He will provide (St. Catherine of Siena)

He will provide the way 

and the means, 

such as you could never 

have imagined. 

--St. Catherine of Siena

Image source: Sadao Watanabe, Maidens and Quails, https://www.lambsquaygallery.com/artworks/sadao-watanabe-maidens-and-quails

Quotation source

To trust unreservedly that you are loved (Henri Nouwen)

    The word faith is often understood as accepting something you can’t understand. People often say: Such and such can’t be explained, you simply have to believe it. However, when Jesus talks about faith, he means first of all to trust unreservedly that you are loved, so that you can abandon every false way of obtaining love. That’s why Jesus tells Nicodemus that, through faith in the descending love of God, we will be set free from anxiety and violence and will find eternal life. It’s a question here of trusting in God’s love. The Greek word for faith is pistis, which means, literally, trust. Whenever Jesus says to people he has healed: Your faith has saved you, he is saying that they have found new life because they have surrendered in complete trust to the love of God revealed in him. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: Rudolf von Ems, The Israelites Collecting Manna from Heaven (13th century), https://www.thetorah.com/article/manna-and-mystical-eating
Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 1, 2021: He gave them bread from heaven to eat...

He gave them bread from heaven to eat…

Do you have faith in God’s providence?

   In the Book of Exodus, just one month into their forty-year journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, the whole Israelite community is grumbling and wondering, will we all die of famine? Although it got them out of Egypt, the people’s faith isn’t really sustaining them along the way. There is no doubt that God has provided for them and will continue to provide for them, yet God’s past activity does not seem to increase their faith. In response to their grumbling, God sends manna and quail for them to eat: In the evening twilight you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread. Even when God’s plan is not going well, God wants the people to survive; God has an ongoing desire to redeem them, even when they show no inclination to have faith in God. Psalm 78 recalls that, despite the people’s infidelity, God does indeed provide: he rained manna upon them for food and gave them heavenly bread, the bread of angels. God is with God’s people whether they experience God consciously or not, and God will meet their needs, always, even if they lack faith.

   Jesus confronts the people’s lack of faith in John’s Gospel as well. Although they ate the loaves and were filled, they want further tangible proof in order to have faith in him. The food that endures for eternal life is faith itself.  Jesus comes to give them access to God; to come to believe in him requires that they open themselves to God and to what God is doing right in front of them: my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. Jesus came to reveal the depth of God’s love, a love he is inviting them to; Jesus is the bread of life, and they must have faith in his ability to feed them, always. Only then will they be able to put away the old self of their former way of life, and put on a new self, as Paul tells the Ephesians. They are dependent on their old beliefs, dependent on what they themselves can create, but Jesus wants them to accept the revelation of a God they cannot create with their own minds, a God they can only know through faith. 

   How open are we to God’s providence in our lives? And just how difficult is it to have faith – faith in God’s promises, faith in Jesus, the true bread from heaven, the bread of life thanks to which we will never hunger and never thirst? 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class. 

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

This life is a beautiful thing (Brother Isaiah)

The sea beckons to me in every wave and in the breeze,
In every tide and changing light, You call to me.
And the sky, so big and blue,
Wrapping me round and round with You,
Sweet sunshine to make me feel so fine
You draw me close

And the birds, so sweet and pure
Singing their songs without a care in the world
Remind me all will be well
And I know that all will be well
While flowers unfold in sunlight
Bringing me wonder with a fragrant delight,
I sense that this life is a beautiful thing
With all the sorrows and joys that it brings

Come to me in simplicity
Show me who I am and who I’m made to be
Sweet simplicity, let it be, yeah,
The purity now I see
How You come to me in simplicity
Show me who I am and who I’m made to be
Sweet simplicity, let it be, yeah
The purity now I see

To hear Brother Isaiah perform Sweet Simplicity, click on the video below. To purchase his album Poco a Poco, click here.

