Saturday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

On September 3, 2021 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Faith, Poetry, Prayer, Psalms, spiritualityLeave a comment

Saturday, September 4, 2021

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 54, clearly described in its first two lines as a prayer of David when he was in deep trouble:

For the leader. On stringed instruments. A maskil of David,
when the Ziphites came and said to Saul, “David is hiding among us.”
Psalm 54:1-2

You can watch the whole story here – (and it’s a good one):

Psalm 54 goes to the heart of this traumatic experience for David. It allows us to be part of his prayer for deliverance. It lays open to us the deep intimacy and trust of David’s relationship with God.

Throughout his prayer, David calls on God for protection. He does so in a tone like that of a child who, in fear and necessity, runs to a powerful parent.

David’s situation reminds me of my gang when we were kids in the old neighborhood. If Big Jimmy, the block bully, threatened any of us, we would invoke the strength of a bigger brother or uncle as protection. It always worked —- just by the power of our sheer belief that it would.

David is besieged by Saul, so he makes recourse to his “bigger” protector, his God. David’s prayer is more than a request. It is an insistent plea, almost a demand:

save
defend
hear
listen

And like many prayers of desperation, it is offered with promises:

When I am delivered, I will offer you generous sacrifice
and give thanks to your name, LORD, for it is good.
Because it has rescued me from every trouble,
and my eyes look down on my foes.
Psalm 54:9

So what does Psalm 54 teach me?
That God will do what I “demand” if I pray hard enough?
That if I promise God something, I will get what I want?
No, not that.

What I find in this prayer is the encouragement to live always
in honest and trusting relationship with God.
When troubles come, we can call to God for help,
and our practiced faith will allow us
to discern God’s steady companionship –
God’s Grace to find a deliverance for which
we might not otherwise have had the courage.

God is present as my helper;
the Lord sustains my life.
Psalm 54:6

Poetry: Keeping Watch – Hafiz

In the morning
When I began to wake,
It happened again—
That feeling
That you, Beloved,
Had stood over me all night
Keeping watch,
That feeling
That as soon as I began to stir
You put Your lips on my forehead
And lit a Holy Lamp
Inside my heart.

Music: I Will Trust – Lauren Daigle

Memorial of Saint Gregory the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church

On September 2, 2021 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Discipleship, Eternal Life, Faith, Jesus, Prayer, Psalms, spiritualityLeave a comment

Friday, September 3, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 100 which both invites and commands:

Come with joy into the Presence of the Lord.

Psalm 100:2

To know and honor this Presence is the sole pursuit of the Christian life.

Understanding is the reward of faith.
Therefore, seek not to understand that you may believe,
but believe that you may understand.
Augustine of Hippo

Our first reading from Colossians offers a beautiful hymn for our meditation as we pray to open ourselves to a deepening awareness of Jesus, present in our lives:

Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God,
   the firstborn of all creation.
For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth,
   the visible and the invisible,
   whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers;
   all things were created through him and for him.
He is before all things,
   and in him all things hold together.
He is the head of the Body, the Church.
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
   that in all things he himself might be preeminent.
For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell,
   and through him to reconcile all things for him,
   making peace by the Blood of his cross
   through him, whether those on earth or those in heaven.
Colossians 1:15-20

Prose: Jesus Prayer – John Henry Newman

Dear Jesus,
Help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go.
Flood my soul with Your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly,
that my life may only be a radiance of Yours.
Shine through me, and be so in me that every soul I come in
contact with may feel Your presence in my soul.
Let them look up and see no longer me but only Jesus!
Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as You shine,
so to shine as to be a light to others;
The light, O Jesus will be all from You;
none of it will be mine;
It will be you shining on others through me.

