May this glorious season dazzle and bless each of you, dear friends.
Category: Hope
… time …
Memorial of Saint Vincent de Paul, Priest
September 27, 2024
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092724.cfm
What advantage have workers from their toil?
I have considered the task that God has appointed
for us to be busied about.
The Infinite One has made everything appropriate to its time,
and has put the timeless into their hearts,
without our ever discovering,
from beginning to end, the work which God has done.
Ecclesiastes 3:9-11
Three thousand years ago, in the Book of Ecclesiastes, a writer called Kohelet meditated on God’s Mercy experienced over a lifetime. Like the writer, we may have done the same thing at various significant times in our lives.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We place our lives against the timepiece pictured above. We may pray over a specific time of challenge and grace. Or we may consider the whole pattern of mercy passing slowly yet constantly through our lives, like the ticking of a steadfast clock.
Poetry: XC Domine, refugium – Malcolm Suite
In this poem, Guite refers to a poem by Philip Larkin which may be read here: https://allpoetry.com/Cut-Grass
XC Domine, refugium
Malcolm Guite
A cosy comforter, a lucky charm?
Not with this psalmist, for he praises God
From everlasting ages, in his psalm.
A God of refuge –yes – and yet a God
Who knows the death that comes before each birth,
Who sees each generation die, a God
Before whom all the ages of the earth
Are like a passing day, like the cut grass
In Larkin’s limpid verse: ‘brief is the breath
Mown stalks exhale’. So we and all things pass,
And God endures beyond us. Yet he cares
For our brief lives, his loving tenderness
Extends to all his creatures, our swift years
Are precious in his sight. In Christ he shares
Our grief and he will wipe away our tears.
Music: There Is A Season – Tom Kendzia
Resurrection
Memorial of Saints Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn, Paul Chŏng Ha-sang, and Companions, Martyrs
September 20, 2024
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092024.cfm
If Christ is preached as raised from the dead,
how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?
If there is no resurrection of the dead,
then neither has Christ been raised.
And if Christ has not been raised, then empty too is our preaching;
empty, too, your faith.
1 Corinthians 15:12-14
Paul takes his listeners to the foundation of their faith – the Resurrection. Believing in it, we are freed from our greatest common fear – the fear of Death.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
In rising from the dead, Jesus changed Darkness to Light. Every dawn transforms our nights to Easter if we allow Christ to rise in us, making all things new.
Poetry: excerpts from The Exultet
O wonder of your humble care for us!
O love, O charity beyond all telling,
to ransom a slave you gave away your Son!
O truly necessary sin of Adam,
destroyed completely by the Death of Christ!
O happy fault
that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!
O truly blessed night,
worthy alone to know the time and hour
when Christ rose from the underworld!
This is the night
of which it is written:
The night shall be as bright as day,
dazzling is the night for me,
and full of gladness.
Music: The Exultet
Alabaster
Thursday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
September 19, 2024
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091924.cfm
Bringing an alabaster flask of ointment,
she stood behind him at his feet weeping
and began to bathe his feet with her tears.
Then she wiped them with her hair,
kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment….
Simon, when I entered your house,
you did not give me water for my feet,
but she has bathed them with her tears
and wiped them with her hair.
You did not give me a kiss,
but she has not ceased kissing my feet.
You did not anoint my head with oil,
but she anointed my feet with ointment.
So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven;
because she has shown great love.
Luke 7:37-38;44-47
Mary (identified in John’s Gospel as Mary of Bethany) loves Jesus beyond words. Sensing that his Passion and Death are near, she pours out that love in silent tenderness.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Prayerfully imagine the alabaster jar, holding it gently in your hands. It is fine and delicate, easily broken unless handled tenderly.
As we express our love for God and for God’s Creation, we carry it in delicate wrappings, like alabaster. Sometimes, we may doubt our capacity for love, faith, and hope. We may see our “sinfulness” rather than our spiritual strength.
But if we, like Mary, focus our hearts on God, and fearlessly pour our love over God’s Creation, our fragility becomes our strength.
Poetry: Anointings at Bethany – Irene Zimmerman, OSF
Solemnly, Mary entered the room,
holding high the alabaster jar.
It gleamed in the lamplight as she circled the room,
incensing the disciples, blessing Martha’s banquet.
“A splendid table!” Mary called with her eyes
as she whirled past her sister.
She came to a halt at last before Jesus,
bowed profoundly and knelt at his feet.
