Jesus said to those Jews who believed in him, “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 8:31
In our first reading, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are examples of absolute trust in God. Their story is intended to assure the Jews in Babylonian captivity that God would deliver them.
In our Gospel, Jesus assures his followers that they too will be delivered from life’s tests if they trust fully in His Word.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Let’s pray to deepen in our trust that God is with us always. Let’s sink the anchor of our faith, hope, and love into Christ’s promise. The more we can do this, the more we will be freed to love God, ourselves, and others with the fullness of Gospel love.
Poetry: Avowal – Denise Levertov
As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them, as hawks rest upon air and air sustains them, so would I learn to attain freefall, and float into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace, knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace.
Music: How Beautiful Is Your Love – The Commons/Josh Blakesley
oh how beautiful is your love for me. oh what joy is mine in this mystery. i will not fear the dark here in the presence of your heart. oh how beautiful is your love.
oh how wonderful is your offering. lamb laid down for me on compassion’s tree. how could i turn away from the mercy of your face? oh how wonderful is your love.
Jesus, Jesus, oh how beautiful is your love. Jesus, Jesus, oh how beautiful is your love.
so miraculous is your sacrifice. body broken here that i might have life. take everything i own, let me be yours alone. so miraculous is your love.
Jesus, Jesus, oh how beautiful is your love. Jesus, Jesus, oh how beautiful is your love.
The LORD spoke to Nathan and said: “Go, tell my servant David, ‘When your time comes and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins, and I will make his kingdom firm. It is he who shall build a house for my name. And I will make his royal throne firm forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me; your throne shall stand firm forever.’”
2 Samuel 7: 2-5;12-14;16
Today’s genealogies establish Jesus as the Messianic Heir promised to the House of David. Joseph is the link in that promise.
We have so little factual knowledge of Joseph, yet so much prayerful devotion to him. Gospel tidbits from Matthew and Luke help us imagine a holy and tender man who loved Christ into his divinely missioned adulthood. We imagine Joseph’s simple and faithful life as the carpenter-provider for the Holy Family, and his peaceful death in the embrace of Mary and Jesus.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Wherever we are in our own lives, Joseph’s life can bring us inspiration and strength. Asking his guidance, we pray today for:
those making major life decisions
engaged couples learning to love and support one another
parents as they work to raise their children well
refugee parents protecting their families
workers struggling daily to provide for their families
the men in our lives who have nurtured, loved, and taught us
religious women and men in communities devoted to St. Joseph
those who are dying that they may have comfort and peace
Poetry: Prayer to St. Joseph – Cameron Belle
St. Joseph, patron saint of the unexpected, How freely you stepped into the unknown With your unwavering yes.
St. Joseph, dreamer of dreams, How attuned your heart was, waking or sleeping, To the promptings of angels.
St. Joseph, nurturing father, How openly you accepted your unconventional family, Lighting the way for us, too, to embrace all.
St. Joseph, there is still so much we don’t know about you, But maybe that is your gift to us, That we may see in the father of Jesus a mystery That sanctifies the hidden and untold in our own lives. May we, too, live our days in the holy shadow of your son.
One day, while the elders were waiting for the right moment, she entered the garden as usual, with two maids only. Susanna decided to bathe, for the weather was warm. Nobody else was there except the two elders, who had hidden themselves and were watching her. “Bring me oil and soap,” she said to the maids, “and shut the garden doors while I bathe.”
Daniel 13:15-18
“Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he bent down and wrote on the ground. And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders. So he was left alone with the woman before him. Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they?
John 8: 7-10
We encounter so much in life that is hidden – motives, ambitions, agendas, pasts, judgments, reactions. We hide these things for all kinds of reasons. The lustful elders hid their actions for fear of discovery and condemnation. The Gospel stone throwers hid their pasts to exonerate themselves by judgment of another.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We are reminded that with God nothing is hidden. And nothing needs to be. We can place our lusts, false judgments, and any other shadow-laden weaknesses in God’s Light because that Light is Forgiveness and Healing. That Light will free us to become forgivers and healers ourselves.
Poetry: Peter Quince at the Clavier – Wallace Stevens
Wallace Steven’s poem and Handel’s oratorio indicate the extent to which the tale of Susanna has been culturally interpreted down through the ages.
Just as my fingers on these keys Make music, so the selfsame sounds On my spirit make a music, too.
Music is feeling, then, not sound; And thus it is that what I feel, Here in this room, desiring you,
Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk, Is music. It is like the strain Waked in the elders by Susanna:
Of a green evening, clear and warm, She bathed in her still garden, while The red-eyed elders, watching, felt
The basses of their beings throb In witching chords, and their thin blood Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna.