Music: Jesus the Lord – Roc O’Connor

Wednesday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

On August 31, 2021 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, Hope, joy, Poetry, Prayer, Psalms, spiritualityLeave a comment

Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 52, whose chosen verses today form an exquisite prayer – one that can be held like a diamond to the Light:

I, like a green olive tree
   in the house of God,
Trust in the mercy of God
   forever and ever.
I will thank you always for what you have done,
   and proclaim the goodness of your name
   before your faithful ones.
Psalm 52: 10-11

It is ironic that these tenderly beautiful verses close one of the most virulent curses of the Psalms! It’s better to let them stand alone for today’s prayer. Like that, they perfectly complement Paul’s gorgeous blessing poured over the Colossians in our first reading:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father.
We always give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
when we pray for you,
for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus
and the love that you have for all the holy ones
because of the hope reserved for you in heaven.
Colossians 1:2-5

As this first day of September breaks over us, it is a good day to give thanks within these scriptural blessings:

for courage given and hope sustained
for storms weathered and favors received
for the resilience of new promises
and the polished incandescence of the long-kept vow
for fields turned over toward a season of rest
for sweaters shaken out and ready to warm
for the smell of a sharpened pencil, the endless possibilities of a fresh notebook,
and a new box of crayons ( to follow in a later post. I mistakenly send a fragment earlier today. I hope it wasn’t a distraction to you.)

Poetry: First Day of School – by Howard Nemerov (February 29, 1920 – July 5, 1991), an American poet. He was twice Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, from 1963 to 1964 and again from 1988 to 1990. For The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov (1977), he won the National Book Award for Poetry,Pulitzer Prize for Poetry,and Bollingen Prize.

My child and I hold hands on the way to school,

And when I leave him at the first-grade door

He cries a little but is brave; he does

Let go. My selfish tears remind me how

I cried before that door a life ago.

I may have had a hard time letting go.

Each fall the children must endure together

What every child also endures alone:

Learning the alphabet, the integers,

Three dozen bits and pieces of a stuff

So arbitrary, so peremptory,

That worlds invisible and visible

Bow down before it, as in Joseph’s dream

The sheaves bowed down and then the stars bowed down

Before the dreaming of a little boy.

That dream got him such hatred of his brothers

As cost the greater part of life to mend,

And yet great kindness came of it in the end.

A school is where they grind the grain of thought,

And grind the children who must mind the thought.

It may be those two grindings are but one,

As from the alphabet come Shakespeare’s Plays,

As from the integers comes Euler’s Law,

As from the whole, inseperably, the lives,

The shrunken lives that have not been set free

By law or by poetic phantasy.

But may they be. My child has disappeared

Behind the schoolroom door. And should I live

To see his coming forth, a life away,

I know my hope, but do not know its form

Nor hope to know it. May the fathers he finds

Among his teachers have a care of him

More than his father could. How that will look

I do not know, I do not need to know.

Even our tears belong to ritual.

But may great kindness come of it in the end.

Music: September Morn – instrumental version of Neil Diamond’s song. The words don’t exactly work for our prayer, but the melody does 🙂

Tuesday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

On August 30, 2021 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, Gospel, Poetry, Psalms, spiritualityLeave a comment

Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 27 which pivots around two themes:

the first theme in verses 1-6: God’s infinite power and our convinced hope in God’s protection

One thing I ask of the LORD;
this I seek:
To dwell in the LORD’s house
all the days of my life,
To gaze on the LORD’s beauty,
to visit his temple.
For God will hide me in his shelter
in time of trouble,
He will conceal me in the cover of his tent;
and set me high upon a rock.
Psalm 27: 4-5

the second theme in verses 7-14: a confession of faith and a call to perseverance

I believe that I shall see the bounty of the LORD
in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD with courage;
be stouthearted, and wait for the LORD.
Psalm 27: 13-14

The psalm follows so well on our reading from Thessalonians in which Paul calls upon that community to:

trust
hope
believe
persevere

These practices are the linchpins of a vibrant faith. They hold us fast to God’s heart, allowing us to live in God’s house – and God in ours.

Our Gospel today shows us that it is certainly possible for dark spirits to take up residence in our hearts. Praying a prayer like Psalm 27 puts a watchman on our heart’s door, inviting the Holy One alone to live at our core.

Poetry: Covenant – Margaret Halaska, OSF

God
knocks at my door
seeking a home for his son.

Rent is cheap, I say.

I don’t want to rent. I want to buy, says God.

I’m not sure I want to sell, 
but you might come in and look around.

I think I will, says God.

I might let you have a room or two.

I like it, says God. I’ll take the two. You might decide to give me more some day. 
I can wait, says God.

I’d like to give you more, 
but it’s a bit difficult. I need some space for me.

I know, says God, but I’ll wait. I like what I see.

Hm, maybe I can let you have another room. 
I really don’t need that much.

Thanks, says God, I’ll take it. I like what I see.