Deftly, she filled her right hand with nard,
placed the jar on the floor,
took one foot in her hands
and moved fragrant fingers across his instep.
Over and over she made the journey
from heel to toes, thanking him
for every step he had made
on Judea’s stony hills,
for every stop at their home,
for bringing back Lazarus.
She poured out more nard,
took his other foot in her hands
and started again with strong, rhythmic strokes.
She felt her hands’ heat draw out his tiredness,
take away the rebuffs he had known
—the shut doors, the shut hearts.
Energy flowed like a river between them.
His saturated skin gleamed with oil.
But she had no towel!
In an instant she pulled off her veil,
pulled the pins from her hair,
shook it out till it fell in cascades
and once more cradled each foot,
dried the ankles, the insteps,
drew the strands between his toes.
Without warning, Judas Iscariot
spat out his anger, the words hissing
like lightning above her unveiled head:
“Why was this perfume not sold
for three hundred denarii
and the money given to the poor?”
“Leave her alone!”
Jesus silenced the usurper.
“She bought it so that she might keep it
for the day of my burial.”
The words poured like oil,
anointing her from head to foot.
Music: Pour My Love on You – Craig and Dean Phillips
I don’t know how to say exactly how I feel
And I can’t begin to tell you what your love has meant
I’m lost for words
Is there a way to show the passion in my heart
Can I express how truly great I think you are,
My dearest friend.
Lord, this is my desire:
To pour my love on You
Chorus:
Like oil upon your feet
Like wine for you to drink
Like water from my heart
I pour my love on you
If praise is like perfume
I’ll lavish mine on you
Till every drop is gone
I’ll pour my love on you.
Love
Wednesday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
September 18, 2024
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091824.cfm
At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror,
but then face to face.
At present I know partially;
then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
So faith, hope, love remain, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:12-13
In this often recited and glorious passage from Corinthians, Paul recounts the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and love. He tells us that without love, the rest of the spiritual life is meaningless. And Jesus told us that to love only those who love us is not sufficient.
For if you love those who love you,
Luke 6:32
what credit is that to you?
Even sinners love those who love them.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Real love is not easy. We pray to grow better at loving as God loves – universally, selflessly, and limitlessly.
Poetry: Love’s As Warm As Tears – C.S. Lewis
Love’s as warm as tears,
Love is tears:
Pressure within the brain,
Tension at the throat,
Deluge, weeks of rain,
Haystacks afloat,
Featureless seas between
Hedges, where once was green.
Love’s as fierce as fire,
Love is fire:
All sorts—infernal heat
Clinkered with greed and pride,
Lyric desire, sharp-sweet,
Laughing, even when denied,
And that empyreal flame
Whence all loves came.
Love’s as fresh as spring,
Love is spring:
Bird-song hung in the air,
Cool smells in a wood,
Whispering ‘Dare! Dare!’
To sap, to blood,
Telling ‘Ease, safety, rest,
Are good; not best.’
Love’s as hard as nails,
Love is nails:
Blunt, thick, hammered through
The medial nerves of One
Who, having made us, knew
The thing He had done,
Seeing (with all that is)
Our cross, and His.
Music: The Greatest of These Is Love – Tina English and Jay Rouse
If I speak with the tongues of men and angels
but have not love, I am just a noise.
And if I have the gift of prophecy,
know all knowledge, have all faith,
understand all mystery, or remove mountains,
but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give all I have to feed the poor,
but have not love,
nothing is gained, nothing gained.
Love is patient, love is kind.
Love does not brag, and is not arrogant.
Love is not proud, boastful, rude.
Love does not seek its own.
Love rejoices in the truth.
It keeps no record of wounds.
Love bears all things,believes all things.
Love hopes all things,
endures all things.
These three remain:
faith, hope, and love.
But the greatest of these is love.
Leap
Wednesday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
September 11, 2024
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091124.cfm
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for the Kingdom of God is yours.
Blessed are you who are now hungry,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who are now weeping,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
and when they exclude and insult you,
and denounce your name as evil
on account of me.Rejoice and leap for joy on that day!
Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.
Luke 6:20-22
Maybe some of you also watch the TV game show “Wheel of Fortune”. Notice what happens when the contestant wins the final round. They leap for joy! Then their family and friends join them and they ALL leap for joy! And they keep leaping !!! They “leap” so much that Pat Sajak makes sure he gets out of the way!
Jesus wants his followers to know that, despite any sufferings in life, they too will leap for joy at the final round of life. Can you imagine the exultation!
