Saint Lawrence. Mosaic from the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev.
Today, in Mercy, we celebrate the feast of St. Lawrence who is noted for his love for those who were poor. Legend has it that Lawrence was demanded, before his martyrdom, to turn over the Church’s riches to the emperor Valerian. Instead, he distributed all the resources among the poor. Lawrence then gathered all these people, presenting them before Valerian with these words:
Behold in these poor persons the treasures which I promised to show you – these are the true treasures of the Church.
Lawrence was likely inspired by readings like today’s. In Corinthians, Paul encourages us to be cheerful givers. He says this delights God, the Giver of Divine Abundance, whom we are imitating.
In our reading from John, Jesus says that only in dying to ourselves do we live – the ultimate generosity. He says that only by doing this can we truly follow him.
While these readings are clear and simple, they are so profound that we can hardly take in their message. What they ask of us is daunting! The encouragement Jesus gives us to respond to his challenge is this:
The Father will honor whoever serves me.
St. Lawrence believed and lived this promise. What about us?
Music: Before the Bread – Elizabeth Alexander
We all want our lives to be full and complete – to be “bread”. But there are many steps before the grain of wheat becomes bread, as captured in this elegantacapella canon.
Today, in Mercy, our reading from Numbers is about trust versus fear.The Israelites have finally made it to the front door of the Promised Land. But they hesitate to go in. They get Moses to bargain with God to allow scouts to go ahead of them, checking out the lay of the land. These scouts return with a mixed report: arable land, but ferocious current residents! The community freezes in fear, refusing to go farther.
The Israelites Cross the Jordan River by Gustave Doré 1832-1883
So what’s this all about for us? Is it wrong for us to be deliberate about our decisions, reversing them when the situation becomes threatening? No, of course not. So what’s the difference here in our Numbers community?
At this moment in Israel’s history, God has made clear what is expected of them. They are in covenant with God – “all in” to follow God’s plan for their lives. God has demonstrated his commitment to them in numerous ways, and forgiven earlier disloyalties.
The question before them now is have they given God their whole hearts.
Or will this be a sham covenant in which they pick and choose when they will be for God and when they will be just for themselves?
The life of deep spiritual commitment to God is not always smooth. We get really mixed up sometimes in our self-concerns and fears. Many years ago, one of my eighth grade students asked me this: what if there really is no God and you’ve wasted your life believing there was?
It was quite a question, and I’ll bet you want to know my answer.
I said that I wouldn’t change a thing about how I have chosen to live my life. Trusting God and giving my life to him has given me a freedom beyond the limits of this world. Even if, at the end, her doubt proved true, I would have had a blessed and joyous life.
The fact is that we, just like those Israelites standing on the edge of Canaan, don’t know what will happen to us if we trust God. Life and the future is an intimidating open border that challenges our faith and resolve.
But if we constantly hedge our self-gift to God, we will never be capable of receiving the fullness of God’s gift in return.
Today, let’s pray for the trust to step over into God’s country by our acts of faith, hope, love, mercy, generosity, truthfulness, hospitality and courage.
This beautiful reinterpretation of today’s Responsorial Psalm may inspire you as it did me. It is from the website of Christine Robinson, a Unitarian Universalist minister: Click here for Psalm renderings
Psalm 106: Returning “Give thanks to God, who is good
whose mercy endures forever.”
We stand in awe of an infinity
which we cannot begin to comprehend
We set ourselves to live in tune with the universe—
that we may be glad with the gladness of people of faith.
Yes, time and time again we have gone astray,
We have despoiled this beautiful, wonderful world
dealt unjustly with our compadres
The law of love is a hard law.
In our prayer and then in our lives,
we return to the Way.
Today, in Mercy, we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration, that moment when the Godly glory of Jesus shone in all its splendor before a few very blessed disciples.
On that blessed day, Peter, James and John went with Jesus to a “very high mountain”. Many scholars identify the site as Mt. Tabor, where the Franciscan Church of theTransfiguration is today.