I’d like to give you the whole house 
but I’m not sure …

Think on it, says God. I wouldn’t put you out. 
Your house would be mine and my son would live in it. 
You’d have more space than you’d ever had before.

I don’t understand at all.

I know, says God, but I can’t tell you about that. 
You’ll have to discover it for yourself. 
That can only happen if you let me have the whole house.

A bit risky, I say.

Yes, says God, but try me.

I’m not sure – 
I’ll let you know.

I can wait, says God, I like what I see.

Music: Psalm 27 – Marc Antoine Charpentier

This Latin chant is noted here as Psalm 26 which would have been its designation in the Vulgate translation of the Bible in Charpentier’s era.)

Monday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

On August 29, 2021August 29, 2021 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Community, Creation, dying, Eternal Life, Poetry, Psalms, spiritualityLeave a comment

Monday, August 30, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 96. Following as it does on our first reading from Thessalonians, the psalm is an encouragement to trust God completely and to demonstrate that trust in unconditional praise.

The tone of Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians suggests that, since his last visit, many of their community have died. The people are grieving, and they are unsure of what their new faith offers them.

Reading this passage today, I was taken back a few months to the first wave of COVID through our local Mercy community. Several of our sisters died. Their deaths came relentlessly, one after the other. There was a painful point at which we hated to hear the phone ring in the morning because it carried so many daily losses to us.

When, after weeks of bereavement, we were unlocked to visit one another again, there was a stunning emptiness in so many of the beloved spaces of our community!

We, who loved these sisters and the brave beauty of their generous lives, felt a grief reminiscent of the emotions in this plaintive song from Les Miserables.

That same kind of grief ripped though our nation this week with the murders of thirteen service members and nearly 200 Afghans at the Kabul airport as they sought freedom and peace.

Death is cruel, and when it comes in a ravenous cluster, it is overwhelming. It was to such an overwhelmed community that Paul wrote these words:

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters,
about those who have fallen asleep,
so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose,
so too will God, through Jesus,
bring with him those who have fallen asleep.
1 Thessolonians 4:13-14

This remarkable hope, this blessed assurance, is the defining character of the Christian heart. It is the power that lifts us out of darkness and gives us the courage to praise God in all circumstances.

Sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the whole earth.
Sing to the Lord and bless the divine name;
proclaim the good news of our salvation from day to day.
Declare the glory of the Lord among the nations
and the wonders of God among all peoples.
For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised,
more awesome than all other gods….
Psalm 96: 1-4

… “more awesome than all our gods”…
even the false gods of death and war …

We are a people called to believe the declaration of today’s Gospel, that Jesus Christ is among us to restore Creation to eternal life:

He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.

He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:
   The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
       because he has anointed me
           to bring glad tidings to the poor.
   He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
       and recovery of sight to the blind,
           to let the oppressed go free,
   and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

Rolling up the scroll,
he handed it back to the attendant and sat down,
and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.

He said to them,
“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Luke 4:17-21

And it is fulfilled every day,
in our lights and even in our shadows,
if we but believe.

Bring us, O Lord, at our last awakening into the house and gate of heaven,
to enter into that gate and dwell in that house,
where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light;
no noise nor silence, but one equal music;
no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession;
no ends nor beginning, but one equal eternity;
in the habitation of thy glory and dominion, world without end.
Prayer of John Donne

Poetry: John Donne (1572–1631)- Death Be Not Proud (Holy Sonnet X)

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou'art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy'or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Music: Benedictus – 2Cellos

Memorial of Saint Augustine

On August 27, 2021August 27, 2021 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Courage, Creation, Discipleship, Faith, Poetry, Psalms, spirituality2 Comments

Saturday, August 28, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 98, the scripture which inspired “Joy to the World”.

Psalm 98 describes God’s redemption of Israel and the jubilation that will ensue. In other words, it is a song of “rejoicing in the future tense”. When the community sang it for their great occasions, they had not yet seen the Savior. But their profound faith allowed them to celebrate in spirit what they believed would be accomplished – as the psalm’s concluding verse asserts:

In righteousness shall God judge the world
and the peoples with equity.
Psalm 98:8

We too are called to let our lives sing to the Lord in hope and confidence because we know that what we believe is true. That kind of faith in action is called “witness”. And we, my dears, in ALL circumstances of our lives, are charged to be WITNESSES!

