Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 117. We do so in the spirit of Thomas, who now offers his unquestioning faith to our patient and forgiving Jesus.
Praise the LORD, all you nations; glorify him, all you peoples! For steadfast is his kindness for us, and the fidelity of the LORD endures forever
Psalm 117: 1-2
Faith is not a commodity or an achievement. Faith is relationship and a journey.
It is a gift and an exercise of grace. Never stretched, it withers like a brittle ligament.
It ebbs and flows with our personal and communal dramas. It deepens with prayer, silent reaching, and a listening obedience to our lives. It shallows with our demands, like Thomas’s, only to see and to touch.
It is fed by the Lavish Mercy of God Who never cuts its flow to our souls if we but take down the seawall around our heart.
On this day when we celebrate the power of tested and proven faith, may we bring our needs into the circle gathered in that Upper Room.
Standing beside Thomas today in our prayer, may we place our trust in the glorified wounds of Christ.
A video today for our prayer: Blessed Are They That Have Not Seen
Music: Healing Touch – Deuter
As we reach out in faith with Thomas to touch Christ’s wounds, let us open our hearts to receive the returning touch of God’s Lavish Mercy.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings instruct us on the nature of prophecy.
Walter Bruggemann, in his transformational book “The Prophetic Imagination” writes about prophets. He indicates that prophets emerge in the context of “totalism” – those paralyzing systems which attempt to control and dominate all freedom and possibility.
Totalism kills ideas, hope, freedom, choice, self-determination, and creativity for the sake of controlling reality for its own advantage. Totalism is the ultimate “abusive relationship“. Examples in our society include cults, hate groups, mob rule, or any relationship that subjugates another’s free will.
Brueggemann defines the prophet as one engaged in these three tasks to restore hope and freedom:
the prophet is clear on the force and illegitimacy of the totalism.
the prophet pronounces the truth about the force of the totalism that contradicts the purpose of God.
the prophet articulates the alternative world that God has promised, and that God is actually creating within the chaos around us.
Our first reading comes from the Second Book of Kings which was written about 600 years before Christ. The Jewish people experienced the totalism of the Babylonian Captivity.. First and Second Kings was written to help the people understand their situation, to remain faithful to God, and to move toward freedom.
These two books are full of powerful figures pulling the people both toward and away from God – biblical Baddies and Goodies who carried profound messages about faith or its abandonment.
One of the Goodies is Elisha the Prophet whom we meet in today’s verses. Elisha confronts barrenness and death with the transformative power of faith. The Summanite woman is able to benefit from this power because she believes.
In our second reading, Paul doesn’t use the word “prophet” but he talks about the Resurrection Power we receive through our Baptism. This power calls us and confirms us as bearers of God’s transformative Word in a hostile and unfree world.
In our Gospel, Jesus is direct with his disciples about the rewards which fall to those who have prophetic faith:
“Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because the little one is a disciple— amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”
Matthew 10:40-42
So, are we actually called to be prophets? The answer is YES. We are called by the Gospel and through our Baptism to do what Walter Brueggemann describes above:
to name the structures of unfreedom in our lives and in our world
to speak truth and stand against those things which contradict God’s Mercy and Love
to witness hope and courage by the joyous, generous service of our lives
You are not surprised at the force of the storm— you have seen it growing. The trees flee. Their flight sets the boulevards streaming. And you know: he whom they flee is the one you move toward. All your senses sing him, as you stand at the window.
The weeks stood still in summer. The trees’ blood rose. Now you feel it wants to sink back into the source of everything. You thought you could trust that power when you plucked the fruit: now it becomes a riddle again and you again a stranger.
Summer was like your house: you know where each thing stood. Now you must go out into your heart as onto a vast plain. Now the immense loneliness begins.
The days go numb, the wind sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves.
Through the empty branches the sky remains. It is what you have. Be earth now, and evensong. Be the ground lying under that sky. Be modest now, like a thing ripened until it is real, so that he who began it all can feel you when he reaches for you.
