Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 43 whose heart reveals the nature of hope and its power to inspire praise.
Wait for God, whom I shall again praise, my savior and my God.
Psalm 43 is really the completion of Psalm 42, and they form a masterful combination.
According to biblical scholar Carroll Stuhmueller:
The three stanzas of Psalm 42-43 lead listeners and readers through depression, struggle, and hope. The refrain sung at the end of each stanza contains three parts that summarize the attitude of each:
Why are you cast down, O my soul
Depression
and why are you disquieted within me?
Struggle
Hope in God Whom I shall again praise,
Hope
my Lord and my God.
Praise
Stuhmueller: Spirituality of the Psalms
The psalm follows logically after today’s first reading in which the prophet Haggai challenges the people to pick themselves up by the bootstraps and get working on the restoration of the Temple. The prophet proclaims encouragement in God’s name:
For I am with you, says the LORD of hosts. This is the pact that I made with you when you came out of Egypt, And my spirit continues in your midst; do not fear!
Haggai 2:5
Praying with these readings, we may reflect on our own current or past challenges in the light of faith and hope. God is with us now as God always has been, and will be.
We are empowered by that promise to live courageous, generous lives. This is what hope looks like when it is alive in us.
Poetry: Hope – Czeslaw Milosz
Hope is with you when you believe The earth is not a dream but living flesh, that sight, touch, and hearing do not lie, That all thing you have ever seen here Are like a garden looked at from a gate. You cannot enter. But you're sure it's there. Could we but look more clearly and wisely We might discover somewhere in the garden A strange new flower and an unnamed star. Some people say that we should not trust our eyes, That there is nothing, just a seeming, There are the ones who have no hope. They think the moment we turn away, The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist, As if snatched up by the hand of thieves.
The link below will take you to Mercy International Center’s website. About mid-page, you can click to see Catherine McAuley’s story, “In God Alone”. It is a wonderful short film. Please take time to enjoy it and to thank God with the Sisters of Mercy for our blessed founder, dear Catherine. Blessings and love to all our Mercy family throughout the world!
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 149, a call to praise God in festive celebration because God will enjoy that!
Praying with that thought today, I ask myself:
Is my God a happy God?
Our psalm says “Yes!” – a Lover of song, joy, praise, dance, timbrel and harp!
Hallelujah! Sing to the Lord a new song; sing the praises of God in the company of the faithful. Let Israel rejoice in their maker; let the children of Zion be joyful in their sovereign. Let them praise the name of the Lord in the dance; let them sing praise to God with timbrel and harp. For the Lord takes pleasure in this people.
Psalm 149:1-4
Only a happy God could have imagined the beautiful gift of Creation we have been given. Stop today to listen, watch, and feel that happiness in sun, rain, wood scent, birdsong, cat purr, baby breath, child play, elder eyes, or the thousand other ways God will try to touch your soul today.
( Praying for the safety of all our friends in Australia with the earthquakes and for people of the Canary Islands.❤️🙏)
Poetry: The Creation of Birds – Renee Yann, RSM
O, the wonderful mood that seized You,
God, as you created birds;
you dancing there, twirling in light,
flinging your crystal arms to infinite music,
flicking your hands like magic fountains,
feathers and colors splashing out from your fingertips,
chattering, rainbowed profusions
of your Boundless Life.
Your inexhaustible, joy-filled soul laughing out
the soaring beings into the still universe,
peals of you infusing them each
to their measure with notes of your inner song.
O, I see your Holy Eyes flash color to them
as they fly, strobing their feathers
with shards of your prismed white light.
This morning, seeing only one,
free and jubilant in a thin sycamore,
I consume it as part of your Delightful Essence,
this day’s communion with you,
grey and orange wafer filling me
with mysteries of the primal dance
from which we both were born.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, as we mark the Autumn Equinox, we pray with a verse from our Responsorial Psalm:
Bless the Lord, all you chosen ones, and may all of you praise God’s majesty. Celebrate days of gladness, give God praise.
Tobit 13: 7-8
"EQUINOX"
- the beautiful heft of the word!
Four malleable vowels and
two steely consonants,
softened slightly by a third.
On the fulcrum of a middle "i","equ" pushes for balance
against the pressure of "nox",
whose mass bears
winter's weighted threat.
However we may read the word “equinox”, it spells “change“. Trees put away their lithesome summer greens, like sleeveless tops folded on September’s shelf. Slowly, they wrap themselves within autumn’s deep gold and umber sweaters, trimmed in warm magenta.