Like the seas who sing in either still or storm
Like rivers who clap in ebb or the neap
Like the mountains who sing in all seasons

Let the sea and what fills it resound,
the world and those who dwell in it;
Let the rivers clap their hands,
the mountains shout with them for joy.
Psalm 98:7-8

Like our hearts that believe even through life’s intermingled joys and sorrows

This is your life,
joys and sorrow mingled,
one succeeding the other.
Catherine McAuley: Letter to Frances Warde (May 28, 1841)

Poetry: Flickering Mind – Denise Levertov

Lord, not you
it is I who am absent.
At first
belief was a joy I kept in secret,
stealing alone
into sacred places:
a quick glance, and away -- and back,
circling.
I have long since uttered your name
but now
I elude your presence.
I stop
to think about you, and my mind
at once
like a minnow darts away,
darts
into the shadows, into gleams that fret
unceasing over
the river's purling and passing.
Not for one second
will my self hold still, but wanders
anywhere,
everywhere it can turn.  Not you,
it is I am absent.
You are the stream, the fish, the light,
the pulsing shadow.
You the unchanging presence, in whom all
moves and changes.
How can I focus my flickering, perceive
at the fountain's heart
the sapphire I know is there?

Music: Let Your Heart Sing – Young Oceans

Memorial of Saint Monica

On August 26, 2021August 26, 2021 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Creation, Cross, Discipleship, Faith, ordinary time, Poetry, Psalms, spiritualityLeave a comment

Friday, August 27, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 97, one of several psalms categorized as “enthronement psalms”. These psalms celebrate God as king, a king exponentially greater than any human sovereign.

But Psalm 97 shows us that this Divine Ruler is also exponentially different from the flawed and often oppressive human rulers Israel (and others throughout history)has/have experienced.

For that reason, God is the only one who should rule our lives, and all human authority should mirror God’s perfect balance of love, mercy, and justice.

The psalm indicates how God is uniquely supreme:

JUSTICE – God’s reign is founded on justice, not domination

The LORD is king; let the earth rejoice;
let the many isles be glad.
Justice and judgment are the foundation of his throne.
97:1-2

UNIVERSALITY – God’s power moves earth and heaven, beyond any human ability

The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,
before the LORD of all the earth.
The heavens proclaim his justice,
and all peoples see his glory.
97:5-6

GOODNESS – God loves goodness, not evil; uprightness, not power plays

The LORD loves those who hate evil;
he guards the lives of his faithful ones;
from the hand of the wicked he delivers them.
97:10

JOY – God’s reign brings universal joy, not subjugation. It inspires gratitude, not fear:

Light dawns for the just;
and gladness, for the upright of heart.
Be glad in the LORD, you just,
and give thanks to God’s holy name
97:11-12

Psalm 97, though constructed on a metaphor that doesn’t speak to many of us, still has much to teach us.

How do we image God?
How does that image inspire, define, or control our behaviors and choices?
In whatever form we exercise authority, how do we reflect God’s authority?
Especially in our influence over younger, or vulnerable persons, what image of God would they learn from us?

For Christians, Psalm 97 points to a most contradictory “king”, one who loves the “beatitude person” and is willing to suffer and die for them. The psalm so clearly foreshadows Christ that it is the psalm prayed at Mass on Christmas Day.

In Christmas the Church does not simply celebrate the birth of a wondrous baby. Through that birth we celebrate the cosmic reality that God has entered the process of the world in a decisive way that changes everything toward life. The entry of God into the process of the world is the premise of the poem in Psalm 97.
Walter Brueggemann, Psalm 97: Psalm for Christmas Day

Poetry: The Kingdom – R. S. Thomas

It’s a long way off but inside it
There are quite different things going on:
Festivals at which the poor man
Is king and the consumptive is
Healed; mirrors in which the blind look
At themselves and love looks at them
Back; and industry is for mending
The bent bones and the minds fractured
By life. It’s a long way off, but to get
There takes no time and admission
Is free, if you will purge yourself
Of desire, and present yourself with
Your need only and the simple offering
Of your faith, green as a leaf.

Music: The Servant King – Graham Kendrick

Thursday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time

On August 25, 2021August 25, 2021 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Eternal Life, Faith, ordinary time, Prayer, Psalms, spiritualityLeave a comment

Thursday, August 26, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 90 whose selected verses for today present three brilliant images for our prayer.

