Today, in Mercy, Paul contrasts the sin of “Adam” to the gift of Jesus, demonstrating the specifics of Christ’s redemptive act.
A key phrase for our prayer might be the following. The concupiscence of human nature will always make the sinful choice a possibility. But we can gain courage and strength from this powerful line from Paul:
Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more….
Jesus teaches a lesson about perseverance in the spiritual life. He says if we stick with it, God will welcome us the way a generous master thanks and embraces a loyal servant. He adds a comforting thought for those of us of “a certain age”.
And should he come in the second or third watch and find them prepared in this way, blessed are those servants.
Yesterday, I attended a 95th birthday party for my Mistress of Novices. Fifty plus years ago, she guided a gaggle of hopeful and naive young nuns toward the depths of the spiritual life. She didn’t do it by words alone. She did it by faithful, humble, steadfast and joyful living in the Presence of God. Now, in the third watch, she is still doing the same thing – and she has done it for all the years in between…indeed, a blessed servant!
Sister Catherine Rawley, RSM Happy 95th Birthday
This is what Jesus is talking about today. Look around you and see the parables alive in your own life, your own history, your own heart.
Music: Song of a Faithful Servant
(A simple, childlike song. Please excuse the spelling. There’s no way for me to fix it although I desperately want to)
Today, in Mercy, Paul counsels us to be steadfast in our faith. Jesus counsels us to avoid greed. How might the two be connected?
Paul lauds Abraham whose faith convinced him that God’s promise to him would be fulfilled. Jesus promises us eternal life in a realm apart from any earthly treasure. If we believe in Jesus’s promise, we realize the futility of possessiveness, greed and consumerism.
That’s a really hard call in our society. Every type of media conspires to convince us that we are not enough as we are. We need a better car, house, clothes, haircut, and on and on to make us “acceptable”. Populism and racism ingrained in our politics convince us that we need to be a certain color, nationality, religion, speak a certain language to be worth anything.
Jesus says NO. You are beautiful as I created you. And you already have everything you need to merit my promise of eternal life. You have only one need in this world — to love yourself and one another so that my promise can be released in you and in all Creation.
Today, in Mercy, our readings encourage us never to weary in our faith and prayer.
Look at Moses in our first reading! He keeps his hands raised in supplication throughout the entire battle, albeit with a little help from his friends.
This is a good reminder for us of the gift and importance of a praying community. There are times in every life when we need someone to hold us up in prayer.
In our second reading, Paul counsels Timothy never to grow weary in the pursuit of his ministry.
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, … proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient…
And in our Gospel, Jesus tells the parable of the importune widow, who kept after the judge until she got the answer she wanted. Luke includes this information:
Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.
If a dishonest judge can be moved by persistence to grant justice, how much more will God do so for those God loves?
The point? Not that if we bug God, we’ll get what we want. Rather it is to remind us to stay in steadfast relationship with God who is always revealing the path of grace and wholeness to us.
So let’s take a clue from Moses. Let’s keep our hands up in faithful praise to God through all the blessings and challenges of our lives. By doing so, we will receive peace far beyond our persistent questions and concerns.
Total Praise – Richard Smallwood, sung by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir
I have particularly loved this hymn from the first time I heard it sung by our wonderful Keystone Mercy Choir in my former workplace. The music itself is soul-shaking, but what most deeply moved my spirit was the faith of the singers, my beautiful workplace community. This video has the same effect on me – the faith of the singers and the audience is inspiring! (Lyrics below)
Lord, I will lift mine eyes to the hills
Knowing my health is coming from You
Your peace You give me in times of the storm
You are the source of my strength, Hallelujah
And You are the strength of my life, yes You are
I lift my hands in total praise to You
Lord, I will lift mine eyes to the hills
Knowing my health is coming from You
Your peace, You give me in times of the storm
You are the source of my strength
You are the strength of my life
I lift my hands in total praise to You
You are the source of my strength
You are the strength of my life
I lift my hands in total praise to
Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen
You are the source of my strength
You are the strength of my life
Today, in Mercy, we celebrate the feast of St. Luke who gave us so many inspiring stories and insights not in the other three Gospels. Here are just a few:
the Visitation
the Magnificat
Zechariah’s Canticle
the Christmas angels
Simeon and Anna
the Miraculous Fish Catch
the Anointing of Jesus’s Feet
Mary and Martha
Zaccheus in the Tree
the Emmaus story
and many other stories and teachings
When we examine these unique stories, we can see many reflections of Mary’s viewpoint on various incidents. Indeed, Luke, from the outset, sets Mary as first of disciples and a model for all who desire to follow Christ.