We too return to the enterprise of warmth, of fueling fires, of lighting lamps. What nature gave, and we heedlessly received in bright July, is spent. Some chilled memory of solstice motivates us to prepare.
Our hearts too, in synch or out with seasons, cycle through such changes. This inner rhythm of need and abundance is the music through which the Holy Spirit shapes our understanding of God. As in all graceful dances, there must be a yielding. There must be abandon to the mystery into which each passing step dissolves.
God hums the infinite song in our souls, if we will listen. It is deeper than any single note of joy or sorrow. It is the fluid under-beat of Love which recreates and sustains us in every shifting moment of our lives. We belong to it as the waves belong to the Sea, as the leaves belong to the Seasons.
In Philadelphia, it is a glorious day – a perfect vestibule to a season of amazing beauty. Nature prepares to shed the showy accretions of summer in a multi-colored ritual of leave-taking. It is time to return to the essentials – back to the branch, back to the buried root, back to the bare, sturdy reality that will anchor us in the coming winter.
On each of the coming days, some new layer of green will ignite in a blaze of scarlet or gold then turn out its light for a long winter’s sleep. Nature knows when things are finished. It knows when it has had enough. It knows its need for a season of emptying, for a clearing of the clutter, for the deep hibernation of its spirit.
But we humans often ignore the need for an “autumning” of our spirits. We try to live every moment in the high energy of summer – producing, moving, anticipating, and stuffing our lives with abundance.
But simplicity, solitude and clarity are necessary for our spirit to renew itself. Autumn is the perfect time to prayerfully examine the harvest of our lives – reaping the essentials and sifting out the superfluous. In the quiet shade of a crimson maple tree, we may discover what we truly love, deeply believe and really need to be fully happy.
Take time on these crystal days to ask yourself what is really essential in your life. Nurture those things with attention and care. Don’t take them for granted. After the flare of the summer has passed, these are the things that will sustain you: a strong faith, a faithful love and a loving compassion. Tend them in this season of harvest.
Music: Autumn from The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 126
This six-verse psalm is a regular part of Jewish, Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican and other Protestant liturgies. It is well known in Judaism as the preliminary psalm recited before the Birkat Hamazon (Grace After Meals) on Shabbat and Jewish holidays, and as such is sung to a wide variety of melodies.
Wikipedia
Shir hama'alot (Psalm 126) - cantor Yossele Rosenblatt
Psalm 126 can be described as:
“joy remembered and joy anticipated”
James Luther Mays
The psalm is divided into two parts.
Joys remembered: The first three verses gratefully reflect on the joy and freedom felt upon return to Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile.
Joys anticipated: The second three verses attest to the difficulties subsequent to that return. They voice a plea for restoration of joy.
This is a prayer most of us can relate to. Can you remember a time when you were so delighted to obtain a certain item, or status, or goal that you felt it was “almost like a dream” situation?
When the LORD brought back the captives of Zion, we were like those dreaming. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with rejoicing.
Psalm 126:1
But perhaps, once that reality was obtained, it wasn’t so easy to manage, or complete, or enjoy! Perhaps there were “dry spells” like the torrent-less desert of 126:
Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like the torrents in the southern desert. Those that sow in tears shall reap rejoicing.
Psalm 126: 4-5
For example, I’ve heard a few young couples express delight upon buying their first home – a “fixer upper”. But often, the “fixing up” requires a lot more resources than expected!
Such was the situation for the Israelites who joyfully returned to Jerusalem — only to find a city in ruins, bereft of their beloved Temple, with devastated fields and vineyards.
Still, Psalm 126 is a testament to hope and resilience. It is an affirmation that we can go forward by faith, hope, trust, patience, and by drawing on the power of remembered mercies.
Although they go forth weeping, carrying the seed to be sown, They shall come back rejoicing, carrying their sheaves.
Psalm 126:6
Poem: Blessing to Summon Rejoicing – Jan Richardson
When your weeping has watered the earth. When the storm has been long and the night and the season of your sorrowing. When you have seemed an exile from your life, lost in the far country, a long way from where your comfort lies. When the sound of splintering and fracture haunts you. When despair attends you. When lack. When trouble. When fear. When pain. When empty. When lonely. When too much of what depletes you and not enough of what restores and rests you. Then let there be rejoicing. Then let there be dreaming. Let there be laughter in your mouth and on your tongue shouts of joy. Let the seeds soaked by tears turn to grain, to bread, to feasting. Let there be coming home.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 100, called the “Jubilate Deo” because of its opening pronouncement:
Shout joyfully to the LORD, all you peoples; serve the Lord with gladness; come before the Lord with joyful song.
