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 that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:14-19
Paul blesses his beloved Ephesian community with these stirring words:
..May you know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge…
Ephesians 3:19
We, and the Ephesians who receive this blessing, are reminded that we cannot comprehend or analyze God’s infinite love for us. Neither can we rationalize what that Love calls us to.
Today in God’s Lavish Mercy: We ask for the grace of holy abandonment, letting ourselves rest in God’s Love without reserve, question, or calculation. May that same generous trust inspire our gift of Love to others in God’s name.
Thought: from Bishop Silvio José Báez, O.C.D.
We can abandon ourselves to God and totally trust God even without fully comprehending God’s ways; it’s a source of inexhaustible joy.
The Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit intercedes with inexpressible groanings. And the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, Who intercedes for the holy ones according to God’s will. Romans 8:26-27
Our readings for the Feast of St. Teresa reflect the power which inspired her holy life. She lived deeply in the Spirit of God, sharing that infinite blessing with the world in her inspiring writings.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We ask St. Teresa to intercede for us in our desire to grow in holiness.
Poetry: If, Lord, Thy Love Is Strong – St. Teresa of Avila
If, Lord, Thy love for me is strong As this which binds me unto thee, What holds me from thee Lord so long, What holds thee Lord so long from me?
O soul, what then desirest thou? Lord I would see thee, who thus choose thee. What fears can yet assail thee now? All that I fear is but lose thee.
Love’s whole possession I entreat, Lor make my soul thine own abode, And I will build a nest so sweet It may not be too poor for God.
A sould in God hidden from sin, What more desires for thee remain, Save but to love again, And all on flame with love within, Love on, and turn to love again.
Music: Adoro Te Devote – Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.” Luke 11:1-4
Today’s Gospel shows us the centrality of prayer in the life of Jesus and his disciples. The prayer Jesus leaves us in this passage is a prayer of presence, an intimate conversation with the God who supplies our needs.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: Like the disciples, we ask Jesus to teach us how to pray – to move from recitation to presence; to move from timed practice to timeless oneness.
Thoughts – from Thomas Merton
First of all, prayer is a spiritual activity. This activity engages the highest faculties of our soul, our mind and our will. To be valid, prayer must be intelligent and it must be an act of sincere love. Already we can see that prayer is one of the most perfect actions a man can perform. When we pray properly we are exercising our intelligence and we are working with our will. This cannot be done without interior discipline. The more we practice prayer the stronger do these higher faculties become, and so they regain their lost control over the passions which are the root of all prejudice and of all error. Thus, in the natural order alone, the true practice of prayer would be sufficient to elevate and purify the soul to some extent. But this presupposes that prayer is really prayer and not pious automatism, or mere exterior formalism, or, worse still, an act of blind superstition. These dangers mustall be obviated by the constant striving for intelligent attention and for a sincere, earnest and fervent intention of the will.
Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.” The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.” Luke 10:38-42
What is the sacred balance between prayer and action? How do we acieve the sweet point where prayer and action infuse each other in mutual inspiration? In this Gospel, Jesus indicates that one element has precedence over the other — there is a “better part”.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We seek to deepen our prayer life while employing it to inspire our merciful service to Creation.
Poetry: Martha and Mary by John Newton (1725-1807)
Martha her love and joy expressed By care to entertain her guest; While Mary sat to hear her Lord, And could not bear to lose a word.
The principle in both the same, Produced in each a different aim; The one to feast the Lord was led, The other waited to be fed.
But Mary chose the better part, Her Saviour’s words refreshed her heart; While busy Martha angry grew, And lost her time and temper too.
With warmth she to her sister spoke, But brought upon herself rebuke; One thing is needful, and but one, Why do thy thoughts on many run?
How oft are we like Martha vexed, Encumbered, hurried, and perplexed! While trifles so engross our thought, The one thing needful is forgot.
Lord teach us this one thing to choose, Which they who gain can never lose; Sufficient in itself alone, And needful, were the world our own.
Let groveling hearts the world admire, Thy love is all that I require! Gladly I may the rest resign, If the one needful thing be mine!
Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to another. Before the mountains were brought forth, or the land and the earth were born, from age to age you are God.
You turn us back to the dust and say, “Go back, O child of earth.” For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past and like a watch in the night….
…. Satisfy us by your loving-kindness in the morning; so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life. Make us glad by the measure of the days that you afflicted us and the years in which we suffered adversity. Show your servants your works * and your splendor to their children. May the graciousness of the Lord our God be upon us; prosper the work of our hands; prosper our handiwork. Psalm 90:1-4;14-17
Our beautiful Responsorial Psalm today allows us to reflect on our grateful past and our hopeful future. God’s mercy is with every person in every age of our lives.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We ponder this infinite blessing so that we can open our hearts to its amazing grace.
Poetry: On Thy Wondrous Works I Will Meditate – Mary Oliver
Every morning I want to kneel down on the golden cloth of the sand and say some kind of musical thanks for the world that is happening again—another day— from the shawl of wind coming out of the west to the firm green
flesh of the melon lately sliced open and eaten, its chill and ample body flavored with mercy. I want to be worthy of—what? Glory? Yes, unimaginable glory. O Lord of melons, of mercy, though I am not ready, nor worthy, I am climbing toward you.