Music: When the Prophet Speaks – Van Morrison (lyrics below)
When the prophet speaks, mostly no one listens
When the prophet speaks and no one hears
Only those who have ears to listen
Only those that are trained to hear
Come closer now, I'll tell you what they whisper
Closer now, we'll whisper it in your ear
What big ears you've got when you get the details
Do you understand, do I make it clear?
When the prophet speaks, yeah, no one listens
When the prophet speaks, mostly no one hears
Only those that are trained to listen
Only those who have ears to hear
When the prophet speaks, yeah, no one listens
Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby
Don't you have no fear
You gotta get the truth on what is happening
When the prophet speaks, have to make it clear
Come closer now and I will whisper
Whisper the secret in your ear
What thick ears you've got when you get all the details
Do you understand, do I make myself clear?
When the prophet speaks, you've got to listen
When the prophet speaks, you've got to get the truth
When the prophet speaks, don't need no explanation
When the prophet speaks, have to make it move
Prophet speaks, no one listens
When the prophet speaks, mainly nobody hears
Only those that are trained to listen
Only those who have ears to hear
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings build on yesterday’s themes of promise and patience, faith and resistance.
The Trinity or The Hospitality of Abraham – Icon by Sister Petra Clare
Genesis tells the rich and instructive story of the visiting angels who come as spokespeople for God’s Promise. Abraham, in a flurry of Middle Eastern hospitality convinces the three visitors to linger at his home. Exuding a deferential hospitality certain to gain them a blessing, Abraham and Sarah lay out a lovely dinner. The blessing comes in an unexpected reiteration of that nagging, and still unfulfilled, promise:
They asked him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” He replied, “There in the tent.” One of them said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah will then have a son.”
Genesis 18:9-10
This time, post-menapausal Sarah has had it with the inconclusive, and seemingly outlandish, promise!
Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent, just behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years, and Sarah had stopped having her womanly periods. So Sarah laughed to herself and said, “Now that I am so withered and my husband is so old, am I still to have sexual pleasure?”
Genesis 18:10-12
God doesn’t think it’s funny. To Abraham and Sarah, God poses the elemental faith question that will be posed to every potential believer:
But the LORD said to Abraham: “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I really bear a child, old as I am?’ Is anything too marvelous for the LORD to do?
Genesis 18:13
Our Gospel centurion has already answered that question for himself. When Jesus agrees to come heal the beloved suffering servant, the centurion expresses his humble and unconditional faith in God’s promise:
The centurion said in reply, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.”
Matthew 8:8
This prayer, repeated at every Eucharistic celebration, allows us to measure our own faith and to ask for our own healing.
Poetry: Thou Art Just Indeed, Lord, If I Contend – Gerard Manley Hopkins
Hopkins questions God about his suffering, stating that he’s a good priest and if God treats him this poorly, how must God treat enemies! Like Abraham, Hopkins needs fruitfulness – “send my roots rain?”
Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum; verumtamen justa loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum prosperatur? &c.
Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just. Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must Disappointment all I endeavour end? Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend, How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend, Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes Them; birds build – but not I build; no, but strain, Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes. Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
Music: Abraham and Sarah – Bryan Sirchio
I just love this song. I hope you do too! Lyrics below.
Ha Ha Ha – Ho Ho Ho I wonder what’s so funny?
Abraham and Sarah were very old and grey. An angel of Lord showed up and said to them one day, “I know you’re very old and that you’ve never had a kid, but God says, “Better find a baby crib!”
And they said: Ha Ha Ha – Ho Ho Ho You can’t have a baby when you get this old. Abraham and Sarah had to laugh. Oh, bend at the knees
Ha Ha Ha – Ho Ho Ho So now Abraham and Sarah know that nothing is too hard for God.
Abraham and Sarah were very old and grey. An angel of Lord showed up and said to them one day, “I know you’re very old and that you’ve never had a kid, but God says, “Better find a baby crib!”
And they said: Ha Ha Ha – Ho Ho Ho You can’t have a baby when you get this old. Abraham and Sarah had to laugh. Oh, bend at the knees
Ha Ha Ha – Ho Ho Ho So now Abraham and Sarah know that nothing is too hard for God.