Psalm 100: 1-2
This is such a perfect prayer today for our Mercy community as we will gather to celebrate the Jubilee of many of our sisters this afternoon. It will be a huge celebration in which the Jubilarians of both 2020 and 2021 will be honored, due to last year’s Covid restrictions.
For many of us, the most moving parts of the celebration are the procession and recession. These celebratory passages are a testament to God’s faithfulness over many lifetimes, and to the women who have received and responded to God’s gifts.
Some sisters, who have been given the gift of long years, will process with a cane or walker to assist them. Some will move with an achieved maturity, and some still with the vigor of youth.
But our Mercy family, gathered in the pews, walks in Spirit with each of the Jubilarians, carrying her within a bond of mutual love. As we see each sister whom we have lived with, worked with, loved and learned from, our hearts indeed sing with them, “Jubilate!”
Poetry: The Neophyte – Alice Meynell
Who knows what days I answer for to-day:
Giving the bud I give the flower. I bow
This yet unfaded and a faded brow;
Bending these knees and feeble knees, I pray.
Thoughts yet unripe in me I bend one way,
Give one repose to pain I know not now,
One leaven to joy that comes, I guess not how.
I dedicate my fields when Spring is grey.
Oh, rash! (I smile) to pledge my hidden wheat.
I fold to-day at altars far apart
Hands trembling with what toils? In their retreat
I seal my love to-be, my folded art.
I light the tapers at my head and feet,
And lay the crucifix on this silent heart.
Some of 2021’s Sapphire/Diamond Jubilarians when they were true Neophytes
Please join us in your grateful prayers for these Sisters of Mercy:
Jubilarians 2020 80 years Sister Rita Powell
70 years Sister Mary Georgina Hasson Sister Mary Hentz Sister Kathleen Kelly Sister Marie Lynch Sister Antoinette Medori Sister Clare Miriam Schrant Sister Marianna Walsh
60 Years Sister Rosellen Bracken Sister Mary Elizabeth Burke Sister Emily Therese Connor Sister Marie Michele Donnelly Sister Patricia Anne Flynn Sister Kathleen Marie Fox Sister Mary Ann Giordano Sister Patricia Anne Kennedy Sister Barbara Ann MacWilliams Sister Kathleen McAlpin Sister Mercedes Joan McCann Sister Kathleen McGovern Sister Josephine McGrory Sister Mary Sarah McNally Sister Mary Anne Nolan Sister Stella Mary O’Brien Sister Frances Paglione Sister Rose Carmel Scalone Sister Barbara Smiley Sister Patricia Talone Sister Angela Welsh
50 years Sister Mary Beth Geraghty Sister Mary Jane Morrison Sister Katherine Bednarcik
Jubilarians 2021 75 years Sister Mary Ann Basile Sister Marie Helene Bradley Sister Mary Janet Doughty Sister Kathleen Mary Long Sister Marita Lyons Sister Catherine Rawley Sister Ethel Sweeney
70 years Sister Therese Marie Kenny Sister Alice Mary Meehan Sister Rose Morris Sister Kathleen Waugh Sister Anne Marie Berenato Sister Mary Anton Frick
60 years Sister Francis Haddow Sister Anna Marie Lesutis Sister Margery Lowry Sister Mary Mester Sister Sheila Murphy Sister Anne Marie Weisglass Sister Joanne Whitaker Sister Beverly Wilde
50 years Sister Maureen Conklin Sister Susan Myslinski
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 49, the point of which according to Walter Brueggemann is this:
The point is that death is the great equalizer, and those who are genuinely wise should not be impressed by or committed to that which the world over-values.
From Whom No Secrets Are Hid
We may have heard the sentiment stated more succinctly by an anonymous scholar:
You can’t take it with you.
This is the core message Paul imparts to Timothy in our first reading:
For the love of money is the root of all evils, and some people in their desire for it have strayed from the faith and have pierced themselves with many pains.
1 Timothy 6:10
The advice is about more than money, or “dollar-bucks” as my 5 year old grandnephew calls them.
The instruction is about our priorities – whom, why and what we love, value, and sacrifice for.
The opposite of this “love of money” is an unselfish, sacrificial love for others. This is the love Jesus hopes for in his disciples as he blesses them in today’s Gospel.
