Today, in Mercy, Jesus continues his closing instructions on living a good life. Our responsorial psalm captures the whole gist of these several admonitions.
What Jesus is saying is, “Stick with Me, and I will show you the way.” It is the Divine Mother’s invitation to her child. “Come, cradle in my arms. I will protect and guide you.”
As wonderful as Christ’s invitation is, it is hard to accept. Most of us think we can do everything ourselves. Many of us find it tiresome to plumb the Gospel to find its truth. We think we already know the way to happiness: money, prestige, and power.
It often takes a lifetime to teach us how wrong we are. But a test comes into most lives which casts us back into the arms of God. We may eventually learn that joy comes from living Gospel truths, loving as God loves, and abiding faithfully with Him.
It takes courage and spiritual insight to accept Christ’s invitation to abide in Him, especially when we feel invincible. May we grow in that courage, early and late in our lives – in good times and bad.
Today, in Mercy, Matthew begins to wrap up the long series of instructions related to the Sermon on the Mount. Three familiar, and very direct, closing points punctuate today’s reading:
Pearls before swine
Do unto others
Enter by the narrow gate
They sound a bit like what a wise parent might say to a child as he or she goes off to the wide worlds of college, business or marriage. But the core of their message works for us at any age:
Today, in Mercy, we celebrate John the Baptist of whom Jesus said, “no man greater has been born of women”.
Today’s Gospel talks about the surprise conception of John, and all the drama surrounding his birth. Several other Gospel passages tell us about John’s preaching, his challenges to Herod, and his eventual martyrdom at the request of Salome. These are worth a read today, if you have a little time, just to be reacquainted with this extraordinary man.
John the Baptist was the living bridge between the Old Law and the New. He was the doorway from a religion of requirements to a religion of love. That bridge and doorway were built on a baptism of repentance in order to clear one’s heart to receive the Good News.
The magnificent Greek word for repentance is “metanoia” which indicates a turning of one’s mind and heart after realizing a new truth. Metanoia is to have awareness dawn on us, and to feel sorrow for our former blindness or hardness of heart.
May our prayer today help us to receive the grace of metanoia wherever our spirits are hardened or closed – or just plain deadened by routine. May we hear the Baptist calling to us, “Prepare your hearts – EVERYDAY- for the Lord. There is always room for you to be surprised by God.”
Music: Ut Queant Laxis( English translation below)
“Utqueant laxis” or “Hymnus in Ioannem” is a Latin hymn in honor of John the Baptist written in Horatian Sapphics and traditionally attributed to Paulus Diaconus, the eighth-century Lombard historian. It is famous for its part in the history of musical notation, in particular solmization (do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do). The hymn is sung to a Gregorian chant, and introduces the original do-re-mi music.
1. O for your spirit, holy John, to chasten
Lips sin-polluted, fettered tongues to loosen;
So by your children might your deeds of wonder
Meetly be chanted.
2. Lo! a swift herald, from the skies descending,
Bears to your father promise of your greatness;
How he shall name you, what your future story,
Duly revealing.
3. Scarcely believing message so transcendent,
Him for a season power of speech forsaketh,
Till, at your wondrous birth, again returneth,
Voice to the voiceless.
4. You, in your mother’s womb all darkly cradled,
Knew your great Monarch, biding in His chamber,
Whence the two parents, through their offspring’s merits,
Mysteries uttered.
5. Praise to the Father, to the Son begotten,
And to the Spirit, equal power possessing,
One God whose glory, through the lapse of ages,
Ever resounding. Amen.
Today, in Mercy, Jesus once again blows all our human instincts to smithereens! He says don’t worry about what you’ll eat or wear. Seek God’s Kingdom and all your needs will be filled. Really?
We may be tempted to picture a hippie type, bird-watching and sun-bathing in a field of of flowers – all agog with the Kingdom, but not too swift with the world!
But that’s probably not what Jesus envisioned. After all, Jesus himself worked hard to secure the necessities his family needed in Nazareth. He worked hard at his ministry throughout the Holy Land, and cared deeply about the success of his message.
What He didn’t do was worry.
Worry is what happens when we think it all depends on us. It’s what happens when it’s all about us. Worry is a windowless, doorless room where we run around aimlessly. Even God has a hard time getting in to reason with us.