II
In the green water, clear and warm, Susanna lay. She searched The touch of springs, And found Concealed imaginings. She sighed, For so much melody.
Upon the bank, she stood In the cool Of spent emotions. She felt, among the leaves, The dew Of old devotions.
She walked upon the grass, Still quavering. The winds were like her maids, On timid feet, Fetching her woven scarves, Yet wavering.
A breath upon her hand Muted the night. She turned— A cymbal crashed, And roaring horns.
III
Soon, with a noise like tambourines, Came her attendant Byzantines.
They wondered why Susanna cried Against the elders by her side;
And as they whispered, the refrain Was like a willow swept by rain.
Anon, their lamps' uplifted flame Revealed Susanna and her shame.
And then, the simpering Byzantines Fled, with a noise like tambourines.
IV
Beauty is momentary in the mind— The fitful tracing of a portal; But in the flesh it is immortal.
The body dies; the body's beauty lives. So evenings die, in their green going, A wave, interminably flowing. So gardens die, their meek breath scenting The cowl of winter, done repenting. So maidens die, to the auroral Celebration of a maiden's choral.
Susanna's music touched the bawdy strings Of those white elders; but, escaping, Left only Death's ironic scraping. Now, in its immortality, it plays On the clear viol of her memory, And makes a constant sacrament of praise.
Music: Guilt trembling spoke my doom – George Frideric Handel
Susanna is an oratorio by George Frideric Handel. Handel composed the music in the summer of 1748 and premiered the work the next season at Covent Garden theatre, London, on 10 February 1749. (Lyrics below.)
Guilt trembling spoke my doom, And vice her joy display’d, Till truth dispell’d the gloom And came to virtue’s aid. Kind Heav’n, my pray’rs receive, They’re due alone to thee, Oppression’s left to grieve, And innocence is free.
I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer will they have need to teach their friends and relatives how to know the LORD. All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the LORD, for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more.
Jeremiah 31: 33-34
My Uncle Joe was full of life – a little wildness, a little wisdom, and a lot of love. Only seventeen years older than I, he was more like my older brother. His mother, my grandmother, died when I was almost three and he was twenty. One night months later, after partying with his buddies, he came home with a big tattoo on his upper arm something like this:
There is a whole psychology around why people get tattoos, but I think it boils down to expressing something that’s otherwise inexpressible. The tattoo was Joe’s way of holding on to someone who had anchored his life.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
In our first reading, Jeremiah kind of tells us that if God had tattoos, our name would be one of them. We are inscribed on God’s heart in an inexpressible covenant of love. Let’s live so that, if our hearts became visible, God’s Name would be clearly etched there as well.
Poetry: I carry your heart – e.e.cummings
i carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart) i am never without it (anywhere i go you go, my dear ;and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) I want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true) and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
Yet I, like a trusting lamb led to slaughter, had not realized that they were hatching plots against me: “Let us destroy the tree in its vigor; let us cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name will be spoken no more.”
Jeremiah 11:19
“Plot” can be an ugly word – a sinister trap woven in the darkness of fear and ignorance. Such plotters are befuddled by innocence, freedom, honesty, and goodness. Without these virtues themselves, they have no tools to meet challenges with sincerity and trust..
In our readings, we see darkened souls interweaving their fears to trap both Jeremiah and Jesus. It’s a picture of “conspiracy theories” in Biblical times!
In our current culture, we see people design elaborate arguments to justify war, rioting, oppression, weaponry, economic excess, and all the many “isms” that trap others in their vulnerability.
Lent is not just a remembrance of things past. It is a living participation in the Paschal Mystery as Christ experiences it in our times. We must ask ourselves if we ever stand with, or even silently near, the “plotters”.
Poem: The Second Crucifixion – Richard Le Gallienne (1866 – 1947)
LOUD mockers in the roaring street Say Christ is crucified again: Twice pierced His gospel-bearing feet, Twice broken His great heart in vain.
I hear, and to myself I smile, For Christ talks with me all the while.
No angel now to roll the stone From off His unawaking sleep, In vain shall Mary watch alone, In vain the soldiers vigil keep.
Yet while they deem my Lord is dead My eyes are on His shining head.
Ah! never more shall Mary hear That voice exceeding sweet and low Within the garden calling clear: Her Lord is gone, and she must go.
Yet all the while my Lord I meet In every London lane and street.
Poor Lazarus shall wait in vain, And Bartimæus still go blind; The healing hem shall ne'er again Be touch'd by suffering humankind.
Yet all the while I see them rest, The poor and outcast, on His breast.
