Today, in Mercy, our readings demonstrate God’s power to change human lives.
The Travail of Hannah
Our first reading from the Book of Samuel completes the story of Hannah, Samuel’s mother. Hannah, one of the two wives of Elkanah, was childless. In today’s passage, Hannah takes her grief to the Temple and places it before the Lord. God hears her prayer and she conceives her son.
When the story is summarized, as I have just done, it seems like a cookie-cutter miracle story. A skeptic might wonder, had she waited long enough, would Hannah have conceived – Temple or not.
That’s because the summary has drained out all the human angst, emotional roller-coastering, denial, and frustration that finally brought Hannah to God’s arms. It could have taken her so many others places. Unrelieved pain often does. It takes some into unresolved anger, depression, addiction, even suicide.
The miracle of this story is Hannah’s faith and the power of God’s love in her. It just so happens that there was also Samuel.
Mark, in these early chapters of his Gospel, presents Jesus as the personification of that Divine Power. Both Christ’s “astonishing “ teaching and his stunning authority over evil convince us of this power.
With Jesus, the believer’s reality is transformed by faith and grace. Divine life blossoms even in formerly barren circumstances. Wholeness emerges even from that which had seemed fragmented.
This is the miracle: there is Divine Life inside that we had not seen until we looked, by faith, with the God’s eyes.
It was a scrawny excuse for a plant, relegated to an after-holiday sale at Home Depot. Nothing distinguished it except that it was the only green promise on a frozen, white January day.
I bought that Christmas cactus well over ten years ago with at least some small hope that it might someday yield the magnificent flower from which it draws its lofty name. No such thing! For ten years, it remained just green and alive, but otherwise unremarkable.
Then one day in its eleventh year, I noticed a deep red spot at its tip. Hopeless as I had become about the disappointing plant, I assumed someone had dropped a little spaghetti sauce over its perch in our kitchen. But to my delight the next morning, that “sauce” had blossomed into a luxurious flower — a soft, pink symbol of the sacred power of life hidden within the ordinary.
Life is like that cactus. If we are young, or when we once were, we often expect life to blossom quickly with some extraordinary design for our existence. More often than not, the years teach us that our great promise wears ordinary clothes and that we will find our deep happiness within the mundane routine of life.
We sometimes pass by the moments of our lives as if they were abandoned shells on a beach. And yet, if coaxed open by the gentle attention of hope, each moment contains its own precious pearl, sometimes realized only after we have lost the opportunity to cherish it.
There are times in life when our jobs, our relationships, our dreams for our children, our dreams for ourselves take on the tone of those grey, abandoned shells. We get so caught up in our ordinary lives that we lose the capacity to see their inherent power and extraordinarybeauty.
As we begin the long season of “Ordinary Time”, may we be blessed by our “Sacred Ordinary”. Through the grace of attentive love and patient hope, may we find in our daily lives a Light to inspire and delight us. May we discover the Love that gave us life and waits to blossom every day in our hope – that wants to make everything better
Today, in Mercy, John talks a lot about sin. But I think he’s talking about more than the itemized laundry list of mistakes we sometimes reckon as sin.
It all seemed so simple when we were in grade school, didn’t it? Well, dealing with sinfulness in the world is a lot more than milk bottles!
John is describing the drenching atmosphere of darkness that falls over a soul turned in on its own gratification. Pope Francis’s quote referenced yesterday captures this atmosphere:
“Jesus, at the Last Supper, does not ask the Father to remove the disciples from the world, but to protect them from the spirit of the world, which is the opposite.” The Holy Father emphasized, that it is, “even worse than committing a sin. It is an atmosphere that renders you unconscious, leads you to a point that you do not know how to recognize good from evil”.
John likens this atmosphere to idol worship:
Children, be on your guard against idols.
Most of us are beyond worshipping golden calves, but we may still be allowing ourselves to be distracted from the centrality of God in our lives.
What are some potential idols that could desensitize our souls to the ravages of evil? Greed, lust, and narcissism rise to the top of the list. Caught in the grasp of these idols, human beings become oblivious to astounding evils such as war, slavery, economic oppression, sexual exploitation, corporate dishonesty, technological dehumanization, and all the other rampant abuses befuddled human beings foist on one another.
When you see the effects of such evils reported on the evening news, do you sometimes ask yourselves, “How could a person do such things to another human being?”
