Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 105, a sacred invitation to rest confidently in God.
Glory in God’s holy name; rejoice, O hearts that seek the LORD! Look to the LORD’s strength; seek to serve God wholeheartedly.
Psalm 105:3-4
Our trust is based on God’s infinite memory, mindful of us with every breath of our lives. We are asked to remember too.
The Lord remembers the covenant for ever.
Psalm 105:8
Jesus reminds us of this covenant in our Alleluia verse from John’s Gospel:
Let’s just be cradled in these holy promises as we pray today.
Poetry: Trust by Thomas R. Smith
It’s like so many other things in life to which you must say no or yes. So you take your car to the new mechanic. Sometimes the best thing to do is trust. The package left with the disreputable-looking clerk, the check gulped by the night deposit, the envelope passed by dozens of strangers— all show up at their intended destinations. The theft that could have happened doesn’t. Wind finally gets where it was going through the snowy trees, and the river, even when frozen, arrives at the right place. And sometimes you sense how faithfully your life is delivered, even though you can’t read the address.
Music: two songs today. I liked them both a lot and didn’t want to deprive you of either.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 15 which begins by asking a crystal clear question:
LORD, who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy mountain?
Psalm 15:1
In other words, “What is it you’re looking for in me that I may be your friend, living under your protection?”.
In our first reading, Abraham is in the process of deciphering the answer to this question by responding wholeheartedly to God’s invitation and promise.
One of Abraham’s first actions when becoming God’s friend is an act of justice toward his nephew Lot. Both their holdings had grown very large and their families began competing for resources. So Abraham gave Lot a choice to have his own land so both could live in security and peace.
Justice is the core of today’s readings, and it’s the ticket to God’s tent. I think it is a virtue which confuses many of us. We get it mixed up with concepts of law, vengeance, preferential judgements. But here’s the definition from the Catholic Catechism and I like it. It sounds academic, but it’s exactly what Abraham did for Lot in our first reading – he acted for “right relationship” which is the heart of justice. All in all, justice is just another face of Mercy.
Justice is the moral virtue that consists in the constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor. Justice toward God is called the “virtue of religion.” Justice toward persons disposes one to respect the rights of each and to establish in human relationships the harmony that promotes equity with regard to persons and to the common good.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
Thomas Aquinas must have thought people were confused about justice too. He defined and explained it exhaustively in the Summa Theologiae
Psalm 15, though, makes it simpler for us. Here’s Christine Robinson’s transliteration:
How do truly good people live? They speak the truth from their hearts have no hidden agendas, are loyal friends. They offer respect to their neighbors, but avoid the company of the selfish and the foolish, They honor good people wherever they find them. They live to do good, keep their word make their living with honest work and give generously from their abundance. Their way of life makes them strong in heart.
I like people like that, and I want to be one of them – for God’s sake, other people’s, and my own. Praying with Psalm 15 can help us do that.
Poetry: Making Peace – Denise Levertov
A voice from the dark called out, ‘The poets must give us imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar imagination of disaster. Peace, not only the absence of war.’ But peace, like a poem, is not there ahead of itself, can’t be imagined before it is made, can’t be known except in the words of its making, grammar of justice, syntax of mutual aid. A feeling towards it, dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have until we begin to utter its metaphors, learning them as we speak. A line of peace might appear if we restructured the sentence our lives are making, revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power, questioned our needs, allowed long pauses . . . A cadence of peace might balance its weight on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence, an energy field more intense than war, might pulse then, stanza by stanza into the world, each act of living one of its words, each word a vibration of light—facets of the forming crystal.
Music: Conserva Me, Domine (Psalm 15) – Marc Antoine Charpentier
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 33 in which the human family remembers and gives thanks for God’s creative omnipotence.
Following upon our reading from Genesis, our psalm moves past Eden to the practical world of the psalmist. It is a world where centuries have passed and human beings have progressively made a mark on Creation – for good or for ill.
God has watched the progression, blessing or redeeming it in Mercy:
The One who fashioned together their hearts is the One who knows all their works.
Psalm 33:15
The psalmist reminds us that all Creation generates within God’s power. To cooperate with that infinite grace, we must wait, listen, trust, and deepen in holy understanding:
Our soul waits for the LORD, who is our help and shield. For in God our hearts rejoice; in God’s holy name we trust. May your mercy, LORD, be upon us; as we put our hope in you.
Psalm 33:20-22
We are not the actors. We are simply the instruments of God’s gracious unfolding in the symmetry of Creation – both in the cosmos and in the delicate blossom of our own hearts.