The image of an eternal God, who spins time like the threads of a dream:

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.
You sweep us away like a dream;
we fade away suddenly like the grass.
Psalm 90: 3-5

The image of us, ordering our days on the great abacus of Grace:

So teach us to number our days aright
that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.
Return, O Lord;
how long will you tarry?
Psalm 90:12-13

The image of God, each morning answering our prayer, and we weaving that delicate gift, like fine lace, into the handiwork of our lives

Fill us at daybreak with your kindness,
that we may shout for joy and gladness all our days.
And may the gracious care of the LORD our God be ours;
prosper the work of our hands for us!
Prosper our fragile handiwork!
Psalm 90:14,17

These images converge to remind us that time, from our perspective, is brief. But, with God, there is no “time”. God has breathed us forth, a song without end, into an eternal melody of love and joy.

The psalmist prays to honor that indescribable gift of life by making something beautiful of it in the time allotted.

We pray for that too, and are invited to reflect on Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians in our first reading. This prayer captures what Paul believes to be something beautiful for God:

Now may God our Creator, and our Lord Jesus
direct our way to you,
and may the Lord make you increase
and abound in love for one another and for all,
just as we have for you,
so as to strengthen your hearts,
to be blameless in holiness before our God and Creator
at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones. Amen.
1 Thessalonians: 3:11-13

Prose: Something Beautiful for God – Mother Teresa

What I can do, you cannot. 
What you can do, I cannot. 
But together we can do 
something beautiful for God.
Yes, you must live life beautifully 
and not allow the spirit of the world 
that makes gods out of power, riches, and pleasure 
make you to forget that 
you have been created for greater things
 – to love and to be loved.

Music: Psalm 90 – Marty Goetz

Wednesday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time

On August 24, 2021August 24, 2021 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Prayer, Psalms, spirituality2 Comments

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Today’s Readings

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 139, a familiar and powerful favorite for many of us.

As a whole, the psalm conveys an assurance that God is everywhere, caring for and directing our lives toward good.

Still, the psalmist paints the picture of a treacherous journey to that assurance, a journey through various levels of darkness:

the darkness of the womb:

You formed my inmost being;
you knit me in my mother’s womb.
139:13

the darkness of life’s “secrets”

LORD, you have probed me, you know me:
you know when I sit and stand;
you understand my thoughts from afar.
You sift through my travels and my rest;
with all my ways you are familiar.
139: 1-3

the darkness of people who make evil choices:

Do I not hate, LORD, those who hate you?
Those who rise against you, do I not loathe?
With fierce hatred I hate them,
enemies I count as my own.
139: 21-22

the darkness within the one who prays

Probe me, God, know my heart;
try me, know my thoughts.
See if there is a wicked path in me;
lead me along an ancient path.
139: 23-24

Even though we try – and often succeed – to live in God’s Light, as long as we live in this world we will be besieged by darkness. It is simply part of being human. The darkness can come to us, as it did to the psalmist, in many forms:

doubt, fear, sin, illness, loneliness, addiction, mental anguish, poverty, hunger, death and bereavement

The triumphant core of Psalm 139 is the faith-filled assertion that God is greater than any darkness. God is always Light.

If I say, “Surely darkness shall hide me,
and night shall be my light”, –
Darkness is not dark for you,
and night shines as the day.
Darkness and light are but one.
139: 11-12

Like the psalmist, we may struggle at times to find God in our shaded experiences. But God has, from the beginning and forever, already found us.

Behind and before you encircle me
and rest your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
far too lofty for me to reach
139: 5-6

Prose: Pope Benedict XVI on the Trinity

God is love and only love,
most pure, infinite and eternal love.
The Trinity does not live in a splendid solitude,
but is rather the inexhaustible font of life
that unceasingly gives itself and communicates itself….
The “name” of the Most Holy Trinity is in a certain way
impressed upon everything that exists,
because everything that exists,
down to the least particle,
is a being in relation,
and thus God-relation shines forth,
ultimately creative Love shines forth….
The strongest proof that we are made
in the image of the Trinity is this:
only love makes us happy,
because we live in relation,
and we live to love and be loved.
Address at The Angelus, June 7, 2009

Music: The Sound of Silence – Simon and Garfunkel

Hello, Darkness, my old friend …

Feast of Saint Bartholomew, Apostle

On August 23, 2021 By Renee Yann, RSMIn Conversion, Discipleship, Prayer, Psalms, spirituality2 Comments

Tuesday, August 24, 2021

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 145, a luxuriant song of praise to a God who overwhelms us with generosity.