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
May we trust in Jesus’s promise, and anticipate that infinite joy by our steadfast faith, hope, and love!
Poetry: This and That – Mary Oliver
(Imagine God leaning over you with the kiss of a new morning
and you leaping up to that Love.)
In this early dancing of a new day—
dogs leaping on the beach,
dolphins leaping not far from shore—
someone is bending over me,
is kissing me slowly.
Music: Don Quixote Variation – Júlio Santos (American Ballet Theater)
Enjoy a little ballet leaping for your prayer.
Recompense
Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
September 8, 2024
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/090824.cfm
Thus says the LORD:
Say to those whose hearts are frightened:
Be strong, fear not!
Here is your God,
he comes with vindication;
with divine recompense
he comes to save you.
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened,
the ears of the deaf be cleared;
then will the lame leap like a stag,
then the tongue of the mute will sing.
Streams will burst forth in the desert,
and rivers in the steppe.
The burning sands will become pools,
and the thirsty ground, springs of water.
Isaiah 35:4-7
Isaiah’s prophecy foretells the time when God will turn the world upside down. It will be time of vindication for all those who have suffered. In God’s realm, even nature will be blessed by the recompense of salvation – by what they earned by their faithfulness.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We look to the Gospel – the Good News of Jesus – to guide us so that we may foster this recompense for all people and in our own time. Those tied only to material values do not understand the infinite hope of a world turned upside-down by Jesus.
Poetry: Ain’t I A Woman – Sojourner Truth
A formerly enslaved person, Sojourner Truth became an outspoken advocate for abolition, temperance, and civil and women’s rights in the nineteenth century. In this poem she gives us an insight into her view of the world turned “upside-down”.
That man over there say
a woman needs to be helped into carriages
and lifted over ditches
and to have the best place everywhere.
Nobody ever helped me into carriages
or over mud puddles
or gives me a best place…
And ain’t I a woman?
Look at me
Look at my arm!
I have plowed and planted
and gathered into barns
and no man could head me…And ain’t I a woman?
I could work as much
and eat as much as a man —
when I could get to it —
and bear the lash as well
and ain’t I a woman?I have born 13 children
and seen most all sold into slavery
and when I cried out a mother’s grief
none but Jesus heard me…And ain’t I a woman?
that little man in black there say
a woman can’t have as much rights as a man
cause Christ wasn’t a woman
Where did your Christ come from?
From God and a woman!
Man had nothing to do with him!
If the first woman God ever made
was strong enough to turn the world
upside down, all alone
together women ought to be able to turn it
rightside up again.
Music: Upside Down – Jonny Diaz
Bones
Friday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time
August 23, 2024
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082324.cfm
He asked me:
Son of man, can these bones come to life?
I answered, “Lord GOD, you alone know that.”
Then he said to me:
Prophesy over these bones, and say to them:
Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!
Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones:
See! I will bring spirit into you, that you may come to life.
I will put sinews upon you, make flesh grow over you,
cover you with skin, and put spirit in you
so that you may come to life and know that I am the LORD.
Ezekiel 37:3-6
Ezekiel delivered this prophecy to the people during their Babylonian Captivity. Everything they had grounded their lives in had fallen apart – their beloved homeland, Temple, and God-appointed leaders. They were left broken and enslaved. The prophecy is a promised to this beleaguered people that God is faithful, and that they will be restored.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
How do we recover faith’s promise when we are left broken by life’s circumstances – either personally, or as we feel for our battered world? We ask for the faith to trust that God’s faithfulness endures for us and for our times.
Poetry: The Second Coming – William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Music: Come Alive – Lauren Daigle
Through the eyes of men, it seems there's so much we have lost
As we look down the road where all the prodigals have walked
One by one, the enemy has whispered lies
And led them off as slaves
But we know that You are God, Yours is the victory
We know there is more to come
That we may not yet see
So with the faith You've given us
We'll step into the valley unafraid, yeah
As we call out to dry bones, come alive, come alive
We call out to dead hearts, come alive, come alive
Up out of the ashes, let us see an army rise
We call out to dry bones, come alive
God of endless mercy, god of unrelenting love
Rescue every daughter, bring us back the wayward son
And by Your spirit, breathe upon them, show the world that You alone can save
You alone can save
As we call out to dry bones, come alive, come alive
We call out to dead hearts, come alive, come alive
Up out of the ashes, let us see an army rise
We call out to dry bones, come alive
So breathe, oh, breath of God
Now breathe, oh, breath of God
Breathe, oh, breath of God, now breathe
Breathe, oh, breath of God
Now breathe, oh, breath of God
Breathe, oh, breath of God, now breathe
As we call out to dry bones, come alive, come alive
We call out to dead hearts, come alive, come alive
Up out of the ashes, let us see an army rise
We call out to dry bones, come alive
We call out to dry bones, come alive
Oh, come alive
Abundance
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 28, 2024
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072824.cfm
Jesus said, “Have the people recline.”