To break out of that room, Jesus says seek God’s way of looking at things. Work hard and do your best – but make sure it’s for important stuff like love, honor, mercy, justice, charity, and peace. Make sure it’s not for “mammon” stuff like greed, selfishness, domination, prejudice and a host of other sins that love to worry us.
If we can make these distinctions in our life, we will have a freedom like the beautiful lilies and the unfettered sparrows. It will be an amazing liberty that the evil-hearted cannot understand or compromise.
Music: Consider the Lilies of the Field (Words below)
Consider the lilies of the field,
How they grow, how they grow.
Consider the birds in the sky,
How they fly, how they fly.
He clothes the lilies of the field.
He feeds the birds in the sky.
And He will feed those who trust Him,
And guide them with His eye.
Consider the sheep of His fold,
How they follow where He leads.
Though the path may wind across the mountains,
He knows the meadows where they feed.
He clothes the lilies of the field.
He feeds the birds in the sky,
And He will feed those who trust Him,
And guide them with His eye.
Consider the sweet, tender children
Who must suffer on this earth.
The pains of all of them He carried
From the day of His birth.
He clothes the lilies of the field,
He feeds the lambs in His fold,
And He will heal those who trust Him,
And make their hearts as gold.
He clothes the lilies of the field,
He feeds the lambs in His fold,
And He will heal those who trust Him,
And make their hearts as gold.
Today, in Mercy, our readings are a study in contrasts.Our first reading from Sirach describes the fiery majesty of the prophet Elijah. Everything about Elijah was thunder and lightning.He toppled kings and raised the dead, and generally cast a path of fire as he preached. At the end of his life, he passed into heaven in a chariot of flames.
The Gospel presents a Prophet of a gentler stripe – Jesus, who is teaching us how to pray.
Jesus says to pray simply, humbly, to ask for forgiveness, and freedom from temptation. He tells us to forgive others, avoid evil and be content with our daily bread.No fiery chariots; no tumbling governments.This gentle man will die in the agony of the cross.
No wonder those who hoped for a Messiah like Elijah were disappointed in Jesus.No wonder we still struggle to understand the contradiction of the Cross.
However, Walter Brueggemann says this:The crucifixion is
“the ultimate act of prophetic criticism
in which Jesus announces the end of a world of death…
and takes the death into his own person”.
Still, the witness of Calvary would remain nothing but a contradiction without the transformative act of the Resurrection.
Through the combined witness of Good Friday and Easter, Jesus not only confronts the old order, he embraces and transforms it.He takes to himself the same suffering and death that we all must face, but he shows us that it cannot destroy us. He proves that, ultimately, death has no power over those who believe in Him and in the Father Who has sent Him.
Indeed, the Our Father is a most powerful, prophetic prayer. It teaches us how to be in the presence of God even in the midst of our daily life. It shows us how to express our faith in God’s Kingdom even as we live in our earthly one. It helps us to become a little more like gentle, powerful Jesus.
Music: Aramaic Our Father – in the orgs that Jesus likely used.
Today, in Mercy, Jesus tells us how to pray and do good. He says that it is our deep-hearted intention that matters in these things. It is there, in the hidden heart, that God dwells with us and reads our love for its sincerity.
God is not impressed with any bling in our words or actions. Not impressed with the big, loud, or wow of what we do. God knows whether we truly love, and it is that which touches Him.
Let the words of Jesus today take you to that inner heart-room where God knows and loves you like no one else can. In that precious quiet, enter the silence of prayer. Listen to God with the soul’s ear that needs no sound. Speak to God with the humble love that needs no words.
Music: Yo Yo Ma playing Meditation from Thaïs by Jules Massenet
Today, in Mercy, our first reading continues to follow the journey of Elijah, one wild and crazy guy – with a holy obsession for God.Elijah is so frustrated with the hard-heartedness of the Israelites, that he whines constantly to God about it. God calls Elijah to Mt. Horeb (the same place where He first chatted with Moses) to talk the situation over. Elijah tries to find God’s voice there in a howling wind, an earthquake and a huge fire. No dice!
Elijah is so like us in this! Don’t we call on God in our troubled times, asking Him to fix things in a flash and glam? It is one of the ways we try to deal with the presence of evil in the world. We would love the security of a “Superman” God Who dramatically intervenes to reverse reality according to our comfort.