How is God growing in the world today within my life?
Poetry:The light shouts in your tree-top, and the face – Rilke
The light shouts in your tree-top, and the face of all things becomes radiant and vain; only at dusk do they find you again. The twilight hour, the tenderness of space, lays on a thousand heads a thousand hands, and strangeness grows devout where they have lain. With this gentlest of gestures you would hold the world, thus only and not otherwise. You lean from out its skies to capture earth, and feel it underneath your mantle’s folds. You have so mild a way of being. ……………………………………………They who name you loudly when they come to pray forget your nearness. From your hands that tower above us, mountainously, lo, there soars, to give the law whereby our senses live, dark-browed, your wordless power.
Our gifted Mercy artist, Sister Judy Ward, has created greeting cards using some of my designs. This “Sunrise Tree” is one of them. If you would like to purchase any of Sister Judy’s beautiful work, you can connect with her here. She’s nice to talk with on the phone.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 107, a poem filled with images that hold secrets for our spiritual journey:
They who sailed the sea in ships, trading on the deep waters, These saw the works of the LORD and God’s wonders in the abyss.
Psalm 107:23-24
Those who have the opportunity to see the ocean in its many moods will quickly understand the analogy.
Life is an ocean, but we are not sailing it alone.
That’s what the Lord suggests to Job in our first reading, and what Jesus points out to the nervous disciples in our Gospel.
Psalm 107 tells us that when life distresses us we should do just what the disciples did:
They cried to the LORD in their distress; from their straits he rescued them, God hushed the storm to a gentle breeze and the billows of the sea were stilled
Psalm 107: 28-29
It also suggests us that we can hope for this result:
They rejoiced that they were calmed, and brought to their desired haven. Let them give thanks fo the Lord’s kindness and wondrous deeds to us all.
Psalm 107:30-31
The message of today’s readings for me is trust and hope — in both calm and storm. Let’s pray for it.
Poetry: blessing of the boats – Lucille Clifton
(at St. Mary’s)
may the tide that is entering even now the lip of our understanding carry you out beyond the face of fear may you kiss the wind then turn from it certain that it will love your back may you open your eyes to water water waving forever and may you in your innocence sail through this to that.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 34 once again. With its two accompanying readings, the psalm hits me right between the eyes with this awareness:
Those of us trying to live in God’s presence, the world isn’t going to help us. We will be in contradiction to many, if not most, popular values. Our choices may be questioned, if not ridiculed. Our values may be explained away. Our integrity may be challenged.
What’s it like to live a faith-based life in today’s culture? The image that comes to my mind is that of trying to play soccer with a square ball!
Paul felt the dissonance:
But the Lord said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me. Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ …
Jesus put the contradiction in a nutshell for us:
No one can serve two masters. You will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
So we need to figure out our “mammon” and vanquish it. We need to make the choice that Paul, the psalmist, and Jesus made. Let’s pray on it today.
Poetry: Contraband – Denise Levertov
The tree of knowledge was the tree of reason. That’s why the taste of it drove us from Eden. That fruit was meant to be dried and milled to a fine powder for use a pinch at a time, a condiment. God had probably planned to tell us later about this new pleasure. We stuffed our mouths full of it, gorged on but and if and how and again but, knowing no better. It’s toxic in large quantities; fumes swirled in our heads and around us to form a dense cloud that hardened to steel, a wall between us and God, Who was Paradise. Not that God is unreasonable – but reason in such excess was tyranny and locked us into its own limits, a polished cell reflecting our own faces. God lives on the other side of that mirror, but through the slit where the barrier doesn’t quite touch ground, manages still to squeeze in – as filtered light, splinters of fire, a strain of music heard then lost, then heard again.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 111 which enumerates and celebrates the joys of relationship with God. The psalm is offered within the “faithful assembly”, that covenanted community who long to be faithful to their ever-faithful God.
One way to strengthen that commitment in ourselves is to reflect on God’s splendor, generously flowing into our lives:
in the amazing mystery of our own lives
in the blessing of those we love and who love us
in the unbounded beauty of nature
in the wonderful gifts of human creativity that convince us of God’s Presence within us
the gift of sharing faith in community, however small or large, which fortifies our spirits in life’s challenging tides
Poetry: Christine Robinson – Psalm 111
Hallelujah! I will give thanks to God with my whole heart-- in silence and in company. God’s deeds are great— I will study them. God is compassionate and gracious I will remember God speaks in the heart— I will listen God’s hands work faithfulness and justice I will follow Awe of God is the beginning of wisdo I will praise God forever.