Now there was a great deal of grass in that place.
So the men reclined, about five thousand in number.
Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks,
and distributed them to those who were reclining,
and also as much of the fish as they wanted.
When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples,
“Gather the fragments left over,
so that nothing will be wasted.”
So they collected them,
and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments
from the five barley loaves
that had been more than they could eat.
John 6:10-13
Today’s readings are about being fed – not only in a physical sense, but also in a spiritual sense. Jesus’s miracle with the loaves and fishes fed a lot of hungry people, but it more importantly opened their eyes to his power to redeem them. It gave them hope, the spiritual food for which we all hunger.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We realize that the same Lavish Mercy which fed those on the ancient hillside feeds and transforms us throughout our lives. As Paul indicates in the second reading, it makes us one in the infinite abundance of God’s grace and call.
May we therefore “live in a manner worthy of the call we have received.”
Poetry: When a Little Was Enough – Irene Zimmerman, OSF
“Send the people away from this deserted place
to find food and lodgings,” the
twelve urged Jesus,
“for the day is advanced and it is almost evening.”
Jesus looked at the crowd (there were about five thousand)
and looked at his disciples, still excited and tired
from their first mission journey.
What had they learned from
the villagers of Galilee
who shared bread and sheltered
them from cold night
winds?
What had they learned of human coldness
on the way?
He remembered the pain in his mother’s voice
as she told of his birth night when
they found no room
in all of Bethlehem, House of Bread.
“You give them something to eat!” he said.
“We have only five loaves and two
fish!” they protested.
“How can we feed so many with so little?”
He understood their incredulity.
They had yet to learn that a little was enough
when it was all they had—
that God could turn these very stones to bread.
“Have the crowd sit down in
groups of fifty,” he said.
Jesus took the food and looked up to heaven.
He blessed it, broke it, gave it to the disciples
to distribute to the new-formed churches.
Afterwards, when everyone was satisfied,
the twelve filled twelve baskets
of bread left over—
as faith stirred like yeast within them.
Music: I Am – by Finding Favor
While you were sleeping
While the whole world was dreaming
I never left your side
And I can promise I won’t be leaving
I watch you breathing
And I hear you singing
I feel your heart beat and I know every pain
That you’re feeling
And I am the comfort when you are afraid
I am the refuge when you call my name
I was, I’ll be, I am
I know you’re broken
You’re busted wide open
You’ve fallen to pieces and you feel there’s nothing left
You can hope in
But I’ll hold you together
We’ll stand the weather
Cause I paid the price for you
And I won’t let you go, no never
And I am the comfort when you are afraid
I am the refuge when you call my name
I was, I’ll be, I am
And I am the future, and I am the past
I am the first and I am the last
I was, I’ll be, I am
I am the Father, I am the Son
I am the Spirit, I am the One
I was, I’ll be, I am
And I wore the thorns and I took the nails
I am love, and love never fails
I was, I’ll be, I am
I am, I am, I am
Dew
Friday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 12, 2024
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071224.cfm
I will heal their defection, says the LORD,
I will love them freely;
for my wrath is turned away from them.
I will be like the dew for Israel:
he shall blossom like the lily;
He shall strike root like the Lebanon cedar,
and put forth his shoots.
His splendor shall be like the olive tree
and his fragrance like the Lebanon cedar.
Again they shall dwell in his shade
and raise grain;
They shall blossom like the vine,
and his fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon.
Hosea 14:5-8
Hosea describes God’s love for Israel – and for us – in tender, lavish images. We can picture the droughty land longing for refreshment the way a human heart longs for ease in suffering. God promises Israel a turn toward new life, fresh hope, the rooted security of covenantal relationship.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
God promises the same to us, pouring the dew of Lavish Mercy over our longing spirits. Our part is to open our hearts to that promise, to wait, and to receive.
Poetry: Inversnaid by Gerard Manley Hopkins
This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.
A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.
Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
Music: Dew on the Grass – Me-Do Meditation Music
Lavish Mercy 