And sure enough they had a baby and they named the baby Isaac which means “Laughter”!
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings offer us a contrast in faith between Genesis’s unconvinced Abraham and Matthew’s expectant leper.
Like any relationship, deepening our friendship with God takes time, attention, patience, and love. In our first reading, Abraham struggles with his part in that deepening. God has been promising Abraham an heir, but almost-centenarian Abraham is impatient to see the incredible promise fulfilled. He basically tells God to forget about “the promise” and just let his illegitimate son Ishmael serve as his heir.
Abraham prostrated himself and laughed as he said to himself, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Or can Sarah give birth at ninety?” Then Abraham said to God, “Let but Ishmael live on by your favor!”
Genesis 17:17-18
The entire text of Genesis 17 concerns binding Abraham to God in radical faith. Yet by verses 17–18, Abraham completely doubts the promise, laughs a mocking laugh, and appeals to the son already in hand. Abraham, the father of faith, is here again presented as the unfaithful one, unable to trust, and willing to rely on an alternative to the promise.
Walter Brueggemann. Genesis: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching
When you get right down to it, you really can’t blame Abraham, can you? After all, he is 99 years old! His wife Sarah is 90! It would take a humongous amount of faith to believe that a newborn in going to pop out of this relationship. Right?
Not right. That transcendent and absolute faith is exactly what God is asking for – from Abraham, and from you and me.
Today’s Gospel helps us understand what that kind of faith looks like.
When Jesus came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And then a leper approached, did him homage, and said, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”
Matthew 8:1-2
This unnamed believer’s faith was so great that he trusts the promise without it needing to be spoken. He believes Jesus can heal him.
He expresses his relationship to Jesus in reverence and trust. He believes Jesus has divine power.
He speaks his need, and let’s it go, knowing that it will be heard.
The leper’s faith immediately releases the mercy in Jesus’s heart.
Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “I will do it. Be made clean.”
Mark 8:3
The passage seems to suggest that God cannot be fully God for us unless we allow it by our faith, worship, and trust. Abraham took a little more time to learn this kind of faith. The leper, perhaps deepened by his long-suffering prayer, came to Jesus already convinced that God fulfills promises. And Christ’s answering healing was immediate.
Poetry: To Be Held – Linda Hogan ( maybe this is all the leper really wanted, or any of us when we pray.)
To be held by the Light was what I wanted, to be a tree drinking the rain, no longer parched in this hot land. To be roots in a tunnel growing but also to be sheltering the inborn leaves and the green slide of mineral down the immense distances into infinite comfort and the land here, only clay, still contains and consumes the thirsty need the way a tree always shelters the unborn life waiting for the healing after the storm which has been our life.
Today, in in God’s Lavish Mercy, we celebrate the great Apostles Peter and Paul, first architects of the Christian faith.
From our 21st century perspective, we may be tempted today to celebrate the totality of their accomplishments – the scriptures ascribed to them, the theology traced to them, the cathedrals named for them.
But there is a deeper message given to us in today’s readings, one that challenges our practice of faith. We can access that message by asking an obvious question:
Why were Peter and Paul, simple religious leaders, persecuted, imprisoned, harassed, and eventually executed? What was the terrible threat these unarmed preachers presented to political power?
In those days, King Herod laid hands upon some members of the Church to harm them. He had James, the brother of John, killed by the sword, and when he saw that this was pleasing to the Jews he proceeded to arrest Peter also. –It was the feast of Unleavened Bread.– He had him taken into custody and put in prison under the guard of four squads of four soldiers each.
Acts 12:1-3
The answer:
It was their testimony to the transformative Gospel message of Jesus Christ – the Gospel of Mercy and Justice.
But Jesus’ proclamation of God’s kingdom constituted a serious challenge to the Romans who ruled Israel during his lifetime. The cheering crowds who greeted him, especially during his entry into Jerusalem, as well as his confrontation with the moneychangers in the Temple, constituted such a threat to the unjust power of empire that the rulers crucified Jesus in order to silence him. – Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ
Peter and Paul, and every committed Christian after them, bears the same holy threatto ensuing cultures of domination, violence and greed.