Every one of us remembers where we were on September 11, 2001. Like the elders among us who remember Pearl Harbor and the assassinations of MLK, JFK, and RFK, the current generation will always be marked by that infamous day.
Evil became visible that day. We saw its face in the terrorists. We saw its deadly scars on 2,819 innocent people and their loved ones. We have watched its echoes across two decades that have become more vigilant and less trusting.
Besides the victims in the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, so much else died on September 11th. Innocence died; universal trust died; unconditional acceptance died. And with their loss, our national soul was put in jeopardy.
Healing But within a few hours of the attacks, we saw the human spirit raise its head. Acts of tremendous courage, love, support, and generosity became the new face of September 11th. A dormant patriotism was unfurled in millions of flags across America. Who will ever forget how KIND we became to one another when faced with the reality of one another’s vulnerability.
Learning And so, all indications to the contrary, we learn even from the darkest evil. Throughout history, good people have learned from bad things such as: The Holocaust: “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are truly good at heart…. that this cruelty too will end…” (Anne Frank, who died in a Nazi concentration camp)
War: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.” (President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Five-star General and Supreme Commander of Allied Forces, World War II.)
Institutionalized Slavery: “I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other.” (Harriet Tubman, formerly enslaved woman who led many others to freedom by the Underground Railroad)
Choosing What have we learned from September 11th and who will we choose to be due to our learning? All of us want a better world for ourselves and our children. We want less fear and more trust. We want less struggle and more peace. We want less tension and more freedom. What we want will never come to us unless we choose to live it into being. A quote attributed to Mahatma Gandhi puts it this way: “You must choose to be the change you wish to see in the world.”
Leading such change requires great bravery. Gandhi also said this, “A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.”
Acting So, on this 23rd Commemoration of September 11th, let us be brave enough to change the world. Courage and kindness stand side by side because they both require self-sacrifice. To commemorate the lives lost that day, we may choose to make one act of anonymous, unrewarded kindness. Do it to make the world kinder, to contribute to a legacy for the future, to send a message that evil never triumphs, and to remember the lives that were lost on September 11, 2001.
Some ideas that won’t cost you much (from helpothers.org) • Tape the exact change for a soda to a vending machine • Treat someone to a cup of their favorite coffee • Pay the toll for the person behind you • Leave a treat in the kitchen at work • Write a note of appreciation to someone • Smile from your heart at strangers. • Greet others when you pass them. • Offer to babysit for free for new parents so they can sleep or spend time with each other. • Spend time with an elderly person. • Buy flowers for someone in your office who’s having a rough time. • Leave a good book at a bus stop. • Instead of following normal tipping etiquette, leave a little extra. • Be kind to someone who isn’t always kind to you. • Cook a meal for someone who is sick, elderly, or just had a baby. • Pay someone’s expired parking meter. • Visit someone in hospice care. • Let someone go in front of you in line while you’re doing your grocery shopping. • If you experience great service, compliment the worker and tell their manager. • Give sincere compliments whenever you can. • If you see an elderly person having trouble pumping their gas at a gas station, offer to do it for them. • Leave the coupons you didn’t use at the register for someone else. • Spend time with people in nursing homes. More often than not, they are lonely.
Jesus departed to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God. When day came, he called his disciples to himself, and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named Apostles. Luke 6:12-13
Jesus wants to have a real heart-to-heart with the Creator. He goes to the mountain – where he can lift his spirit above and away from distractions.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: Our minds can become so cluttered and distracted, can’t they? They can throw tons of static into our conversation with God.
How and where can our hearts be lifted into the sacred ambience of silence? Where can we go, both spiritually and physically, to hear the Infinity beyond yet within us?
Poetry: Morning Mountain Prayer – Norbert Krapf
Morning mountain air calls me to sit outside and let it caress my knees and calves.
Just after I settle in a chair the sun rises above a small divide in the mountain
and warm light slants onto this yellow paper across which the black ink of a German pen walks leaving word tracks
that knew all along that in the end near the bottom of this page
they would become the thanksgiving prayer I send to the universe.
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
Beloved: We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that unique declaration came to him from the majestic glory, “This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain. Moreover, we possess the prophetic message that is altogether reliable. You will do well to be attentive to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 2 Peter 1:16-19
This beautiful passage from Peter shines with faith, adoration, and praise. It invites us to let go of our “thinking” about God and, instead, to bask in the Divine Glory of which our faith assures us.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: The Feast of the Transfiguration beckons us to be with God in the way we would be with someone we deeply love – not analyzing the bliss, but resting in it gratefully and contentedly.
Poetry: Transfiguration – Malcolm Guite
For that one moment, ‘in and out of time’, On that one mountain where all moments meet, The daily veil that covers the sublime In darkling glass fell dazzled at his feet. There were no angels full of eyes and wings Just living glory full of truth and grace. The Love that dances at the heart of things Shone out upon us from a human face And to that light the light in us leaped up, We felt it quicken somewhere deep within, A sudden blaze of long-extinguished hope Trembled and tingled through the tender skin. Nor can this blackened sky, this darkened scar Eclipse that glimpse of how things really are.
Lavish Mercy 