Music: Mozart – Vesperae de Dominica – Confitebor Tibi Domini (Psalm 111)
Confitebor tibi Domine, In toto corde meo; In consilio justorum, Et congregatione. Magna opera Domini, Exquisita in omnes voluntates ejus. Confessio et magnificentia opus ejus; Et justitia ejus manetIn saeculum saeculi. Memoriam fecit mirabilium suorum, Misericors et miserator Dominus. Escam dedit timentibus se. Memor erit in saeculum Testamenti sui. Virtutem operum suorum Annuntiabit populo suo. Ut det illis Hereditatem gentium; Opera manuum ejus Veritas et judicium. Fidelia omnia mandata ejus, Confirmata in saeculum saeculi, Facta in veritate et aequitate. Redemptionem misit Dominus Populo suo; Mandavit in aeternum testamentum suum. Sanctum et terribile nomen ejus: Initium sapientiae timor Domini; Intellectus bonus omnibus Facientibus eum. Laudatio ejus manet In saeculum saeculi. Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper. Et in saecula saeculorum. Amen
I acknowledge you, o Lord, With my whole heart; In the council of the just And in the congregation. Great are the works of the Lord, Chosen by all His desires. I acknowledge as well the magnificence of His deeds; And His justice endures From generation to generation. He has made memorials of His miracles, A merciful and compassionate Lord. He gives food to those that fear Him. He will remember forever His covenant. The power of His works Will be announced to His people. So that He may give them The inheritance of the nations; The works of His hands Are truth and justice. All His commandments are faithful, Confirmed from generation to generation, Made in truth and fairness. The Lord has sent salvation To His people; He has given His convenant for eternity. Holy and awesone is His name; The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; All who practice it Have a good understanding. His praise endures From generation to generation. Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and forever, and for generations of generations. Amen
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 112, a poem about why and how to live a generous life.
Blessed the one who is in awe of the LORD, who greatly delights in God’s commands. That person’s posterity shall be mighty upon the earth; the upright generation shall be blessed. Wealth and riches shall be in their house; their generosity shall endure forever.
Psalm 112:2-4
The psalm nicely complements our readings:
Paul, nudging the Corinthians for a general collection
Jesus, preaching sincerity and humility in our giving – both to humans and to God.
Generosity is the fruit of the theological virtue of charity.
I think “charity” gets a flimsy definition in our modern culture. Many think of it only as a noble intermittent gesture toward those who are disadvantaged, like change tossed into the Salvation Army bucket.
But it’s a way bigger deal. Here are a few clips from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. They offer so much thought for our meditation. After that, we might pray to deepen in true charity and to manifest it in quiet, sustained generosity.
The theological virtues are the foundation of Christian moral activity; they animate it and give it its special character. They inform and give life to all the moral virtues. They are infused by God into the souls of the faithful to make them capable of acting as God’s children and of meriting eternal life. They are the pledge of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in the faculties of the human being. There are three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity.
Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for God’s own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.
The practice of all the virtues is animated and inspired by charity, which “binds everything together in perfect harmony”; it is the form of the virtues; it articulates and orders them among themselves; it is the source and the goal of their Christian practice. Charity upholds and purifies our human ability to love, and raises it to the supernatural perfection of divine love.
The fruits of charity are joy, peace, and mercy; charity demands beneficence and fraternal correction; it is benevolence; it fosters reciprocity and remains disinterested and generous; it is friendship and communion:.
Love is itself the fulfillment of all our works. There is the goal; that is why we run: we run toward it, and once we reach it, in it we shall find rest.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 146, a lilting song of praise, remembrance, hope, trust, gratitude, and joy.
Praying with this inclusive translation, I let my life story unfold in the Presence of the Beloved, turning each petal over and over in the Light of God’s incomprehensible grace and mercy. No words … just the grateful turning. And I listened…listened to the silence.
Psalm 146
Alleluia
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I live.
Happy are they who look to God for their help!
For their hope is in the Lord their God,
who made heaven and earth, the seas, and all that is in them;
who keeps promises for ever;
who gives justice when we are oppressed,
food when we hunger
freedom when we are entrapped.
The Lord breaks through our blindness
The Lord lifts us up wthe we have been bowed.
and loves our desire for good.
I remember how the Lord cares for us
when we are brokenhearted,
but frustrates the way of the faithless.
I know the Lord shall reign for ever.
Alleluia!