Today’s Gospel is one of those passages unique to Luke. It must have been a cherished memory of the disciples as they continued Jesus’s preaching after his Ascension. As they met challenges in their lives and ministries, these words could keep them focused.
The Lord Jesus appointed seventy-two disciples whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit. He said to them, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest. Go on your way…
Perhaps this, or another favorite passage from Luke, has encouragement to offer us today. Do you havefavorite?
Music: my favorite – the Magnificat, the ultimate prayer of social justice sung here by the Daughters of Mary (Latin and English below)
Magníficat ánima mea Dóminum.
Et exultávit spíritus meus: in Deo salutári meo.
Quia respéxit humilitátem ancíllae suae:
Ecce enim ex hoc beátam me dicent omnes generatiónes.
Quia fécit mihi mágna qui pótens est: et sánctum nómen eius.
Et misericórdia eius in progénies et progénies timéntibus eum.
Fécit poténtiam in bráchio suo: dispérsit supérbos mente cordis sui.
Depósuit poténtes de sede: et exaltávit húmiles.
Esuriéntes implévit bonis: et dívites dimísit inánes.
Today, in Mercy … Oh boy, Paul and Jesus stick it to hypocrites in today’s readings. And I’m like, “Yeah! Go get those rotten, lying hypocrites” – and I have a whole slew of people in mind!
Then, WHOA!I see Paul’s no-nonsense warning:
For by the standard by which you judge another
you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, do the very same things.
This is a definite “clean up your act” reading. And don’t deflect your own sinfulness on to the people around you!
Jesus takes the same advice to the Pharisees by throwing a couple of serious “woes” at them:
Woe to you Pharisees! You pay tithes of mint and of rue and of every garden herb, but you pay no attention to judgment and to love for God. These you should have done, without overlooking the others.
Woe to you Pharisees! You love the seat of honor in synagoguesand greetings in marketplaces.
Woe to you! You are like unseen graves over which people unknowingly walk.
Oh wow! I don’t want to be like an unseen grave, do you?! Neither did one of the scholars who responded to Jesus, “Teacher, by saying this you are insulting us too!”
But Jesus is undeterred:
Woe also to you scholars of the law! You impose on people burdens hard to carry, but you yourselves do not lift one finger to touch them.
Today’s readings offer us a clear message to take a good look at ourselves. Are we guilty of the very uglinesses that we condemn in others?
The Scottish poet Robert Burns got the picture in his poem
“To A Louse”
O would some Power the gift to give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
For fun, here is the Standard English Translation
Ha! Where are you going, you crawling wonder? Your impudence protects you sorely, I can not say but you swagger rarely Over gauze and lace, Though faith! I fear you dine but sparingly On such a place
You ugly, creeping, blasted wonder, Detested, shunned by saint and sinner, How dare you set your foot upon her – Such fine a lady! Go somewhere else and seek your dinner On some poor body Off! in some beggar’s temples squat:
There you may creep, and sprawl, and scramble, With other kindred, jumping cattle, In shoals and nations; Where horn nor bone never dare unsettle Your thick plantations
Now hold you there! you are out of sight, Below the falderals, snug and tight; No, faith you yet! you will not be right, Until you have got on it — The very topmost, towering height Of misses bonnet. My sooth! right bold you set your nose out, As plump and gray as any gooseberry:
O for some rank, mercurial resin, Or deadly, red powder, I would give you such a hearty dose of it, Would dress your breech! I would not have been surprised to spy You on an old wife’s flannel cap:
Or maybe some small ragged boy, On his undervest; But Miss’s fine balloon bonnet! fye! How dare you do it. O Jenny do not toss your head, And set your beauties all abroad! You little know what cursed speed The blastie’s making!