It takes courage to live such discipleship. As human beings, we tend to fear any kind of deprivation. We crave security, and sometimes we think money and possessions can give us that. Our readings today redirect that all too common misperception.
The world can be a very dark place, and of course, we will have fears and worries. Paul and our psalmist direct us to the right place to calm these concerns. Jesus calls us to believe in and live in the Light which is our true security.
Our psalm reminds us to keep our eyes on the eternal promise we have all been given.
But God will redeem my life, will take me from the hand of Darkness.
Psalm 49: 16
Poetry: Accepting This – Mark Nepo
Yes, it is true. I confess, I have thought great thoughts, and sung great songs—all of it rehearsal for the majesty of being held. The dream is awakened when thinking I love you and life begins when saying I love you and joy moves like blood when embracing others with love. My efforts now turn from trying to outrun suffering to accepting love wherever I can find it. Stripped of causes and plans and things to strive for, I have discovered everything I could need or ask for is right here— in flawed abundance. We cannot eliminate hunger, but we can feed each other. We cannot eliminate loneliness, but we can hold each other. We cannot eliminate pain, but we can live a life of compassion. Ultimately, we are small living things awakened in the stream, not gods who carve out rivers. Like human fish, we are asked to experience meaning in the life that moves through the gill of our heart. There is nothing to do and nowhere to go. Accepting this, we can do everything and go anywhere.
Music: His Eye is on the Sparrow (You might recall this version from the movie “Sister Act II”)
For fun, you might enjoy hearing how the 60s group, The O’Jays, interpreted Paul’s advice to Timothy.
Money money money money, money [Repeat: x 6]
Some people got to have it
Some people really need it
Listen to me why’all, do things, do things, do bad things with it
You want to do things, do things, do things, good things with it
Talk about cash money, money
Talk about cash money- dollar bills, why’all
For the love of money
People will steal from their mother
For the love of money
People will rob their own brother
For the love of money
People can’t even walk the street
Because they never know who in the world they’re gonna beat
For that lean, mean, mean green
Almighty dollar, money
For the love of money
People will lie, Lord, they will cheat
For the love of money
People don’t care who they hurt or beat
For the love of money
A woman will sell her precious body
For a small piece of paper it carries a lot of weight
Call it lean, mean, mean green
Almighty dollar
I know money is the root of all evil
Do funny things to some people
Give me a nickel, brother can you spare a dime
Money can drive some people out of their minds
Got to have it, I really need it
How many things have I heard you say
Some people really need it
How many things have I heard you say
Got to have it, I really need it
How many things have I heard you say
Lay down, lay down, a woman will lay down
For the love of money
All for the love of money
Don’t let, don’t let, don’t let money rule you
For the love of money
Money can change people sometimes
Don’t let, don’t let, don’t let money fool you
Money can fool people sometimes
People! Don’t let money, don’t let money change you,
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 111, a rather exultant prayer for such a somber feast.
I will give thanks to the LORD with all my heart in the company and assembly of the just. Great are the works of the LORD, exquisite in all their delights.
Psalm 111:1-2
The psalm allows us to see beyond the sorrows we commemorate today. At the same time, the memorial reminds us that these sorrows of Mary were real human sufferings endured for Love.
Through her heart, his sorrow sharing, All his bitter anguish bearing, Now at length the sword had passed. Oh, how sad and sore distressed Was that Mother highly blessed Of the sole begotten One!
from The Stabat Mater
The scriptures give us precious little of Mary’s life. But each small account demonstrates the same thing: Mary responded, she showed up, she acted, she stood by Jesus until the end.
As Christ continues the work of redemption in our times, where do we stand?
Poetry: Today’s poetic passage is from one of the great classics of Christian literature, A Woman Wrapped in Silence by Father John W. Lynch.
The book is a masterpiece best appreciated in reflective contemplation. I have chosen a sliver of its beauty today, one of many that captures Mary’s joy born of faith-filled suffering. This selection imagines what it was like when Mary remained in the Upper Room as the others, not knowing what to expect, went to the tomb early on Easter morning. The Resurrected Jesus comes to Mary first, before any other appearance.
Or is
it true or thought of her she found no need
To search? And better said that she had known
Within, they’d not discover him again
Among the dead? That he would not be there
Entombed, and she had known, and only watched
Them now as they were whispering of him,
And let them go, and listened afterward
To footsteps that were fading in the dark.
To wait him here. Alone. Alone. A woman
Lonely in the silence and the trust
Of silence in her heart that did not seek,
Or cry, or search, but only waited him.