Image source: https://www.visitmarin.org/things-to-do/outdoor-activities/beaches-in-marin-county/stinson-beach/
Video source

We feed others (Annie Turner)

   Blessed John the 23rd, a man of great humility and joy who oversaw the Vatican II Council and opened the doors of the Catholic Church to the winds of modernity, used to pray in bed at night with these words: Lord, it’s your Church, not mine. I did the best I can. I’m going to bed.

   This is a good attitude to have. It doesn’t take away our responsibility to vote, or to help the poor and the needy. It just reminds us that ultimately, this is not in our hands. What is in my hands is making soup, bringing some to a vet friend who just had his mouth harpooned by a dentist, and feeding my guys at the end of a long work day.

   It doesn’t always feel like much, but somehow, I think it is much. We feed others. And they go out into the world to feed others. Imagine those hands cradled round a cup of hot homemade soup and I think we have a small glimpse of heaven – a concrete, earthy, nourishing heaven.

--Annie Turner     

Image source: https://www.orientaltrading.com/woman-of-faith-soup-mug-and-coaster-a2-13936781.fltr 

Quotation source

Look! (Mary Oliver)

Let me keep company always 

with those who say, 

LOOK! 

and laugh in astonishment, 

and bow their heads. 

--Mary Oliver, Devotions 

Image source: https://psmag.com/social-justice/the-power-of-awe

Every day is a chance for a small feast (Simcha Fisher)

   Every single blessed day, Jesus is calling us to come together with the people he has put in our path, asking us to feed each other, asking us to let him feed us. Sometimes the family table really is an altar, and sometimes we are the sacrifice. Sometimes someone we love says something stupid and mean, and we use our free will and do not snap back, and then the angels sing. Every day is a chance for a small feast or a chance for a small sacrifice. Every day can be an image of the Eucharist. Although we are required to work hard and do our best, it is not about us or our efforts. The one thing that makes a difference is if we stand aside and let the Holy Spirit in.

--Simcha Fisher

Image source: https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/prayer/7-ways-to-make-saying-grace-a-trend.html
Quotation source

Let us too become bread (St. Albert Chmielowski)

        I look at Jesus in his Eucharist. Could his love have provided anything more beautiful? If he is bread, let us too become bread… Let us give ourselves. 

--St. Albert Chmielowski 

Image source: Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, illumination, Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, https://www.integratedcatholiclife.org/2018/07/deacon-bickerstaff-the-eucharist-in-johns-gospel/
Quotation source

Everything we need to feed the world (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

   We are all familiar with the story of the fishes and the loaves. So little food, so many people.  The resources of the Gospel always seem hopelessly dwarfed by the world’s power, the world’s hunger, the world’s sin, and the resources that the world itself seems to offer. 

   What do we need to understand about the story? We need to understand that when we are with the bread of life, everything we need to feed the world, we already have. We don’t need to go anywhere to buy anything.  We have the resources already.

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI

Image source: https://stjohnscathedral.ca/2014/08/01/taking-the-five-loaves-and-the-two-fish-he-looked-up-to-heaven-and-blessed-and-broke-the-loaves-and-gave-them-to-the-disciples-and-the-disciples-gave-them-to-the-crowds/
Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, July 25, 2021: Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?

Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?

Are we aware of God’s gifts?

   In the Book of Kings, the prophet Elisha knows the people are experiencing a food shortage due to drought. But when a man comes bearing twenty barley loaves made from the firstfruits, and fresh grain in the ear, Elisha recognizes these as God’s gift. Give it to the people to eat, Elisha tells his servant, They shall eat and there shall be some left over. Elisha knows, as Psalm 145 tells us, that the hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs. The world depends upon God’s generous gifts; the psalm reassures us that when the eyes of all look hopefully to God, God gives them their food in due season. It is our job to open to every gift that reveals God’s presence, that we might be fully aware of God’s action in our lives. 