Aside:
It was interesting to me that, just the other day as I thought about this reflection, I noticed a news alert that a huge fire had broken out on this mountain.
The Franciscans were evacuated and, fortunately, there were no human injuries.
Some theologians suggest that these three disciples were afforded this magnificent gift so that their faith would be sufficiently strengthened to endure the coming sufferings.
“Transfiguration” is a word without a true synonym. It is a unique experience for a being to be completely infused with the glory of God. When this happened to Jesus, something equally unique happened to Peter, James and John as well. They too became new beings, never the same after that glorious and -yes- shocking moment.
Once they descended that mountain, everything changed. In a sense, they too had been “transfigured”. They had seen Jesus clearly in the beauty of his Godliness, and they would now see everything else in that Light.
Sometimes in our lives, God gives us “mini-transfigurations”. Something we had seen only in ordinary terms suddenly becomes an insight into the sacred. It may be a person, a situation, a natural phenomenon. We see through the external trappings and find the glorious Face of God.
Jesus invites us to experience this kind of soul-change by loving God in the poor, sick, uneducated, displaced, suffering, stigmatized people of this world. He asks us to be with them, in word and deed, and to allow God’s light in them to change our hearts and souls.
Music: Transfiguration/We Behold the Splendor of God – Carey Landry (Lyrics below)
“Transfiguration” [Chorus]
We behold the splendor of God shining on the face of Jesus. We behold the splendor of God shining on the face of the Son.
[Verse1]
And oh, how his beauty transforms us, the wonder of presence abiding. Transparent hearts give reflection of Tabor’s light within, of Tabor’s light within.
[Verse 2]
Jesus, Lord of Glory, Jesus, Beloved Son, oh, how good to be with you; how good to share your light; how good to share your light
Today, in Mercy, our readings focus on “vanity” – its threats and remedies.
Often, we think of vanity as a physical emotion – that Narcissistic self-absorption that keeps us in front of a mirror for inordinate amounts of time. Our culture promotes this kind of vanity by working endlessly to convince us that without certain products we are “not enough” on our own.
Historically, this kind of rhetoric was directed primarily toward women, spawning a nearly $500 billion global cosmetic market! But men are catching up! The men’s market is forecasted to reach nearly $30 billion by 2023.
Several years ago, while flying home from a business trip, I was seated across from two young women. As we approached home, the one nearest me, began to prepare for landing. She initiated an elaborate cosmetic ritual that involved no fewer than ten brushes plus an array of tubes and compacts. At first, it struck me really funny. Then I realized how very sad it was.
This maturing child was no more than eighteen. She was naturally beautiful with the vigor of youth. But she had obviously spent a lot of money and time not believing in her natural beauty.
Society considers vanity as a kind of pride and pomposity. I think just the opposite. I think vanity is really fear, self-dissatisfaction, anxiety and pain because something has convinced us that we are inadequate.
Vanity damages souls as well as bodies. It makes us behave in greedy, self-absorbed and careless ways toward our neighbors. It makes us pretend we are more than we think we are. It saps us of the strength to be generous, trusting and hopeful.
Paul, in his letter to the Colossians, tells us to get over this kind of vanity:
Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry. Stop lying to one another, since you have taken off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed, for knowledge, in the image of its creator.
What if that sweet girl on Flight 419 had been able to look in her mirror and see the image of her Creator? What if we could all do that? How might we spend our time and money differently if we were convinced of how beautiful we are to God?
Music: How Could Anyone Ever Tell You – Shaina Nell
I have added two versions of this beautiful song. Let God sing it to you in your prayer today.
Today, in Mercy, we begin a few days of reading Leviticus. The reading today provides a long list of when and how the community should gather to worship. It is a lexicon on how to honor the sacred presence in their lives. Such honoring includes aspects of celebration, decoration, sharing, remembering and hoping together.
While the particular enjoinments detailed in Leviticus might not pertain to us, their spirit does. It is a spirit that encourages us to cherish the gift of time – moments, days, years – as precious opportunities to encounter God.
