Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Isaiah and Luke who both offer us passages in which God self-describes in displays of omnipotence and tenderness.
In Isaiah, we meet the powerful Creator Who dispenses both justice and mercy.
In Luke, we meet the merciful Savior Who tenderly uses that power to heal.
With our psalm response from Isaiah, we voice our longing to be healed by God’s infinite power – a power which finds the world’s brokenness, seeps into it like rain, transforms it with love.
Poetry: I Rain by Hafiz
The poem came to mind when I prayed the verse: Let the clouds rain down the Just One, and the earth bring forth a Savior.
I rain Because your meadows call For God.
I weave light into words so that When your mind holds them
Your eyes will relinquish their sadness, Turn bright, a little brighter, giving to us The way a candle does To the dark.
I have wrapped my laughter like a gift And left it beside your bed.
I have planted my heart’s wisdom Next to every signpost in the sky.
A wealthy one, seeing all this, May become eccentric,
A divinely wild soul transformed to infinite generosity
Tying gold sacks of gratuity To the dangling feet of moons, planets, ecstatic Midair dances, and singing birds.
I speak Because every cell in your body Is thirsty For God.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 19, a testament to God’s Word as living and real in our lives. This psalm foreshadows the beautiful words from John’s Gospel.
Our first reading recounts God’s presentation of the Ten Commandments on Sinai. This code was the basic framework for the community’s response to God’s gift of relationship. God was saying, “Here’s what I need from you to make this thing work.”
Psalm 19 shows us that even though this “Law” was “carved in stone”, it was lived in the hearts of the faithful. It was dynamic, required nuance and interpretation, needed human engagement to fully come to life.
In other words, the “Law” had to live, come off the stone, and into hearts.
When this happens, we grow in the essence of “law”, which is love, reverence, mutuality, and generosity. We experience God’s Word as gift and delight. We long to learn more perfectly what, in our choices and actions, can bring us closer to God.
Then the law becomes, as Psalm 19 tells us:
perfect, refreshing the soul
trustworthy, giving wisdom to the simple
right, rejoicing the heart
clear, enlightening the eye.
pure, enduring forever;
true,
just
more precious than gold
sweeter also than syrup
or honey from the comb.
We all know people who claim to live by a static, lifeless but recite-able law. They can readily quote some out-of-context scripture to judge, reprimand, or condemn. It’s sad because the Word has died in them.
The Law of Love grows in the rich soil of today’s Gospel. It meets life with an honest, open, and loving spirit to find the unique adventure of grace God wants for each of us.
Pope Francis, when speaking of the Law, said this:
Our God is the God of nearness, a God who is near, who walks with his people. That image in the desert, in Exodus: the cloud and the pillar of fire to protect the people: He walks with his people. He is not a God who leaves the written prescriptions and says, “Go ahead.” He makes the prescriptions, writes them with his own hands on the stone, gives them to Moses, hands them to Moses, but does not leave the prescriptions and leaves: He walks, He is close. “Which nation has such a close God?” It’s the nearness. Ours is a God of nearness.
Poetry: What is the Root? – Hafiz
What Is the Root of all these Words?
One thing: love. But a love so deep and sweet It needed to express itself With scents, sounds, colors That never before Existed.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with the beautiful Psalm 91, so full of images to help us experience the steadfast tenderness of God.
Our Gospel shows us this tender mercy in the story of Jesus and two complementary healings – the woman who suffered for twelve years, and the young girl who has lived only twelve years.
In both cases Jesus, by a touch received or given, gathers a broken soul under Mercy’s wing. In the mystery of that grace-filled shade, the soul is restored to the fullness of Light.
As we pray Psalm 91 today let us, like the Gospel’s woman and young girl, reach for any healing and wholeness we long for.
Is there something in us that has died too soon and longs to be reborn?
Is there something crippled in us that longs to leap once more and run free?
May we find new life under God’s infinitely caring wing which ever hovers over us in love.