   Jesus, God’s greatest gift, also reveals the Father by providing for the large crowd that is following him. In John’s Gospel, five barley loaves and two fish are certainly not enough in human terms to feed such a crowd, but on God’s terms there is plenty. Jesus is capable of doing extraordinary things, but his disciples are not immediately aware that he is inviting them to participate in the miracle. The event has Eucharistic overtones; later, Jesus will offer himself to us in order to draw us into him and into his life, that we might live as one body. Paul calls the Ephesians to a unity they are not yet experiencing, a unity that is located in all God has revealed. To be worthy of the call, we must live as Christ lived, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love. Only once we do so can we be fully aware of the gifts we have been given, and ourselves be God’s gift, a gift to a world so desperately in need of food for body and soul. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class. 

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

He does promise you peace (Patricia Heaton)

   I have to keep reminding myself: If you give your life to God, he doesn’t promise you happiness and that everything will go well. But he does promise you peace. You can have peace and joy, even in bad circumstances. 

--Patricia Heaton       

Image source: Rowan and Irene LeCompte, Christ Shows Himself to Thomas, mosaic, Resurrection Chapel, Washington National Cathedral, https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu//act-imagelink.pl?RC=54879 

Quotation source

You must go against the wind and tide (Vaughn Williams)

In Act 4, Scene 1 of Vaughn Williams opera The Pilgrim’s Progress (based on John Bunyan’s 1678 morality play), the Pilgrim meets Mister and Madam By-ends. Mister By-Ends claims to be a gentleman of quality and offers to accompany the Pilgrim on his journey from the City of Destruction (this world) to the Celestial City (heaven). Their religious path, however, differs significantly from the path the Pilgrim has chosen, since the By-Ends want to follow Christ when it’s easy, with no attention to Christ’s suffering and death. You can hear their conversation, excerpted here, by clicking on the video below.

MADAM BY-ENDS (indicating the Pilgrim to her husband): We hear of some that are righteous over much, they rush on their journey all weathers. But we are for waiting for wind and tide. They are for hazarding all for God at a clap. But we are for taking all advantages to secure our estate. They are for religion in rags and contempt, but we are for him when he walks in his golden slippers in the sunshine and with applause. […]

PILGRIM: If you would go with me you must go against the wind and tide. You must own religion in his rags and stand by him too when bound in irons.

MADAM BY-ENDS: You must not impose, nor lord it over our faith. Leave us to our liberty and let us go with you.

PILGRIM: Not a step further unless you will do as I do in what I propose.

MISTER BY-ENDS: I will never desert my old principles, since they are harmless and profitable. If I may not go with you I must e’en go by myself, till some overtake me that will be glad of my company. (Bowing low) Your servant!

MADAM BY-ENDS (bowing low): Your servant!

BOTH: Your servant! (He gives his arm to his wife. They both bow low, promenade round, make a final bow, and go off.)

PILGRIM: If this man cannot stand before the judgement of men, how shall he stand before the judgement of God?

--R. Vaughn Williams, The Pilgrim’s Progress

To hear this scene performed by the London Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, click on the video below (or on the word video):

Image source: Timothy Robinson and Ann Murray as Mister and Madam By-Ends in the English National Opera production of The Pilgrim’s Progress, https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/timothy-robinson-as-mister-by-ends-and-ann-murray-as-madam-news-photo/539859754

A life without a lonely place to pray (Henri Nouwen)

   To live a Christian life means to live IN the world without being OF it. It is in solitude that this inner freedom can grow. Jesus went to a lonely place to pray, that is, to grow in the awareness that all the power he had was given to him; that all the words he spoke came from his Father; and that all the works he did were not really his but the works of the One who had sent him. In the lonely place Jesus was made free to fail.

   A life without a lonely place, that is, a life without a quiet center, easily becomes destructive. When we cling to the results of actions as our only way of self-identification, then we become possessive and defensive and tend to look at our fellow human beings more as enemies to be kept at a distance that as friends with whom we share the gifts of life.

--Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude

Image source: Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Savior (ca. 1900-1905), oil on canvas mounted to plywood, https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/savior-23678

God sees into your very depths (Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet)

   God sees you in secret. Know that he sees into your very depths, infinitely farther than you do yourself. Make a simple, lively act of faith in his presence. Christian soul, place yourself entirely under his gaze. He is very near. He is present, for he gives being and motion to all things.

   Yet you must believe more; you must believe with a lively faith that he is present to you by giving you all of your good thoughts from within, as holding in his hand the source from which they come, and not only the good thoughts, but also whatever good desires, good resolutions, and every good act of the will, from its very first beginning and birth to its final perfection. Believe, too, that he is in the souls of the just, and that he makes his dwelling there within, according to these words of the Lord, We will come to him and make our home with him (John 14:23). He is there in a stable and permanent way: he makes his home there. Desire that he should be in you in this way. Offer yourself to him as his dwelling and temple.

   Now come out, and with the same faith that enables you to see him within you, look upon him in Heaven, where he manifests himself to his beloved. It is there that he awaits you. Run. Fly. Break your chains; break all the bonds that tie you down to flesh and blood. O God, when shall I see you? When will I have that pure heart that enables you to be seen, in yourself, outside of yourself, everywhere? O Light that enlightens the world! O Life that gives life to all the living! O Truth that feeds us all! O Good that satisfies us all! O Love that binds all together! I praise you, my heavenly Father, who sees all in secret.

--Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704),
Meditations for Lent

Image source: Christ the Good Shepherd, Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome, http://albertis-window.com/2012/08/the-good-shepherds-disappearance/
Quotation source

Talk faith (Chanda Fulgium)

   When David faced Goliath, he didn’t talk about how dangerous Goliath was – he talked about how great God was. Don’t talk fear. Talk faith.

--qtd. by Chanda Fulgium in Exhale

Image source: Artemesia Gentileschi, David and Goliath, https://www.artsy.net/news/artsy-editorial-discovered-artemisia-gentileschi-painting-view-london
Quotation source

To be people of faith (Fr. Ernest Larken), for the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

  History challenges us at this moment. If we’re just going to talk about the past, then we’re indulging in nostalgia. If the past challenges the present moment, then the past comes alive and the remembrance is dynamic and living. [On this Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel,] we are challenged to live the way God seems to be calling us to live in this day – very much like our Blessed Mother who was a woman of faith. Mary is the perfect model of a woman of faith who constantly accepted what happened to her, not unthinkingly, not without processing and trying to figure out what God is doing and saying, but always accepting the reality with trust and with hope.

   Like Mary, we are called to be contemplative and prophetic. These are big words and they may frighten us, but they translate into being people of faith who are willing to work for a better world right now. Not only in the next world but right now as well. And we have as our inspiration and model and support the great Lady who was so prayerful and yet was also a strong woman who said that God was siding with the poor and casting down the mighty and building up the lowly. That’s where we want to be. May this celebration encourage us to be people of faith who are willing to work as Mary did.

--Fr. Ernest Larken, O. Carm.

Happy Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel,

the Patroness of our parish!

Image source: Br. Mickey McGrath, Magnificat, available for purchase in many forms (prints, mugs, etc.) at: https://www.trinitystores.com/artwork/magnificat
Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, July 18, 2021: They were like sheep without a shepherd...

They were like sheep without a shepherd…

Who is your shepherd?

   King David knew without a doubt that The Lord was his shepherd, as he reminds us in Psalm 23. David, as shepherd-king of the people of Israel, was never meant to fulfill that role alone; he was meant always to act in the company of God: I fear no evil, for you are at my side, he sings. However, the prophet Jeremiah castigates the kings who followed in the line of David for having failed to continue to shepherd the people of Israel: Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture, says the Lord. God then promises the people shepherds who will shepherd them so that they need no longer fear and tremble. God’s desire is to bring the people back to covenant, that they might be united in their fidelity to God.