Those winks and finger-ends, I dread, Are notice takiing! O would some Power the gift to give us To see ourselves as others see us! It would from many a blunder free us, And foolish notion: What airs in dress and gait would leave us, And even devotion.
Music: Britt Nicole – Through Your Eyes (a chance to think about how our loving God sees us, and everyone else/)
Today, in Mercy, we begin about a month of readings from Paul’s letter to the Romans. We will also continue with Luke’s Gospel all the way up to Advent.
To help me in praying with Romans, I am using a book by Scott W. Hahn, Father Michael Scanlan Chair of Biblical Theology at Steubenville University. In his introduction, Hahn says this:
Today’s reading offered me these elements to ponder and pray with:
Paul calls himself a “slave” of Jesus Christ
He invokes his call as an Apostle
He sets himself in the company of the prophets
He appeals to Jews who revere David
but proclaims Christ, through his Resurrection, as Messiah beyond human lineage
He proclaims his mission to the Gentiles
to bring about “the obedience of faith”
I’ll be honest with you. I’ve read or heard this passage maybe fifty times in my lifetime, and it has meant little or nothing to me. At best, it has sounded like a formal introduction such as those we hear from government “whereas” type decrees.
But I took Dr. Hahn’s advice, studying the passage, and reading it slowly and prayerfully. Here’s what I received:
Paul’s Apostolic call, to which he willingly enslaved his heart, was to preach the Good News of our redemption in Jesus Christ – to preach it to Jews, Romans, Gentiles, and all people.
It is an awesomely incredible message that can be received only through the gift of faith.
It is a message rooted in the scripture stories we love, and where we look to find a reflection of our own stories.
Learning from these realities will help us come to a faith which expresses itself in action and gives glory to God in our own time.
Luke gives us one such story today. Jesus reminds the crowd of two familiar passages – that of Jonah and the “Queen of the South” (the Queen of Sheba, 1 Kings 10). He indicates that the people in these stories believed without a sign.
Jesus tells the people gathered around him to learn from this. The crowd demands a sign, but Jesus says the sign is right in front of you – it is only your open heart that is lacking.
In his introduction, Paul prays for such open hearts in the Romans:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
By that same grace, may we receive faith’s blessing as well.
Today, in Mercy, Malachi (chronologically last of the Twelve minor prophets) lays it all out.He is writing for the Jewish community after the Restoration of the Second Temple. It is a community whose faith and practice have become “institutionalized”, having lost much of the raw vigor and intention of its first charismatic restorers.
I think we can all understand how that happens. It’s hard to maintain the passion of an early vision over the long years of its testing. This Jewish community has been visibly successful. They are home from captivity. The Temple has been rebuilt. Life is good. What’s the problem? So God tells them:
You have defied me in word, says the LORD, yet you ask, “What have we spoken against you?” You have said, “It is vain to serve God, and what do we profit by keeping his command, And going about in penitential dress in awe of the LORD of hosts?
The community has forgotten the heart of their life! In the imposing shadow of their Temple achievement, they have lost the memory of the God it honors.
Rabbi Gunther W. Plaut says this: Malachi describes a priesthood that is forgetful of its duties, a Temple that is underfunded because the people have lost interest in it, and a society in which Jewish men divorce their Jewish wives to marry out of the faith. The Prophet lived probably sometime after the year 500, perhaps as late as 450 (B.C.E.). It was an era of spiritual disillusionment, for the glorious age that earlier prophets had foreseen had not materialized.
It’s not a big leap to see ourselves foreshadowed in Malachi’s prophecy. We live on a devastated planet and a war-pocked world. We agonize over corrupted political, economic and justice systems. We worship in a scarred and struggling Church. We live in a culture that has forgotten. Indeed, in our materialistic world, it appears that:
… evildoers prosper, and even tempt God with impunity.