Down through the ages, people seeking holiness have used various, ritualized practices to remember and honor God’s omnipresence in their lives. They include morning and nighttime prayers, Grace before Meals, the Blessing of the Hour, the Angelus at noontime, the great liturgical practices of Advent and Lent, and the Divine Office. Each of these spiritual practices helps us to be more intentional about the true meaning and purpose of our daily life.
Macrina Wiederkehr, a Benedictan monastic, has published a beautiful book to help people mark the hours of their day. She says this in Seven Sacred Pauses:
When I speak of “the hours” I am referring to those times of the day that the earth’s turning offers us: midnight, dawn, midmorning, noon, midafternoon, evening, and night. Although every hour is sacred, these special times have been hallowed by centuries of devotion and prayer…..
The daily and nightly dance of the hours is a universal way of honoring the earth’s turning as well as the sacred mysteries that flow out of our Christian heritage.
I think this is exactly what our Leviticus passage is doing as well. Our time is so precious and it flows so quickly! What a tragedy if we fail to stop and realize that it is the holy river on which we are meant to float to God!
Today, in Mercy, we finish our several weeks’ journey through Exodus. Like all great books, this one closes with a powerful final chapter – one that assures us that the story has not ended.
Have you ever read a book that you wish would never end? Of course, they all do – but bits of some live in us forever.
With sacred scripture, the Living Word remains with us by inspiring us to live out its spirit in our lives. That Holy Word bonds with the Spirit already dwelling within us through our Creation and Baptism.
For the Exodus community, this Indwelling was given visible expression in the tabernacle Moses built. God chose to fill that tabernacle with Abiding Presence.
Each one of us, and every human being, is a dwelling place of God’s love and hope for us. We are tabernacles of God’s Spirit, breathed into us in an act of divine desire for us to be God’s eternal beloved.
Pretty overwhelming, isn’t it!
So much so that, just as for the Israelites, our vision of God’s Presence is often clouded by the frenzy of our lives. It is only when we still our souls in worship that we recognize God living with and within us!
Music: This Alone – Tim Manion, SJ ( Photos are The Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel / Normandy, in the Manche department in France.)
Obviously, I haven’t met Moses personally. 😂 But I have met many wonderful human beings who have reflected a similar radiance.
It is a mirrored glory that comes from friendship with God.
It glows in the innocence of children and the layered wisdom of the elderly. It blazes in those seeking social justice and in those silently, unwaveringly praying for it. It lights the hope of the living and the dying. It is that mysterious, unquenchable candle shining in both joy and sorrow. Its other holy names are Faith, Hope and Love.
No one need tell us. We know when we are in the presence of such Light. It needs no words.
Today, let’s pray for the blessing of this Radiance all over our shadowed world. Let’s pray for it to shine within us.
Today, in Mercy, our readings offer us a central question for our faith and spirituality: What do we really worship?
As we continue the Exodus story, Moses has been on the mountain receiving the Law from God. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, delegated leader Aaron is blowing his assignment. The Israelites tire of waiting for Moses. They want another god to lead them onward. Aaron comes up with idea of fashioning such a idol from all their molten jewelry.
When Moses descends the mountain with the newly-minted tablets in hand, he burns in anger at the scene, smashing the holy stones at his feet. More than a flared temper, this act symbolizes a fractured relationship with God.
The story suggests this for our prayer: we are in ever-deepening relationship with God through our own covenants – our creation, our baptism, our further professions of faith and commitment, our sacramental encounters. These are all living relationships, inviting us to new and deeper life in God.
Still, there may be times in our lives when our hearts lose focus on these covenants
when we try to move somewhere without God’s companionship
when we substitute old baubles for moral or spiritual truth
when we return to weakening comforts rather than grow into a challenging grace
when we just get really mixed up about what is most important in our lives
The calf-worshippers had a big fail in this regard. Exodus tells the story of a merciful God trying to deal with their disloyalty and refashion them as God’s chosen people.