As Jesus, Peter, Paul and so many others down through Pope Francis show us, faith and politics always work hand in hand. The work of faith is to build a world where every person can live, and find their way to God, in dignity and peace. It is to witness to an alternative to any power that feeds on the freedom, joy and peace of another person – especially those who are poor, sick and vulnerable.
May Peter and Paul inspire us to continue the daunting task of such an apostolic faith.
Poetry: The Passion of the Apostles Peter and Paul by Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, a Roman Christian poet, born in 348 AD. With his merger of Christianity with classic culture, Prudentius was one of the most popular medieval authors, being aligned as late as the 13th century alongside such figures as Horace and Statius. (Wikipedia)
Reading this poem, I was pleasantly reminded of my long-ago Latin classes. For those who might want to read the original Latin composition, here is a link:
Memorial of Saint Irenaeus, Bishop and Martyr Wednesday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time June 28, 2023
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, both our readings speak to the call to bear holy fruit for God.
In the passage from Genesis, we are witnesses to a delightful conversation between Abraham and the Lord. The homey tone and mutuality of their exchange reveals Abraham’s great comfort in God’s Presence – to the point of his feeling free to give God some advice:
The Lord said, “Fear not, Abram! I am your shield; I will make your reward very great.”
But Abram said, “O Lord GOD, what good will your gifts be, if I keep on being childless and have as my heir the steward of my house, Eliezer?” Abram continued, “See, you have given me no offspring, and so one of my servants will be my heir.”
Genesis 15:1-3
Like many of us, what Abraham doesn’t realize is that God already has him covered. God has a desire and plan for Abraham’s fruitfulness – a dream far beyond any that Abraham can himself conceive.
God took him outside and said: “Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can. Just so,” he added, “shall your descendants be.” Abram put his faith in the LORD, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness.
Genesis 15:5-6
The “act of righteousness” described here in Genesis is an offering God asks of each of us in our lives: confident faith expressed in loving action.
Think about it. Abraham and Sarah have waited and waited (for five chapters now) for God’s promise of fruitfulness to transform their barren lives. It hasn’t happened yet! Abraham asks God, “What’s going on????”
Brueggemann says:
The large question (posed in this chapter) is that the promise does delay, even to the point of doubt. It is part of the destiny of our common faith that those who believe the promise and hope against barrenness nevertheless must live with the barrenness.
… the promise does delay, even to the point of doubt
Oh, my dears, have we not all been there? Have we not all, at some time or another, anguished over the questions of our own fruitfulness, destiny, meaning, survival, relevance in this life? Have we not sometimes wondered if God is even there?
But God is, and will arise out of any barreness or darkness if we can be faithful. God says to us, as to Abraham, “Take it easy, Abe. I gotcha’. Trust me and believe. The “fire pot” and the “flaming torch” are coming. Keep your heart ready!”
When the sun had set and it was dark, there appeared a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, which passed between those pieces. It was on that occasion that the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River the Euphrates.”
Genesis 15:17-18
Poetry: The Night Abraham Called to the Stars – Robert Bly
Do you remember the night Abraham first saw
The stars? He cried to Saturn: "You are my Lord!"
How happy he was! When he saw the Dawn Star,
He cried, "You are my Lord!'
How destroyed he was
When he watched them set.
Friends, he is like us:
We take as our Lord the stars that go down.
We are faithful companions to the unfaithful stars.
We are diggers, like badgers; we love to feel
The dirt flying out from behind our back claws.
And no one can convince us that mud is not
Beautiful. It is our badger soul that thinks so.
We are ready to spend the rest of our life
Walking with muddy shoes in the wet fields.
We resemble exiles in the kingdom of the serpent.
We stand in the onion fields looking up at the night.
My heart is a calm potato by day, and a weeping
Abandoned woman by night.
Friend, tell me what to do,
Since I am a man in love with the setting stars.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, both our readings express a desire for equanimity and reasonableness in our dealings with fellow human beings.