   Unity in God is the ultimate goal, one that Jesus comes to achieve for all mankind. When, in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus invites his apostles to come away by themselves to a deserted place and rest a while, he is working to meet their needs in the moment. Yet when the vast crowd arrives, Jesus immediately shifts gears, aware that the needs of the whole take precedence over the needs of the individuals in his immediate care. His heart is moved with pity for the people who come to meet him, for he sees that they are like sheep without a shepherd. They look to Jesus for direction, so he begins to teach them many things. His first commitment as shepherd is to do God’s work. As Paul tells the Ephesians, Christ came and preached peace both to those who were far off and peace to those who were near. Jews and Gentiles alike have access to covenant through the cross, and access to the Lord, their shepherd.

   Like the psalmist, we can look forward to dwelling in the house of the Lord so long as we recognize our dependence on the Lord, our shepherd, and walk faithfully in his presence, allowing him to walk in ours, guided in right paths by his judgment. When the Lord is indeed our shepherd, there is nothing we shall want.

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

I pray for justice (Catholic Relief Services)

Loving Savior,
I drink this cup in solidarity with the one who planted the seedlings,
In solidarity with the one who nurtured the soil,
In solidarity with the one who watered the trees,
In solidarity with the one who harvested the beans in their cherries,
In solidarity with the one who brought the harvest to market.
It has been a long time brewing, this cup.
And with each sip, I pray for justice for everyone in the chain of production,
Particularly those whose poverty
Prevents them from tasting the bounty you provide.

Solidarity, justice: this is our challenge.
But one thing I have learned from you, Lord,
Is that small cups can contain great miracles.
And we can all find oneness there.
Amen.

Image source 1: https://beantocupcoffee.co.uk/advantages/
Image source 2:  https://www.greenbiz.com/article/paying-farmers-living-wage-essential-ensuring-sustainable-coffee-production
Prayer source: Catholic Relief Services (via Anne Z, who shared it with us!), https://www.crs.org/sites/default/files/usops-resources/the-coffee-prayer.pdf

Were you specially chosen? (Bishop Robert Barron)

   Were you specially chosen? Yes – not for your sake, but for the sake of the world. Why were you baptized? That you might become a missionary your whole life long.

--Bishop Robert Barron

Image source: Fyodor Zubov?, The Apostolic Commission (ca. 1660), 

http://factsanddetails.com/world/cat55/sub391/item1420.html For more information & another view, see http://www.unitedeuropeanchristendom.com/apostolicity_the_seventy.html

What is God calling you to today? (Mandy Lynn Carpenter)

   Many people think that in order to be used of God, they must be a preacher, missionary, or what not. Or they believe the lie that God could never use them, that they are somehow not good enough.

   Amos may have thought the same.

   But God… God isn’t concerned about one’s abilities or talents. He is most interested in one’s availability and obedience. If He can use a donkey to speak, and He did, He can use anyone willing to surrender to Him.

   I have always heard it said that, God doesn’t call the equipped. He equips the called.

   What is God calling you to today?

   I encourage you to say yes. You might not feel qualified. Don’t worry – he will qualify you. You might not think you can do it, but God can and will do it through you if you obey. Whatever he has asked of you, He will equip you for. God used Amos, a shepherd boy, and He can and will use you and me, if we say yes and surrender to His call!

--Mandy Lynn Carpenter

Image source: The Call of Amos, miniature found in Petrus Comestor’s Bible Historiale, France (1372), http://www.lectorprep.org/ordtime_15_yrB.html
Quotation source

Radical abandonment (Br. John Hamilton)

--Take nothing for the journey
but a walking stick.
 (Mark 6:8)

   To go out empty means to encounter the other out of our own emptiness. It is to be available to recognize and receive the presence and the call as it comes to us in the encounter. Whatever we are possessing, materially, intellectually, emotionally, is an obstacle to that openness. The power and authority with which the disciples go out is their faith in Jesus. And we know from the gospels that they do not yet know in any definitive way exactly who Jesus is. So, their authority lies in their radical abandonment to what they encounter in their going out.