Poetry: “I Happened To Be Standing” by Mary Oliver
I don’t know where prayers go, or what they do. Do cats pray, while they sleep half-asleep in the sun? Does the opossum pray as it crosses the street? The sunflowers? The old black oak growing older every year? I know I can walk through the world, along the shore or under the trees, with my mind filled with things of little importance, in full self-attendance. A condition I can’t really call being alive. Is a prayer a gift, or a petition, or does it matter? The sunflowers blaze, maybe that’s their way. Maybe the cats are sound asleep. Maybe not. While I was thinking this I happened to be standing just outside my door, with my notebook open, which is the way I begin every morning. Then a wren in the privet began to sing. He was positively drenched in enthusiasm, I don’t know why. And yet, why not. I wouldn’t pursuade you from whatever you believe or whatever you don’t. That’s your business. But I thought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be if it isn’t a prayer? So I just listened, my pen in the air.
Music: Praise You – Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir
Lord I come to you today,
With a simple prayer to pray.
In everything I do,
Let my life O Lord praise you.
Praise you, praise you, praise you
Let my life, praise you
Praise you, praise you, praise you
Let my life, O lord praise you
Lord you formed me out of clay,
And for your glory I was made.
Use this vessel as you choose.
Let my life O Lord praise you
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Isaiah for our Responsorial Psalm:
God indeed is my savior; I am confident and unafraid. My strength and my courage is the LORD, who has been my savior. With joy you will draw water at the fountain of salvation.
Isaiah 12:2-3
This fountain of salvation is the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
I woke up before dawn today. Not really wanting to formally begin my day, I lingered on the pillows for my early morning prayer. Having always loved this feast, I began placing all my suffering loved ones into Jesus’s heart – one by one, asking for their strength and healing.
The list was long, because there are all kinds of suffering, and I love a lot of people – even ones I don’t know personally! Finally I said to Jesus, “You know, life is HARD!”
And in my spirit, I heard this answer, “I know. I lived it for the love of every one of you.”
To me, this is the meaning of the Sacred Heart of Jesus – that merciful companionship which Infinity assumed for us in the person of Jesus Christ.
That fountain of love and mercy continues to nourish our lives in the Eucharistic community of faith practicing the works of mercy. We are the threads which bind one other to God’s heart.
Paul knew this. That’s why he prayed this beautiful prayer for his beloved Ephesian community. Our second reading offers an example of Paul’s magnificent benedictions and doxologies. As he prays for the Ephesians, so he prays for us. These prayers are exalted, yet simple. They thrill the soul who prays them. They place us, in awe and thanksgiving, fully in the divinely generous, Sweet Heart of Christ.
Let’s pray for our beloveds today and for the world:
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Music: Two songs today:
Threads – by David Leonard
We beseech the Sacred Heart today that all who suffer any kind of fragmentation may find tenderness, wholeness, and comfort in him. (To hear the song, click on “Watch on YouTube” in the black clock below.)
This one is old school, but it still works for me:
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 85 and its enchanting metaphors for heavenly bliss:
glory dwells with us
kindness and truth meet
justice and peace kiss.
truth springs out of the earth,
justice looks over heaven’s edge
Our souls long for such an environment, don’t they?
In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul says that the way to find it is to remove the veil from our hearts:
… whenever a person turns to the Lord the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:16-18
Edited in Prisma app with Tears
Our prayer with Psalm 85 today might echo that of Rev. Christine Robinson, Minister Emerita of the First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
O God, you have given us a beautiful earth— Grant us the wisdom to use it well. Lead us to an inner life in which we can rejoice. Speak peace to us, that we may live in peace. May your mercy and truth meet together Righteousness and peace kiss each other, Surrounding us with your light. Help us know true prosperity, And be gentle with your Earth. Guide our feet in the ways of peace.
Poetry: Lift Not the Painted Veil – Percy Bysshe Shelley
The advice in this poem by Shelley is a rather gloomy antithesis of Paul’s advice to the Corinthians (kind of like looking at the negative instead of the photograph, for those of us who remember the non-digital dream 😉) Still, the poem’s images offer much to think about if we choose not to “lift the veil”.
Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,
And it but mimic all we would believe
With colours idly spread,-behind, lurk Fear
And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave
Their shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and drear.
I knew one who had lifted it-he sought,
For his lost heart was tender, things to love,
But found them not, alas! nor was there aught
The world contains, the which he could approve.
Through the unheeding many he did move,
A splendour among shadows, a bright blot
Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove
For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.
Lavish Mercy 