I will extol you, my God and king;
I will bless your name forever and ever.

Every day I will bless you;
I will praise your name forever and ever.

Great is the LORD and worthy of much praise,
whose grandeur is beyond understanding.
Psalm 145: 1-3

Citing verses 13-20 which are structured around the word “all”, Walter Brueggemann says:

The image is an overflow of limitless blessing
given without reservation
to all who are in need
and turn to the Creator.

Which brings us to Nathaniel and how this prayer might have sung in his heart.

I got to be friends with Nathaniel over 50 years ago when, at my reception in our community, Mother Bernard decided to give me his name. And after an initial shock, I came to love it.

Nathaniel and I have spent countless hours under his fig tree sharing both our lives. I’ve asked him many times what he was thinking about when Philip came to invite him to meet Jesus. Nathaniel always has a different answer… one amazingly similar to whatever happens to be preoccupying me at the time.😇

a favorite old book that started some of my conversations with Nathaniel

One element remains constant in every circumstance: in his quiet moment, Nathaniel sought God’s Light. As our Gospel shows, that Luminous Word came to him and he responded.

I think that in our “fig tree moments”, we have finally sifted through all that we are capable of in order to find Grace in our lives. Now we wait, in the shade and quiet of prayer, for the True Answer.

When that answering Word comes, it shatters our doubts and pretenses like an egg. And like a shattered egg, the Word releases new life in us. We move deeper into the unbreakable Wholeness and Infinity. Like Nathaniel, even in our ordinary lives, we begin to “see greater things” than we had ever imagined.

Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.”
Nathanael answered him,
“Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“Do you believe
because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?
You will see greater things than this.”
And he said to him, “Amen, amen, I say to you,
you will see heaven opened and the angels of God
ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

After that momentous afternoon when he was drawn from the shade into the Light, Nathaniel’s life became a hymn of praise and thanksgiving.

Let all your works give you thanks, O LORD,
and let your faithful ones bless you.
Let them discourse of the glory of your Kingdom
and speak of your might.

Poem-Prayer from Christine Robinson

Psalm 145 – Opening Heart

I exalt you, Holy One, and open my heart to you
by remembering your great love.
Your expansiveness made this beautiful world
in a universe too marvelous to understand.
Your desire created life, and you nurtured
that life with your spirit.
You cherish us all—and your prayer
in us is for our own flourishing.
You are gracious to us
slow to anger and full of kindness
You touch us with your love—speak to us
with your still, small voice, hold us when we fall.
You lift up those who are oppressed
by systems and circumstances.
You open your hand
and satisfy us.
You ask us to call on you—
and even when you seem far away, our
longings call us back to you.
Hear my cry, O God, for some days, it is all I have.

Music: I Will Praise Your Name – Bob Fitts

Lord I will praise your name

I will praise your name

I will praise your name and extol You

I will praise Your name (I will praise Your name)

I will praise Your name

As I behold You

I will magnify, I will glorify

I will lift on high Your name, Lord Jesus

I will magnify, I will glorify

I will lift on high Your name, Lord Jesus

For Your love is never ending

And Your mercy ever true

I will bless Your name Lord Jesus

For my heart belongs to You

I will praise Your name

I will praise Your name and extol you

I will magnify, I will glorify

I will lift on high Your name, Lord Jesus

For Your love is never ending

And Your mercy ever true

I will bless Your name Lord Jesus

For my heart belongs to You

I will praise Your name

I will praise Your name and extol you

I will magnify, I will glorify

I will lift on high Your name, Lord Jesus

Come with joy into the Presence of the Lord.

Psalm 100:2

trust hope believe persevere

And it is fulfilled every day, in our lights and even in our shadows, if we but believe.

The image of an eternal God, who spins time like the threads of a dream:

The image of us, ordering our days on the great abacus of Grace:

The image of God, each morning answering our prayer, and we weaving that delicate gift, like fine lace, into the handiwork of our lives

trust
hope
believe
persevere

And it is fulfilled every day,
in our lights and even in our shadows,
if we but believe.