What we are seeing is evidence of souls who have died to God’s Presence within their hearts. They are indifferent to the effect of their choices on anyone but themselves.
Jesus came to open our eyes and to free us from the bonds of such sin. As the Presence of God grows in us, so does our awareness of all that is dissonant with that Presence.
We pray with John the Baptist today that we may grow in God and diminish in any selfishness that blinds us to the difference between good and evil in our lives.
Pope Francis tweeted today:
In worship, we learn to reject what should not be worshiped: the god of money, the god of consumerism, the god of pleasure, the god of success, the god of self.
Music:I Must Decrease – Andrew and Saskia Smith ( Words below.)
God has a sovereign plan for our lives.
We won’t find it within ourselves.
But in seeking His will, His cross,
“Lose your life for My sake,” Jesus says.
Allowing ourselves to be poured out in service for Him,
first we decrease, He must increase.
I must decrease, He must increase.
I must decrease, He must increase.
The whole earth is His footstool. Who am I?
Shall the thing formed say to its Maker,
“Why hast thou made me thus?”
I must decrease, He must increase.
God has a sovereign plan for our lives.
We won’t find it within ourselves.
But in seeking His will, His cross,
“Lose your life for My sake,” Jesus says.
Allowing ourselves to be poured out in service for Him,
first we decrease, He must increase.
Lord, I exist to worship You.
Lord, I exist to worship You.
The whole earth is Your footstool.
I am thine, Lord. I exist to worship You.
The whole earth is Your footstool.
I am thine, Lord. I exist to worship You.
Lord, I exist to worship You.
Lord, I exist to worship You.
Oh yes, Lord, I exist to worship You.
Today, in Mercy, we stand on the far western shore of the Year of Our Lord, 2019.
It is well near evening. Our memories are silhouetted against the deep magenta sky as they sail beyond the shimmering horizon. We have lived, laughed, lost and loved in ways never to be repeated, yet never to be forgotten. The great turning of time goes relentlessly on, but we have written our story in its indelible trail.
With fireworks and reveling, popular culture will invite us to the brash celebration of our presence within this point in history. But, at the altar of our hearts, we recognize this long evening of reminiscence as a time of quiet thanksgiving and petition. It is a time of awe and trust.
Like flint struck against the almighty soul of God, we have been given life. We are God’s fire at this moment in time’s long unwinding. Tonight, we turn our spirits to those beside us, behind us, before us and we pray in thanksgiving and hope for them.
Together, we sink into the Dark Infinity of our Creator who sustains all life beyond our worries, fears and limitations. With innumerable universes, God balances us in the Palm of Mercy. As the midnight shadows fall, God closes the fingertips of grace and protection over us.
In the split moment between two years, we too become infinite – fire in God’s darkness, spark redeemed beyond time.
In 2020, we will forget this transcendent moment. The bright light of daily living will blind us to that piece of divinity shining in our souls. But tonight, let us remember. As midnight passes by, may our spirits kneel within us to the Awesome Mystery who holds us, as one, eternally within Itself.
A truly blessed New Year to you and your beloveds, my friends.
(I published this reflection on last year’s feast. It seemed to touch people deeply, so I thought it bore another look. God bless you all, dear readers, and God bless your families here and in heaven.)
Today, in Mercy, our prayer is turned to the Holy Family, that unique configuration of love which nurtured the developing life of Jesus. Can you imagine how tenderly the Father shaped this triad, this nesting place of love for God’s own Word?
We look to the Holy Family so that we might be strengthened in the virtues that will help us build our own families: sacrificial love, reverence, courage, unfailing support, committed presence, shared faith, gentle honesty, unconditional acceptance.
“Family” is the primordial place where we learn who we are. The lessons it teaches us about ourselves – for better or worse — remain with us forever.
Not everyone is blessed by their family. Family can ground us in confidence or undermine us with self-doubt. It can free us from fear or cripple us with reservation. It can release either possibility or perpetual hesitation within us.
Some families are so dysfunctional that we spend the rest of our lives trying to recover from them. But some, like the Holy Family, allow God’s dream to be nurtured in us and to spread to new families, both of blood and spirit.
The challenge today is to thank God for whatever type of family bore us. Lessons can be learned from both lights and shadows. Let us spend time this morning lookingat our own families with love, gratitude, forgiveness, understanding. Where there are wounds to be healed, let us face them. Where there are belated thanks to be offered, let us give them. Where there are negligence and oversights to confess, let us use them as bridges to a new devotion.