Rich old Abraham and rich young Lot can’t seem to get there unless they move away from each other. As we know from life, that’s sometimes the only and best route to peace (even though Lot ended up in a pretty bad neighborhood!)
Thus they separated from each other; Abram stayed in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the Plain, pitching his tents near Sodom (uh oh!).
Genesis 13:11-12
In our Gospel, Jesus gives us some snippets of common sense and mutuality too:
Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces.
Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the Law and the Prophets.
Matthew 7: 6;12
However, the even-steven tone of these passages is countered by the Gospel’s closing verse:
Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.
Matthew 7:13-14
Jesus seems to be telling us that “even-steven” is not so “easy-peasy”!
It is a huge challenge to live in sacred balance with our sisters and brothers, and with all Creation. That Balance was lost in Eden but redeemed on Calvary. For us to allow its redemption in our own lives, we must live in the pattern of Christ’s sacrificial love. That pattern is “the narrow gate”. May we be among the few who find it!
Poem: The Narrow Way – Anne Brontë, one of the noted three sisters in a famous literary family. Their stories attracted attention for their passion and originality immediately following their publication. Charlotte’s Jane Eyre was the first to know success, while Emily’s Wuthering Heights, Anne’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and other works were accepted as masterpieces of literature later. Anne’s famous poem The Narrow Way, while seeped in the weighty tones of Victorian literature, makes a powerful point for any generation. (ref:Wikipedia)
The Narrow Way
Believe not those who say The upward path is smooth, Lest thou shouldst stumble in the way, And faint before the truth.
It is the only road Unto the realms of joy; But he who seeks that blest abode Must all his powers employ.
Bright hopes and pure delights Upon his course may beam, And there, amid the sternest heights The sweetest flowerets gleam.
On all her breezes borne, Earth yields no scents like those; But he that dares not grasp the thorn Should never crave the rose.
Arm—arm thee for the fight! Cast useless loads away; Watch through the darkest hours of night, Toil through the hottest day.
Crush pride into the dust, Or thou must needs be slack; And trample down rebellious lust, Or it will hold thee back.
Seek not thy honor here; Waive pleasure and renown; The world’s dread scoff undaunted bear, And face its deadliest frown.
To labor and to love, To pardon and endure, To lift thy heart to God above, And keep thy conscience pure;
Be this thy constant aim, Thy hope, thy chief delight; What matter who should whisper blame, Or who should scorn or slight?
What matter, if thy God approve, And if, within thy breast, Thou feel the comfort of His love, The earnest of His rest?
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we begin a pilgrimage with the ancient believers who first received God’s call into a community of faith.
Today’s liturgy initiates a seven-week reading of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), starting with three weeks of Genesis.
Walter Brueggemann, renowned Hebrew Scriptures scholar, writes that Genesis tells the story of two Divine calls:
the call of Creation as God’s handiwork (Genesis 1-11)
the call of the faith community as God’s witness (Genesis 12-50)
Gen. 1—11 concerns the affirmation that God calls the world into being to be God’s faithful world. Gen. 12—50 concerns the affirmation that God calls a special people to be faithfully God’s people. Genesis is a reflection upon and witness to these two calls. It is concerned with the gifts given in these calls, the demands announced in them, and the various responses evoked by them.
Walter Brueggemann – Genesis: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching
Our three weeks of readings, from Genesis 12 to 50, focus on that second call of the faith community and can offer us graced insights into our life in the Church and in the world.
As Genesis 11 closes, the condition of the world is rather dire. The descendants of Adam and Noah had been wandering around the Middle East, finally trying to settle down in ancient Babylonia. There they decide to build a city and a tower which they think will make them self-sufficient enough to avoid a second flood. God isn’t pleased. God wants them to be faithful and depend on God not themselves.
So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the speech of all the world.
Genesis 11:8-9
Then, in Genesis 12 (our reading today), God reaches into the scattered chaos with an astounding promise for two elderly, barren, and probably hopeless people. It is a call to renewed and deeper relationship, a call that God has been offering again and again since the beginning of time:
The LORD said to Abram: “Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you.