But Malachi tells the faithful people that the day of their reconciliation is coming. He tells them to remain steadfast, to keep their eyes on the prize.
… you shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, my own special possession, on the day I arise. And I will have compassion on you, as a parent has compassion on a devoted child.
Our Gospel echoes this promise. If we but ask, God will give us the strength to remain merciful, faithful, and just – not to forget the heart of our life, not to be blind to it in our suffering brothers and sisters.
Music: Keep Your Eyes on the Prize– a folk song, a genre that carries a lot in common with prophetic poetry. This ballad became influential during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. It is based on the traditional song, “Gospel Plow” also known as “Hold On” or “Keep Your Hand on the Plow”.
This version is written by Pete Seeger sung by The Boss, Bruce Springsteen
Paul and Silas bound in jail
Had no money for to go their bail
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Paul and Silas thought they was lost
Dungeon shook and the chains come off
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Freedom’s name is mighty sweet
And soon we’re gonna meet
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
I got my hand on the gospel plow
Won’t take nothing for my journey now
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Hold on, hold on
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Only chain that a man can stand
Is that chain o’ hand on hand
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
I’m gonna board that big greyhound
Carry the love from town to town
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Hold on, hold on
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Now only thing I did was wrong
Stayin’ in the wilderness too long
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
The only thing we did was right
Was the day we started to fight
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Hold on, hold on
(Jamming interlude)
Ain’t been to heaven but I been told
Streets up there are paved with gold
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
(Some of you may recognize this reflection as a “recycle”, but I think it may be worth another read.)
Today, in Mercy,Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray. His prayer is simple and direct, like talking to your Dad over a morning cup of coffee.
What about us? How do we pray?
Our first learned prayers are a lot like Jesus’s simple Our Father. We praise God, giving thanks, and asking for what we need.
Then we grow up and get sophisticated. We may begin to “say” or read prayers rather than use our own words. While such a practice can deepen our understanding of prayer, it places a layer between us and our conversation with God.
Sometimes others lead our prayer in the community of faith. This too can enrich us as we are inspired by a shared faith. But it is a little like trying to have a private conversation in an elevator.
Just as Jesus often went off in solitude to pray, this kind of prayer is our most intimate time with God – a time when God allows us to know God and ourselves in a deeper way. This sacred time alone with God may be spent in words, song, or the silence that speaks beyond words.
It is a time to be with the Beloved as we would our dearest, most faithful companion. We rest in the field of our experiences, letting them flow over God’s heart in tenderness. We listen with the ear of absolute trust to the secrets God tells us in the quiet.
Today, in Mercy, we read from the Book of Baruch, a little book with a big punch. Baruch authored “scribal literature”, that which completed the message of another writer. Baruch was Jeremiah’s scribe, working to finish the edges of this most complex of the prophets.
Our reading today reflects this complexity. The Israelites have a history of intertwined faith and faithlessness. They also have current overwhelming sufferings. How does the prophet employ these two realities to impel hearts toward God?
Baruch characterizes God as angry and vengeful, punishing the people for their idolatry. It’s a model that works for Baruch’s time and purposes. But it’s not the God I know and love. So how can the passage speak to me?
The core of Baruch’s message is that things can be really bad sometimes in life, but that God is with us even in those times. Our turning to God in trust and patience will allow us to remain faithful and to deepen spiritually even in suffering. That fidelity brings joy and peace.
It’s hard to have that kind of faith. We want to manage our lives, and even manage God, in order to make sense of the chaos of life – to provide sensible, rectifiable reasons for suffering and evil.
We want to control demons like the early disciples did.
In our Gospel, these disciples return from their missionary trips all puffed up with their powers over evil. Jesus cautions them saying that’s not at all what it’s all about. Any miraculous power they have in a given moment is only a sign of a Greatness beyond them.
Instead, their names a written in Heaven by the long, unshakeable fidelity that comes with keeping their eyes on God; by giving themselves to the mysterious, sometimes hidden, presence of God in every reality; by allowing that Presence to transform them and their circumstances.