--Brother John Hamilton, Take Nothing for the Journey

Image source:  https://the-toast.net/2014/12/08/jesus-twelve-disciples-stick-poke-tattoos/
Quotation source (and complete article)

Living for love (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

It’s not about if you succeed at love, 

but that you keep living for it. 

--Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Scripture Class, June 2018 

Image source: https://www.kidsfirstcommunity.com/teaching-child-generosity/

He always sent stumblers (Nadia Bolz-Weber)

     Never once did Jesus scan the room for the best example of perfect living and send that person out to tell others about him. He always sent stumblers and sinners. I find that comforting.

--Nadia Bolz-Weber,
Accidental Saints:
Finding God in All the Wrong People

Image source: Jesus sends the Twelve, fresco, Cappadocia (12th c.), https://i2.wp.com/navigatetruth.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Jesus-sends-out-the-twelve-Apostles_capp-12-sent-ones.jpg?ssl=1

Sunday Gospel Reflection, July 11, 2021: In him we were also chosen, destined....

In him we were also chosen, destined…

What is God calling you to? 

    When challenged by Amaziah, priest of Bethel, the prophet Amos insists that he is a humble man, not highly educated, yet called by God to deliver God’s message to the God’s people: I was no prophet, Amos tells Amaziah, I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores. The Lord took me from following the flock, and said to me, Go, prophesy to my people Israel. Amos is an ordinary man called to do the extraordinary, which he does in spite of opposition and myriad difficulties. The people of Israel do not want to hear his accusations that they have been inattentive to their relationship with the Lord, and have therefore failed to live justly; Amos is sent to put the people back on the right track, to signal that they’ve lost their way, to call them to conversion. Their obstinacy is set in stark contrast to the psalmist in Psalm 85, who states clearly, I will hear what God proclaims, and embraces God’s kindness, justice, and peace, trusting with confidence in a God who desires relationship, calling us to conversion and a belief in the prophetic promise of salvation.

    In Mark’s Gospel, the apostles are also humble men, yet they are called by Jesus to proclaim the good news: Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two. They are to preach repentance, revealing God’s promise of salvation not only in words but in action, driving out demons and curing the sick. The apostles will fulfill their commission to the praise of God’s glory, taking with them only the authority granted to them by Jesus. The Ephesians are one of the communities that have experienced conversion with the help of the apostles; they believe in the power of Christ’s death and rising – redemption by his blood – and recognize that they were also chosen, that they too might exist for the praise of his glory. They find unity in Christ, sharing together in his life as one church destined for adoption, called through baptism, holy and without blemish, to love one another. Like them, we are called through baptism to reveal God’s love, proclaiming God at work in our lives and, in the process, chosen to ensure that justice might be had by all.

This post is based on OLMC’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Help me set down what I see (Mary Gordon)

   My mother would have called it sacrilegious to say that to come to a museum is a kind of prayer. But I want to tell her: Do you see that what I am doing is a kind of prayer? Adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, supplication. I am writing about you to witness to the mystery of an impossible love. I am sorry for the exposure that this entails. I am full of gratitude for what you gave me. I am, as artists are, a suppliant – but to whom? Saying to someone, faceless, in the air: Help me set down what I see.

--Mary Gordon, Circling My Mother

Image source: https://record.adventistchurch.com/2012/06/19/toward-a-christian-aesthetic-for-the-arts/

The voice of the Lord (St. Benedict)

   What, dear brothers, is more delightful than the voice of the Lord calling to us? 