No more unto the stubborn heart With gentle knocking shall He plead, No more the mystic pity start, For Christ twice dead is dead indeed.
So in the street I hear men say, Yet Christ is with me all the day.
The wicked said among themselves… “Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for according to his own words, God will take care of him.” These were their thoughts, but they erred; for their wickedness blinded them, and they knew not the hidden counsels of God; neither did they count on a recompense of holiness nor discern the innocent souls’ reward.
Wisdom 2: 20-22
In our readings, the Holy One meets the opposition of those who plot against him. They rationalize their persecutions, proclaiming them as acts of justice. They expect their victim to crumble under the pressure of their judgments. What they do not expect is a return of goodness, gentleness, and forgiveness – a recompense of holiness. They do not expect the great contradiction of the Cross, and they are incapable of comprehending it.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
As Lent deepens, and we come closer to the shadows of Calvary, we are summoned into the sufferings of Jesus to test our own understanding of this Great Contradiction.
What does Christ teach us about payback, unforgiveness, revenge, violence, and war – the popular “recompenses” of our culture to any resistance or injury we encounter?
What might a “recompense of holiness” look like in my life when I meet gracelessness in another person or situation?
How might it transform our belligerent culture if we modeled our behaviors on the holiness of Jesus?
Poetry: Peace-making Is Hard …. – Daniel Berrigan, SJ
hard almost as war.
the difference being one we can stake life upon and limb and thought and love.
I stake this poem out dead man to a dead stick to tempt an Easter chance— if faith may be truth, our evil chance penultimate at last,
not last. We are not lost.
When these lines gathered of no resource at all serenity and strength, it dawned on me
a man stood on his nails,
an ash like dew, a sweat smelling of death and life. Our evil Friday fled, the blind face gently turned another way. Toward Life.
The LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once to your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, for they have become depraved. They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them, making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it, sacrificing to it and crying out, ‘This is your God, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!’
Exodus 32: 7-8
Today’s readings give us Moses and John the Baptist, each serving as a bridge over the chasm between a faithful God and a faithless people. Both met blockades in their attempts to lead the people to their God, just as Jesus meets opposition in today’s Gospel.
For Moses, the blockade was the golden calf, symbol of all the fragile pretensions we substitute for a true and committed faith. Real faith is dangerous. It asks us to risk ourselves on realities we cannot see. Glittering gold, even in the form of a beast, feels so much more secure!
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Let’s have the courage to look for the golden calves in our lives
a greed for control, power which limits others’ freedom
any form of disrespect or indifference toward another’s dignity
the lust for, or abuse of money or goods
willfulness that limits my own spiritual growth, or the spiritual joy of others
Poetry: The Golden Calf – John Newton (1725-1807), also author of “Amazing Grace”.
When Israel heard the fiery law, From Sinai's top proclaimed; Their hearts seemed full of holy awe, Their stubborn spirits tamed.
Yet, as forgetting all they knew, Ere forty days were past; With blazing Sinai still in view, A molten calf they cast.
Yea, Aaron, God's anointed priest, Who on the mount had been He durst prepare the idol-beast, And lead them on to sin.
Lord, what is man! and what are we, To recompense thee thus! In their offence our own we see, Their story points at us.
From Sinai we have heard thee speak, And from mount Calv'ry too; And yet to idols oft we seek, While thou art in our view.
Some golden calf, or golden dream, Some fancied creature-good, Presumes to share the heart with him, Who bought the whole with blood.
Lord, save us from our golden calves, Our sin with grief we own; We would no more be thine by halves, But live to thee alone.
Music: Song of the Golden Calf from the opera Faust by Charles Gounod
But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you.
Isaiah 49: 14-15
In our Gospel, Jesus tells his questioners that he and the Creator are One. Jesus uses the imagery of “Father” to connote his oneness with the Creator. Isaiah uses the imagery of a “Mother” to convey the depth of loving relationship we are given in God.
Throughout Scripture and through the long spiritual legacy of the Church, many images of God have been offered to deepen our prayer.
Scripture gives us God as King, Suffering Servant, Rock, Fortress, Shepherd …
John of the Cross imaged God as Lover, Francis of Assisi and Hadewijch of Brabant found God in Creation. Therese of Lisieux knew herself as a child of God.
The poet Francis Thompson sees God as the Hound of Heaven, William Blake as a Lamb.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Depending on our human relationships and experiences, some of these images help us with our prayer and some do not.
Today we might consider how we relate to our Invisible God. Our prayer can open our understanding to allow God’s Love to come nearer to us. This is something Isaiah understood when he imaged God as Mother, and that Jesus understood when he called God “Father”.