But how rare are such miracles! Instead, God abides quietly and steadily in the unfolding of our life, both in sorrow and joy. God whispers the directions to eternal life, deep under the noise of our human challenges – even evil, even death.
God’s word did come to Elijah eventually, not in the fiery demonstration he expected. It came in the gentle breeze of mercy, patience, fidelity and hope which most truly reflects the omnipotent nature of God.
Divinity is so quietly vibrant in all life. We must become equally quiet in our prayer and awareness to hear God’s whispers for us.
Today, in Mercy, Jesus expounds on what a true, faithful life looks like. He uses the word “righteousness”, a word that occurs frequently throughout the Bible.
“Righteousness” describes the perfect, balanced goodness of the heart of God. It is a balance in which Mercy and Justice complement and infuse each other; a balance of Love so exquisite that it generates the Eternal Life of the Trinity.
Jesus says that we must pattern our lives on that Divine Balance, not on a proud self-righteousness like that of the scribes and Pharisees. If our faith and religious practice do not generate reverence, love, mercy, justice and peace for ourselves and others, then we are skewed in our relationship with God.
Jesus says it is not enough to obey the letter of Law, and certainly not enough to boast about it. We must respond generously to the spirit of the Law which brings the soul into reconciliation with itself and all Creation. This is the new law of love …the true righteousness of a humble, faithful heart.
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,but do not have love, it does nothing. 1 Corinthians 13: 1-3
Music: Lead Me Lord ~ Samuel Wesley (1861) A lovely old hymn that can serve as a mantra for prayer throughout your day. Just let your heart sing it gently.
Today, in Mercy, when reading the passage about Elijah and the prophets of Baal, I was reminded of the Irving Berlin song, “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better”. In the reading, Elijah tests and even taunts Baal’s 450 prophets in a contest to prove whose God is true. Of course, Elijah wins in a stunning blast of fire. It is a religious exercise of “eradicate and supplant”.
The Gospel reading carries a similar theme.Jesus’ followers seem to conclude that, because he is teaching something new, he is nullifying the customary Hebrew teachings. But Jesus says that, to the contrary, He is here to fulfill the Law, not to abolish it.
Religion, like any entrenched practice, tends over time to suffer the ill effects of institutionalization. Our rituals and devotions may become lifeless; our scriptures become rote. The power of our sacraments may be carelessly invoked and distractedly attended. A chasm grows between what we profess and what we live. We may become frozen. Sometimes, it might seem best to set the whole thing aflame and start all over again, like Elijah.
But Jesus challenges to us to go deeper than “practice”. Mere practice can easily become empty. Jesus shows us in his life what a fulfilled faith looks like. It is a faith expressed in service, sacrifice and inclusive mercy. It is a faith that, when brought to the pulpit and altar, carries the lives of those we love and serve. It is a faith, like the Psalmist’s, that listens for God’s direction deep in the experiences of life. It is a faith, not in contradiction to Law, but beyond it. It is a faith fired – transformed – by Love.
Today, in Mercy, we read the wonderful story of Elijah and the Widow. Both were in “drought and darkness” situations, but they did not lose hope. Trusting in the Lord, they chose to live out of their abundance rather than their scarcity. And their small, shared abundance sustained them.
In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus encourages us to live from and to share our abundance, whatever that might be. Sometimes we may feel that we don’t have much to offer to the world. Our personal difficulties may thwart our spiritual energy. But we are children of God, filled with Divine potential. Life will always break through if we live with faith, hope and love. It just may look different from what we had planned or expected.
There is a modern school of “abundance vs. scarcity” thinking, a self-improvement practice presented by the late Steven Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Whether or not he intended it, Mr. Covey delivers scriptural truths in secular language:
“ An abundance mentality springs from internal security, not from external rankings, comparisons, opinions, possessions, or associations.”
“ People with a scarcity mentality tend to see everything in terms of win-lose. There is only so much; and if someone else has it, that means there will be less for me. The more principle-centered we become, the more we develop an abundance mentality, the more we are genuinely happy for the successes, well-being, achievements, recognition, and good fortune of other people. We believe their success adds to…rather than detracts from…our lives.”
Bottom line from 1 Kings, Matthew 5, Covey? Trust, and live generously. Be light. Be salt. Doing so will open the space for God’s abundance.
Music: A New Age piece that may be helpful if some negativity is blocking our Light.
Lavish Mercy 