(Speaking of prophets, a beautiful poem, Advice to a Prophet, came across my email today thanks to Joe Riley at Panhala. The poem is fitting as we close this Season of Creation. I will include it in a second post in case you’d like to read it.)
Music:a little revival music today, New Name Written Down in Glory. Picture the disciples singing this after Jesus instructs them in today’s Gospel.
Today, in Mercy, Ezra and Nehemiah gather all the People for a gargantuan spiritual renewal! It is the People themselves who request this renewal, realizing that they have drifted from the Law and desiring to ritualize their return to it.
It seems fitting that this reading comes just after the Jewish celebration of Rosh Hashana (from sundown on Sunday, September 29 until sundown on Tuesday, October 1, 2019.) This feast marks the beginning of the Jewish High Holy Days.
One of the lessons Christians can take from today’s passage is awareness of the great power and gift of God’s Word. Ezra’s community was changed by listening to that Word with open, repentant hearts.
In our Gospel, Jesus sends his disciples out to preach that Word, now transformed by the power of his Incarnation. He tells them to preach that “the Kingdom of God is at hand!”
Just this week, Pope Francis has taken steps to rekindle our appreciation of the Word. By declaring the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time as the Sunday of the Word of God, our Pope wants to help us grow in love and devotion to Sacred Scripture.
(Personally, I welcome this focus. At the time of the Second Vatican Council, there was a new and deepened awareness of the gift of Sacred Scripture. As a young religious, that awareness was central to my spiritual formation. Since that time, there seems to have been an unfortunate shift away from that emphasis. I see the Pope’s declaration as a welcome corrective to that shift.)
Pope Francis has designated the day “to the celebration, study and dissemination of the word of God “ so as to help the Church “experience anew how the risen Lord opens up for us the treasury of his word and enables us to proclaim its unfathomable riches before the world’.
May we gratefully respond!
(See below the music : If you are interested, I have copied a very good excerpt from Pope Francis Apostolic Letter.)
Music: We Come to Hear Your Word – Chris Jubilee
Below is an excerpt from the Pope’s Apostolic Letter APERUIT ILLIS -INSTITUTING THE SUNDAY OF THE WORD OF GOD. I found it to be helpful in understanding the Pope’s intent with this feast:
With this Letter, I wish to respond to the many requests I have received from the people of God that the entire Church celebrate, in unity of purpose, a Sunday of the Word of God.
It is now common for the Christian community to set aside moments to reflect on the great importance of the word of God for everyday living. The various local Churches have undertaken a wealth of initiatives to make the sacred Scripture more accessible to believers, to increase their gratitude for so great a gift, and to help them to strive daily to embody and bear witness to its teachings.
The Second Vatican Council gave great impulse to the rediscovery of the word of God, thanks to its Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum, a document that deserves to be read and appropriated ever anew. The Constitution clearly expounds the nature of sacred Scripture, its transmission from generation to generation (Chapter II), its divine inspiration (Chapter III) embracing the Old and New Testaments (Chapters IV and V), and the importance of Scripture for the life of the Church (Chapter VI).
To advance this teaching, Pope Benedict XVI convoked an Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in 2008 on “The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church”, and then issued the Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini, whose teaching remains fundamental for our communities.[1] That document emphasizes in particular the performative character of the Word of God, especially in the context of the liturgy, in which its distinctively sacramental character comes to the fore.[2]
It is fitting, then that the life of our people be constantly marked by this decisive relationship with the living word that the Lord never tires of speaking to his Bride, that she may grow in love and faithful witness.
Consequently, I hereby declare that the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time is to be devoted to the celebration, study and dissemination of the word of God. This Sunday of the Word of God will thus be a fitting part of that time of the year when we are encouraged to strengthen our bonds with the Jewish people and to pray for Christian unity. This is more than a temporal coincidence: the celebration of the Sunday of the Word of God has ecumenical value, since the Scriptures point out, for those who listen, the path to authentic and firm unity.
Lavish Mercy 