For some, it may seem too late to heal or bless our family. Time may have swallowed some of our possibilities. But it is never too late to deepen relationships through prayer, both for and to our ancestors.
May this feast strengthen us for the families who need us today.
Music: God Bless My Family ~ Anne Hampton Calloway (Lyrics below)
GOD BLESS MY FAMILY Words and music – By Ann Hampton Callaway
1. It’s Christmas time
Outside the snow is falling
Like a million stars
Like a million dreams
All dressed up in white
I’m writing Christmas cards
A joy that’s tinged with sadness
As I think of friends
Some are here and some are gone
But our love goes on and on
Like the snow tonight
CHORUS
And oh, what a family My life has given me
From the corners of the earth
To the reaches of the sky
We touch eternally
And though my heart aches ev’ry day
This Christmas I will find a way
To let each face I’ve ever loved
Shine out in me
God bless my family
2. As years go by
The carols we sang as children
Gather memories
What was just a song
Now feels like a pray’r
Welcoming us home
To fathers, mothers
Sisters, brothers ev’rywhere
Some we’ve lost and some we’ve found
As love circles us around
In the songs we share
CHORUS
So fly, angels of my heart
We’ll never be apart
Tonight I say a pray’r
For loved ones ev’rywhere
CHORUS/CODA
You’re a part of my family
That life has given me
From the corners of the earth
To the reaches of the sky
We touch eternally
And though my heart aches ev’ryday
This Christmas I will find a way
To let each face I’ve ever loved
Shine out in me
God bless my family
You’ll always live in me
God bless my family
Today, in Mercy, we celebrate John, “the Beloved Disciple”.
Throughout John’s magnificent writings, the themes of Love and Light stretch our perception of God, and challenge us to love like God loves.
John’s deep love of God, and devotion to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, pour out in his epistles which we will be blessed with over the next several weeks.
Sometimes John’s poetic style can be a little off-setting to those more comfortable with practical prose. But if we can allow our minds to savor the rich layers of meaning within the words, we will start to experience the lyrical mystery of John’s relationship with God.
Jesus and St. John at Last Supper from 19. cent. in St. Michaels church (Michelskerk).
On these holy days, while we still bask in Christmas glory, we might ask in prayer to be deepened in our friendship with God. We might imagine ourselves resting our head on Jesus’s shoulder, just as John did at the Last Supper. We might listen there for the holy secrets God wants to whisper into our lives.
I must remember
To go down to the heart cave
& sweep it clean; make it warm
with a fire on the hearth,
& candles in their niches,
the pictures on the walls
glowing with a quiet light.
I must remember
To go down to the heart cave
& make the bed
with the quilt from home,
strew the rushes on the floor
hang lavender and sage
from the corners.
I must go down
To the heart cave & be there
when you come. (Geoffrey Brown: Road of the Heart Cave)
Music: Sanctuary – Secret Garden
PS: Sorry for the early posts today. I accidentally hit “AM” instead of “PM”
O Emmanuel,
Who loved us so
You took our flesh,
come,
open our eyes
to see You here
ever near,
ever within us.
As Earth turns –
in so many ways –
to greatest darkness,
light the candle of
Your Indwelling
deep within our
longing hearts.
As Mary knew your
Closeness,
let us know You.
As Joseph held You
in mutuality of trust,
let us hold You and
be held by You.
Be born again
in the love that
we return to You
by loving one another
well and tenderly.
Cleave us to
Your Brilliant Light
though hidden in
life’s puzzling shadows,
God with Us,
God ever with Us!
O Emmanuel, come
be with us
on our longest nights.
Let us lean soft into You
on our hardest days.
Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!
Music: Winter Cold Night – John Foley, SJ
(Lyrics below)
Winter Cold Night – John Foley, SJ
Dark, dark, the winter cold night, lu-lee-ley
Hope is hard to come by, lu-lee-ley
Hard, hard, the journey tonight, lu-lee-ley.
Star, guide, hope, hide
our poor, winter cold night.
And on earth peace, good will to men.
Lean, lean, the living’ tonight, lu-lee-lay.
Star seems darker sometimes, lu-lee-lay.
Unto you is born this day a Savior.
Pain, yes, in the bornin’ tonight, lu-lee-lay.
Star, guide, hope, hide
our poor, winter cold night.
Lavish Mercy 