“I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. All the communities of the earth shall find blessing in you.”
Genesis 12:1-3
In prayer, we can take any scripture passage and separate its wordy threads to find ourselves. Each one of us, at least at some time in our lives, has been Abraham or Sarah – maybe a little bit alone, confused, feeling disconnected from God and neighbor. Or maybe feeling the weight of aging, tangled in familial labyrinths, or wounded from accumulated miscalculations in our life’s wanderings.
In whatever scattered chaos we may find ourselves, today’s first reading tells us to listen. God’s irrevocable promises are encircling and guiding us to renewed stability. Hearing God’s voice, “Abram went as the LORD directed him”. As we begin these weeks with Genesis, we are invited to do the same.
Poetry: from Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers
I love Abraham, that old weather-beaten unwavering nomad; when God called to him, no tender hand wedged time into his stay. His faith erupted him into a way far-off and strange. How many miles are there from Ur to Haran? Where does Canaan lie, or slow mysterious Egypt sit and wait? How could he think his ancient thigh would bear nations, or how consent that Isaac die, with never an outcry or an anguished prayer? I think, alas, how I manipulate dates and decisions, pull apart the dark, dally with doubts here and with counsels there, take out old maps and stare. Was there a call at all, my fears remark. I cry out: Abraham, old nomad you, are you my father? Come to me in pity. Mine is a far and lonely journey too.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings are studies in darkness and light.
Jeremiah – from the Sistine Chapel ceiling painted by Michelangelo c. 1512
Our first reading comes from Jeremiah, sometimes referred to as “the weeping prophet”. Jeremiah was pretty much a sad sack, as today’s selection demonstrates. He wrote for the Jews during the darkness of the Babylonian exile, helping them to mourn their situation which had been brought upon themselves by their unfaithfulness and sin. Jeremiah calls the people to repent and to find a healing grace by trusting God.
Sing to the LORD, praise the LORD, who has rescued the life of the poor from the power of the wicked!
Jeremiah 22:13
Paul, addressing the Romans, uses the same light/dark, sin/redemption theme. He says that all of us display an inclination to darkness by any choice to break relationship with God, neighbor and Creation.
In the Genesis allegory of Adam and Eve, they choose to supersede God’s terms of relationship, eschewing the pure abundance of Creation for the sake of a self-satisfying “apple”.
The magnificent encyclical “Laudato Si” leads us through an enlightened understanding of of this Genesis story:
The creation accounts in the book of Genesis contain, in their own symbolic and narrative language, profound teachings about human existence and its historical reality. They suggest that human life is grounded in three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with God, with our neighbor and with the earth itself. According to the Bible, these three vital relationships have been broken, both outwardly and within us. This rupture is sin. The harmony between the Creator, humanity and creation as a whole was disrupted by our presuming to take the place of God and refusing to acknowledge our creaturely limitations. This in turn distorted our mandate to “have dominion” over the earth (cf. Gen 1:28), to “till it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). As a result, the originally harmonious relationship between human beings and nature became conflictual (cf. Gen 3:17-19). It is significant that the harmony which Saint Francis of Assisi experienced with all creatures was seen as a healing of that rupture. Saint Bonaventure held that, through universal reconciliation with every creature, Saint Francis in some way returned to the state of original innocence. This is a far cry from our situation today, where sin is manifest in all its destructive power in wars, the various forms of violence and abuse, the abandonment of the most vulnerable, and attacks on nature.
Laudato Sì, paragraph 66
Our Gospel so beautifully complements this enlightened understanding. Jesus encourages his disciples not to be afraid because the Creator embraces them in love and care. They, as we, need not make parsimonious choices that fracture essential relationships with God, neighbor, self, or Creation. We are already safe and whole in God.
Jesus said to the Twelve: “Fear no one. Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops…
… Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows…
Matthew 10:26-33
Poetry: The Root of the Root of Yourself – Rumi
(Reading this poem, we might imagine that the Trinity is inviting us to recover the pristine goodness of our creation.)