We have no word of this sweet certainty
That hides in her. There is not granted line
Writ meager in the scripture that will tell
By even some poor, unavailing tag
Of language what she keeps within the silence.
This is hers. We are not told of this,
This quaking instant, this return, this Light
Beyond the tryst of dawn when she first lifted
Up her eyes, and quiet, unamazed,
Saw He was near.
Music: Much magnificent music is available for the Stabat Mater, a 13th century poem written by Franciscans and interpreted by many musical masters.
Stabat Mater – Antonio Vivaldi A short piece – Section 5: Eja Mater, fons amoris performed by Tim Mead
Eja, Mater, fons amóris me sentíre vim dolóris fac, ut tecum lúgeam
O thou Mother! fount of love! Touch my spirit from above, make my heart with thine accord.
2. The complete work by Vivaldi is below for those who would like to hear it:
3. A little bit of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater here with the same fabulous Tim Mead and Lucy Crow
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our Sunday readings increase in dramatic tone. The passage from Isaiah describes a Savior bent on his mission despite mounting resistance and expressed hatred.
The Lord GOD opens my ear that I may hear; and I have not rebelled, have not turned back. I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting.
Isaiah 50:5-6
Psalm 116 paints a person set upon by suffering and death threats, still trusting in the Lord’s saving grace.
The cords of death encompassed me; the snares of the netherworld seized upon me; I fell into distress and sorrow, And I called upon the name of the LORD, “O LORD, save my life!”
Psalm 116: 3-4
In the Epistle, James says we must demonstrate our faith by our works — by putting our money where our mouth is.
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?
James 2:14
And in our Gospel, Jesus says we demonstrate our faith by following him, renouncing ourselves and taking up our cross.
This is heavy stuff. Jesus wants us to be like him — and it would be so much easier not to be! It would be so much easier to think that our life is all about ourselves, and that we have no responsibility for Beloved Creation.
It would be so much easier not to give our lives to Christ to allow Him to bless the world through our love.
But if we wish to “save” our lives like this, we will — in the end — lose them for eternity.
Let us pray today for the grace to take our life and lay it down over the Cross of Christ.
In that laying down, to conform ourselves to the pattern of his love, to place the weight of our burdens and hopes on the crossbeam of his strength.
Let us ask for the strength to live
for God
for others
for good in the world
and never for self when it injures or lessens others or our Sacred Home.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 16, complementing as it does today our first reading from 1 Timothy.
Both these scripture passages speak to us of finding – and being found by – God.
Paul, in guiding his beloved disciple Timothy, defines the phenomenon as “Grace”:
Indeed, the grace of our Lord has been abundant, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
1 Timothy 1:14
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Grace is a participation in the life of God, which is poured unearned into human beings, whom it heals of sin and sanctifies.”
Paul agrees:
I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and an arrogant man, but I have been mercifully treated because I acted out of ignorance in my unbelief.
1 Timothy 1:13
But how do we open ourselves do the gift of grace? How do we engage God’s desire to deepen us in holiness?
Psalm 16 offers us wisdom:
I bless the LORD who counsels me; even in the night my heart exhorts me. I set the LORD ever before me; with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed.
Psalm 16: 7-8
We invite God’s counsel
by an ardent study of scripture
by a sacramental faith
by a prayer that listens more than it speaks
by a life centered on the works of mercy
by a reverence for all Creation
by a love that loves as God loves
I have set the Lord always before me; because you are at my side I shall not fall. My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices; my body also shall rest in hope. For you will not abandon me to the grave, nor let your holy one see destruction. You will show me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy, and in your hand are graces for evermore.
Psalm 16: 8-11
Poetry: BELOVED IS WHERE WE BEGIN —Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons
If you would enter into the wilderness, do not begin without a blessing.
Do not leave without hearing who you are: Beloved, named by the One who has traveled this path before you.
Do not go without letting it echo in your ears, and if you find it is hard to let it into your heart, do not despair. That is what this journey is for.
I cannot promise this blessing will free you from danger, from fear, from hunger or thirst, from the scorching of sun or the fall of the night.
But I can tell you that on this path there will be help.
I can tell you that on this way there will be rest.
I can tell you that you will know the strange graces that come to our aid only on a road such as this, that fly to meet us bearing comfort and strength, that come alongside us for no other cause than to lean themselves toward our ear and with their curious insistence whisper our name:
Lavish Mercy 