Poetry: A video mix of Rumi and Hafiz, a dynamite combo!
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 123.
… eyes fixed on the Lord, pleading for mercy.
Psalm 123:2
This starkly passionate response, repeated throughout the psalm, struck an image in my imagination – an ardent tango with the Beloved, eyes fixed in hope.
Often in my prayer I just dance or sing with God – sometimes with sound and movement, sometimes in still silence. The dances are varied depending on the prayer and the day’s circumstances.
Today’s readings, filled with Israel’s resistance, Paul’s thorn, and Nazarene recalcitrance drew an energetic tango in my mind.
It is a dance between Mercy and Resistance. In my prayer, I searched for where that dance resides in me.
For the following prayer with our O Antiphon, let’s begin by placing before us anything that is locked, closed off, chained, frozen within us and in our world. Let us place all these things before God’s mercy, grace and omnipotence as we pray:
O Key of David, O Blessed Freedom, Who unlocks the secret of eternal life within our hearts!
Come absolve the sad incarcerations shackling us!
We hold ourselves and one another captive by our fears, our greed, our terrible need to control Your power within us.
We are afraid of Love, because once released in us, Love asks for everything… … for everything to be unbound, unbarred and given to Your Unrestricted Grace, in flesh named “Jesus”.
Love asks us to become like You, but we are locked in smaller dreams.
O Key of David, come free our dreams with Yours.
Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!
Poetry: Dropping Keys – Hafiz
The small woman Builds cages for everyone She knows, While the Sage, Who has to duck her head When the moon is low, Keeps dropping keys all night long For the Beautiful Rowdy Prisoners.
A Brief Prayer on Today’s Gospel from 2016 Today, in Mercy, we pray for all those tossed on a stormy sea, like Christ’s disciples. For all who are alone, in darkness or full of fear. There is no storm through which God cannot come to us. May we always trust that God is taking us to a new grace beyond the storm.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 5, the first one of several to mention “the Name of God” as a theme. The psalm, a morning prayer to be “accompanied by a flute”, is a mix of lament and exaltation – like many of our own morning prayers, no doubt.
At dawn I bring my plea expectantly before you. For you, O God, delight not in wickedness; the evil one does not remain with you; the arrogant may not stand in your sight.
Now, first off in the morning, we’re probably not going to talk to God about wickedness, evil, and arrogance unless we went to bed pretty upset the night before. The psalmist apparently has “slept on” his troubles without complete resolution.
We had a dear, wise Directress of Postulants who, on many an evening, patiently listened to our various vocational waverings. We were young. Just like the disciples in Matthew’s boat, we really weren’t as sure of our calls as we would like to have been. Sister Inez’s repeated advice soothed a lot of our growing pains, “Just give it to God and get a good night’s sleep. Things will be clearer in the morning.” And they always were.
As the psalmist prays this morning prayer, things clear as well. After a brief diatribe, the prayer realizes:
But I,through the abundance of your mercy, will enter into your house. I will bow down toward your holy sanctuary in awe of your greatness.
Psalm 5 beautifully complements today’s Gospel. Jesus is in the storm-tossed boat peacefully “sleeping on it”. The disciples, on the other hand, cannot just “give” their terror over to God. When they wake Jesus, terrified, he gently reprimands them, “O ye of little faith”.
Jesus wants them and us, to realizes what the psalmist realizes in verse 12:
All who trust in God will be glad and forever shout for joy. God protects them and their lives are a melody to God’s beloved Name
Poetry: A Hole in a Flute ~ Hafiz
I am a hole in a flute
that the Christ's breath moves through;
listen to this music.
I am the concert
from the mouth of every creature
singing with the myriad chorus.
I am a hole in a flute
that the Christ's breath moves through;
listen to this music.
Music: The Edge of Night by a group called “Siyotanka” which is actually the Lakota name for this type of flute.
Lavish Mercy 