Wednesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 19, 2023

Today’s readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071923.cfm

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Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings lead us to consider how God is present in our lives, calling us to deeper spiritual awareness and vitality.

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In Exodus 3, Moses has fled Egypt and taken up a new, uneventful life, working for his father-in-law, napping by the sheepfold in Midian.

Meanwhile, Moses was tending the flock
of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian.

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The text makes no notation that Moses is contemplating the gravity of his past experiences, nor seeking spiritual meaning from them. As a matter of fact, the first three chapters of Exodus make little reference to God, except for God’s faithfulness to the resistant midwives who saved Moses’ life.

Left up to Moses, no great theophanic event would be recorded in Exodus. It would simply be a story about a Midian shepherd too scared to go back to his old hometown. It was God Who made the magic happen in Exodus, and oh, what magic it was!

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We first have notice that God is about to act in the final verses of Exodus 2:

A long time passed (after Moses fled), during which the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their bondage and cried out, and from their bondage their cry for help went up to God.
God heard their moaning and God was mindful of the covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
God saw the Israelites, and God knew….

Exodus 2: 23-25

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Because God knew – and always knows – our sufferings and joys, God cares and is present to us in our lives. We are not always aware of that Divine Accompaniment, as perhaps Moses was unaware in his Midian field.

God woke Moses up with a burning bush. Then, by sharing his Name, God invited Moses to the deep spiritual intimacy which empowered him to act for God in the world.

God called out to him from the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
He answered, “Here I am.”
God said, “Come no nearer!
Remove the sandals from your feet,
for the place where you stand is holy ground.
I am the God of your father,” he continued,
“the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.”

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I think, for most of us, God is often hidden in our circumstances. I know I haven’t found too many buring bushes along life’s road. So what’s the secret to that deep spiritual awarnessthat allows us to live always in God’s Presence?

Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel that the secret is innocence.

At that time Jesus exclaimed:
“I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
for although you have hidden these things
from the wise and the learned
you have revealed them to the childlike.

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Spiritual innocence is not childish or uniformed. It is not faultless or naïve. The childlike quality Jesus describes is guileless, trusting, open, and wise. It waits in prayer and reflection for God’s time and movement. It believes despite doubt, and hopes despite setback.

Humble Moses – murderer, exile, and loafer on his in-law’s farm – had this kind of innocence. Like a wick awaiting kindling, Moses’s innocent heart caught fire with God. After that there was never an unnoticed “bush” in his life. After all, every one of them might contain angels!

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Poetry: excerpt from Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barret Browning

But man, the two-fold creature, apprehends
The two-fold manner, in and outwardly,
And nothing in the world comes single to him.
A mere itself,–cup, column, or candlestick,
All patterns of what shall be in the Mount;
The whole temporal show related royally,
And build up to eterne significance
Through the open arms of God. 'There's nothing great
Nor small,' has said a poet of our day,
(Whose voice will ring beyond the curfew of eve
And not be thrown out by the matin's bell)
And truly, I reiterate, . . nothing's small!
No lily-muffled hum of a summer-bee,
But finds some coupling with the spinning stars;
No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere;
No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim:
And,–glancing on my own thin, veined wrist,–
In such a little tremour of the blood
The whole strong clamour of a vehement soul
Doth utter itself distinct. Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware
More and more, from the first similitude.

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Music: Burning Bush – Terrana and Manicardi

Burning bush You are, 
glowing and endless love. 
Living in Your midst, 
to live by You, 
to be alive in You. 

This Fire does not consume 
the essence of every person. 
You show Yourself in creation
in all of the beauty,  
that speaks and cries out Thee.

That You are Love 
in a flower, in the waves of the sea, 
in the dawn, in the song of a swan, 
in a kiss of a child to his mother 
in the farewell of a dying father. 

You are Love 
In a man who climbs the slope, 
In a woman who chooses life, 
In a star bursting with light, 
In the forgiveness that brings pain. 

You are earth, water, air and fire. 
Earth, water, air and fire. 

(Interlude)

Let’s take off our shoes 
in front of so much love. 
We need only to listen to 
the beautiful, the good, the true, 
That lies around us. 

For it’s Love
In a flower, in the waves of the sea,
in the dawn, in the song of a swan, 
in a kiss of a child to his mother
in the farewell of a dying father

It is Love
In a man who climbs the slope, 
In a woman who chooses life, 
In a star bursting with light,
In the forgiveness that costs pain

(Interlude)
repeat above
You are earth, water, air and fire
Earth, water, air and fire