Don’t go away, come near. Don’t be faithless, be faithful. Find the antidote in the venom. Come to the root of the root of yourself.
Molded of clay, yet kneaded from the substance of certainty, a guard at the Treasury of Holy Light — come, return to the root of the root of your Self.
Once you get hold of selflessness, You’ll be dragged from your ego and freed from many traps. Come, return to the root of the root of your Self.
You are born from the children of God’s creation, but you have fixed your sight too low. How can you be happy? Come, return to the root of the root of your Self.
You were born from a ray of God’s majesty and have the blessings of a good star. Why suffer at the hands of things that don’t exist? Come, return to the root of the root of your Self.
You are a ruby embedded in granite. How long will you pretend it’s not true? We can see it in your eyes. Come to the root of the root of your Self.
You came here from the presence of that fine Friend,
a little dazed, but gentle, stealing our hearts
with that look so full of fire; so,
come, return to the root of the root of your Self.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we celebrate John the Baptist of whom Jesus said, “no man greater has been born of women”.
John the Baptist – Caravaggio
Today’s Gospel talks about the surprise conception of John, and all the drama surrounding his birth. Several other Gospel passages tell us about John’s preaching, his challenges to Herod, and his eventual martyrdom at the request of Salome. These are worth a read today, if you have a little time, just to be reacquainted with this extraordinary man.
John the Baptist was the living bridge between the Old Law and the New. He was the doorway from a religion of requirements to a religion of love. That bridge and doorway were built on a baptism of repentance in order to clear one’s heart to receive the Good News.
The magnificent Greek word for repentance is “metanoia” which indicates a turning of one’s mind and heart after realizing a new truth. Metanoia is to have awareness dawn on us, and to feel sorrow for our former blindness or hardness of heart.
May our prayer today help us to receive the grace of metanoia wherever our spirits are hardened or closed – or just plain deadened by routine. May we hear the Baptist calling to us, “Prepare your hearts – EVERYDAY- for the Lord. There is always room for you to be surprised by God.”
Poetry: Song of Zechariah – Irene Zimmerman, OSF
At the circumcision of his son,
relatives and neighbors came
to speak for Zechariah of the tied
tongue. The child, they concurred,
would bear his worthy father’s name.
But during her husband’s silence,
old Elizabeth had found her voice.
“His name will be John,” she said.
Why this strange, unprecedented choice,
the relatives and neighbors wondered.
Armed with writing instrument,
back they went to poor, dumb Zechariah.
But during the long confinement,
as young Mary and Elizabeth
spoke about the missions of their sons,
he had listened and grown wise.
Straightaway, he wrote: “His name is John.” He caught Elizabeth’s smiling eyes, felt his old tongue loosen, found his voice, sang of God’s tender mercy, sang of the breaking dawn, sang of the prophet, their son, who would make straight the way for the long awaited One.
Music: Ut Queant Laxis ( English translation below)
“Utqueant laxis” or “Hymnus in Ioannem” is a Latin hymn in honor of John the Baptist written in Horatian Sapphics and traditionally attributed to Paulus Diaconus, the eighth-century Lombard historian. It is famous for its part in the history of musical notation, in particular solmization (do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do). The hymn is sung to a Gregorian chant, and introduces the original do-re-mi music.
1. O for your spirit, holy John, to chasten Lips sin-polluted, fettered tongues to loosen; So by your children might your deeds of wonder Meetly be chanted.
2. Lo! a swift herald, from the skies descending, Bears to your father promise of your greatness; How he shall name you, what your future story, Duly revealing.
3. Scarcely believing message so transcendent, Him for a season power of speech forsaketh, Till, at your wondrous birth, again returneth, Voice to the voiceless.
4. You, in your mother’s womb all darkly cradled, Knew your great Monarch, biding in His chamber, Whence the two parents, through their offspring’s merits, Mysteries uttered.
5. Praise to the Father, to the Son begotten, And to the Spirit, equal power possessing, One God whose glory, through the lapse of ages, Ever resounding. Amen.
Lavish Mercy 