Our Gospel shows us Martha, also a little off target in terms of her spiritual priorities. While she is no where near idol worship, she still allows needless distractions to keep her from fully enjoying relationship with God.
Gentle, merciful Jesus turns her eyes toward him and she understands. Maybe that beautiful grace is what we want to pray for today.
Today, in Mercy, our readings are all about food in the many forms and senses of that word.
The Israelites have been in the desert for a while.The burden of travel is beginning to weigh upon them.Food is short, tempers even shorter.Things seem so bad that, in a fit of stupendous forgetfulness, they tell Moses they were better off as slaves in Egypt.
Moses asks God to intervene, which God does with the gifts of manna and quail.
The folks in today’s reading remind me a lot of people I know — even myself.Haven’t we all heard, and maybe uttered, the complaint that things were so much better in “the old days”.Haven’t we critiqued a challenging situation with the unhelpful assessment, “Well, it’s not like it used to be!”
But the God of Exodus is so patient, as is Moses.God doesn’t become angry with the complainers. Instead God promises to take care of them and to stay with them forever on their journey. God makes good on this word by initiating the naturally occurring phenomena of morning manna and migrating quail so that the community is fed.
Some areas to focus on as we pray with this passage:
God does not deliver the Israelites immediately to their destination. Life is a journey, not an arrival.
God intervenes to meet their needs, but through ordinary occurrences rather than miracles. God uses manna and quail, surprising but nonetheless naturally occurring events in the Sinai desert.
God expects the Israelites to interact with grace, to recognize that God is about the continuing work of Creation and Covenant, even within the natural circumstances of our lives.
For us, the profound reminder that God accompanies us in drought and abundance, in joy and sorrow, in wilderness and stability; that God is listening under our hungers; that God is sustaining us in graces we may be slow to recognize.
Music: Panis Angelicus – Luciano Pavarotti
Panis angelicus fit panis hominum; Dat panis caelicus figuris terminum: O res mirabilis! manducat Dominum Pauper, servus, et humilis.
Te trina Deitas unaque poscimus: Sic nos tu visita, sicut te colimus; Per tuas semitas duc nos quo tendimus, Ad lucem quam inhabitas. Amen.
Bread of Angels, made the bread of men; The Bread of heaven
puts an end to all symbols:
A thing wonderful!
The Lord becomes our food:
poor, a servant, and humble.
We beseech Thee, Godhead One in Three
That Thou wilt visit us,
as we worship Thee,
lead us through Thy ways, We who wish to reach the light
in which Thou dwellest.
Amen.
Today, in Mercy, our readings are all about making and keeping promises.
Our first reading refers to Genesis and God’s promise to Abraham of land and posterity. Through his hospitality to three disguised angels, Abraham secures God’s promise to bless Sara and him with a child.
In today’s second reading from Colossians, Paul assures us that God has brought that promise to its full completion in the gift of Jesus Christ living in us.
…the mystery hidden from ages and from generations past has now been manifested to his holy ones, to whom God chose to make known the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; it is Christ in you, the hope for glory.
In our Gospel, Jesus encourages Martha to give her attention to the presence of this promise revealed in her life. Mary sees the promise fulfilled in Jesus, the living presence of God. She gives her full heart to it. Martha, maybe like us sometimes, is preoccupied by other distractions.
Our readings invite us to rejoice in God’s promise to us
of “land” and “posterity”. In Jesus, we are brought home to God. In Jesus, the fruitfulness of our life is eternally secured.
We make promises to God too.
As I think about my vows today, I am so aware of the recent deaths of two of our Sisters. At all of our funerals, our vows rest near us for our wakes – a profound symbol of promises given and promises fulfilled. God bless you, Margaret and Mary Ellen! Thank you for your witness among us! Today, as we pray about God’s faithful promises to us, we might want to reflect on and deepen the commitments of our Baptism, our religious profession, our marriage, our covenants to communities of faith and service.
Like Martha, we might hear Jesus encourage us to give our fullest heart to that which is most important.
Lavish Mercy 