Poetry: The Divine Feminine – by Hildegard of Bingen who is only the fourth woman in history to be declared a Doctor of the Church, joining the names of Catherine of Sienna, Teresa of Avila, and Therese of Lisieux.
I heard a voice speaking to me: ‘The young woman whom you see is Love. She has her tent in eternity… It was love that was the source of this creation in the beginning when God said: ‘Let it be!’ And it was.
As though in the blinking of an eye, the whole creation was formed through love. The young woman is radiant in such a clear, lightning-like brilliance of countenance that you can’t fully look at her… She holds the sun and moon in her right hand and embraces them tenderly…
The whole of creation calls this maiden ‘Lady.’ For it was from her that all of creation proceeded, since Love was the first. She made everything… Love was in eternity and brought forth, in the beginning of all holiness, all creatures without any admixture of evil. Adam and Eve, as well were produced by love from the pure nature of the Earth.”
There is a stream whose runlets gladden the city of God, the holy dwelling of the Most High. God is in its midst; it shall not be disturbed; God will help it at the break of dawn.
Psalm 46:5-6
Our Psalm today connects two readings centered around life-giving water.
Ezekiel’s watery vision offers a symbolic interpretation of the life-force flowing from God’s heart (symbolized by the Temple) to all Creation.
In our Gospel, a man waits for decades beside the waters of an inaccessible pool until Jesus cures him – until Jesus himself becomes the “Water of Life”.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Imagine yourself being blessed by life-giving water – maybe a cool swim on a blistering day, or a warm bath on a frosty one.
Imagine walking in a gentle summer rain, no umbrella, no puddle prohibitions.
If you love the ocean, imagine diving under soft waves at flood tide, belly-riding them back, again and again, to a warm, quiet beach.
Now imagine that all that water is God’s Love for you, because it is. And let your heart pray with a joy similar to today’s psalmist!
Poetry: The Waterfall – Henry Vaughan (1621-1695)
With what deep murmurs through time’s silent stealth Doth thy transparent, cool, and wat’ry wealth Here flowing fall, And chide, and call, As if his liquid, loose retinue stay’d Ling’ring, and were of this steep place afraid; The common pass Where, clear as glass, All must descend Not to an end, But quicken’d by this deep and rocky grave, Rise to a longer course more bright and brave.
Dear stream! dear bank, where often I Have sate and pleas’d my pensive eye, Why, since each drop of thy quick store Runs thither whence it flow’d before, Should poor souls fear a shade or night, Who came, sure, from a sea of light? Or since those drops are all sent back So sure to thee, that none doth lack, Why should frail flesh doubt any more That what God takes, he’ll not restore?
O useful element and clear! My sacred wash and cleanser here, My first consigner unto those Fountains of life where the Lamb goes! What sublime truths and wholesome themes Lodge in thy mystical deep streams! Such as dull man can never find Unless that Spirit lead his mind Which first upon thy face did move, And hatch’d all with his quick’ning love. As this loud brook’s incessant fall In streaming rings restagnates all, Which reach by course the bank, and then Are no more seen, just so pass men. O my invisible estate, My glorious liberty, still late! Thou art the channel my soul seeks, Not this with cataracts and creeks.
Music: How Deep Is the Ocean As you listen to the smooth jazz of Diana Krall, let yourself be in love with God who raises you from beside whatever pool where you’ve been lingering.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.
John 3:16-17
For some of us, it’s hard to believe in a God we do not see. This passage from John suggests that God understands how hard it is. So that believers might not “perish” in their natural doubts, God made Divinity visible in Jesus Christ. The reason? Infinite Love for and desire to be one with us.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Let’s rest in the confidence and gratitude this passage ignites in our hearts. God loves us — loves you — enough to become like you so that you might become like God.
Poetry: Infinite Love – Julian of Norwich, who was an English anchoress of the Middle Ages. Her writings, now known as Revelations of Divine Love, are the earliest surviving English language works by a woman. They are also the only surviving English language works by an anchoress. ( An anchoress is someone who, for religious reasons, withdraws from secular society to be able to lead an intensely prayer-orientated, ascetic, or Eucharist-focused life.)
Infinite Love
Because of the great, infinite love which God has for all humankind, he makes no distinction in love between the blessed soul of Christ and the lowliest of the souls that are to be saved . . . . We should highly rejoice that God dwells in our soul and still more highly should we rejoice that our soul dwells in God. Our soul is made to be God’s dwelling place, and the dwelling place of our soul is God who was never made.
Music: God So Loved the World – Mormon Tabernacle Choir
Lavish Mercy 