our lives
Christ’s Final Coming at the end of time
All of Daniel’s complex visions and prophecies can feel a little confusing, but we can focus on this:
God is continually revealing Godself in the ordinary circumstances of time.
We can open ourselves to this revelation by our humble prayer and good works.
Staying awake like this in our hearts and souls will allow us to pass seamlessly into God’s Presence when the end times come.
Jesus’s feast in more “now”, and more rustic. He takes the ordinary stuff of present life and transforms it to satisfy the needs of those gathered. With sparse and simple ingredients, Jesus creates the “miracle meal” for the poor and hungry.
Lavish Mercy 