 

--St. Benedict 

Image source: Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Conversion of Saul (ca. 1524-1525), Cappella Paolina, Vatican Palaces, Vatican City, https://eclecticlight.co/2016/08/06/the-story-in-paintings-the-road-to-damascus-and-the-conversion-of-saint-paul/
Quotation source

A prophet energizes (Sallie Latkovich)

   Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann suggests that a prophet is one who nurtures, nourishes, and evokes a consciousness which is alternative to the dominant culture around us. In first world North America, the dominant culture is one of power, prosperity, consumerism, and a growing public narcissism.

   The prophet accomplishes their call and task by criticizing this culture, the government, institutions, acceptable practices of abuse and oppression. This criticism lifts the veil on all that is not of God or the model of Jesus. But importantly, the prophet also energizes for the reign of God, pointing the way that might be different, and more in tune with the reign of God: that is, of love and the preferential option for the poor.

--Sallie Latkovich, CSF 

Image source: https://bangordailynews.com/2018/06/18/news/immigrant-kids-seen-held-in-fenced-cages-at-border-facility/
Quotation source

Help me to live my life in a way that glorifies you (A Prayer for the Fourth of July)

   On this Independence Day, I am reminded of all those who have sacrificed for my freedom, following the example of your Son, Jesus Christ. Let me not take my freedom, both physical and spiritual, for granted. May I always remember that my freedom was purchased with a very high price. My freedom cost others their very lives.

   Lord, today, bless those who have served and continue to give their lives for my freedom. With favor and bounty, meet their needs and watch over their families.

   Help me to live my life in a way that glorifies you, Lord. Give me the strength to be a blessing in someone else’s life today, and grant me the opportunity to lead others into the freedom that can be found in knowing Christ.

   Amen.

Image source: https://ccdof.org/newsletters/holy-christian-cross-and-american-flag-background/
Prayer source

Jesus, social influencer (Fr. Blake Britton)

 

   Jesus must be our premier social commentator and influencer.  If not, we will make the fatal mistake of thinking our own ideas are the solutions to society’s problems. 

--Fr. Blake Britton,
How Does a Christian Respond
in a Time of Social Crisis?

Image source: James Tissot, Jesus’ Exhortation to the Apostles (ca. 1886), https://www.theologyofbusiness.com/the-greatest-marketing-genius-of-all-time/
Quotation source

We are to speak for God (D. Haas)

   Biblically speaking, a prophet is simply (though it is not a simple calling by any means) a spokesperson for God. That is our call, a gift given to us in baptism. We are to speak for God, to announce and radiate God’s presence, and to build up the church. We speak for God, because we speak for God’s people, to give encouragement and comfort. 

    This is true prophecy. Let’s sign up.

--D. Haas, Facebook, July 22, 2018

Image source: Le prophète Ezéchiel, manuscript illumination, Bibliothèque de France (12th c.), http://jessehurlbut.net/wp/mssart/?tag=ezekiel

Sunday Gospel Reflection, July 4, 2021: Many who heard him were astonished...

Many who heard him were astonished…

How open are you to hearing God’s voice and acting on it?

   God clearly has a plan for Ezekiel: I am sending you to the Israelites, God tells the future prophet. Ezekiel has no choice in the matter: he is called by God to deliver God’s word to a people who are stubborn, inflexible, and doubtful of God’s promises, rebels who have rebelled against me, God calls them. But God insists that Ezekiel will speak on his behalf, such that, even if the people refuse to listen, they shall know that a prophet has been among them. God’s grace among them will be patent; it’s up to them to accept it or to refuse it.

   In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus encounters similar resistance from the people of Nazareth, a conservative town peopled by farmers, people who have known Jesus from childhood. They can only see Jesus from within their own narrow parameters; when Jesus begins to teach in the synagogue, they express not just their astonishment but also their doubt: Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? Jesus comes to Nazareth as God’s prophet; like Ezekiel it is Jesus’ responsibility to speak God’s word. But the people reject him outright, and Jesus is amazed at their lack of faith. They have no capacity to take in the grace he represents except on their own limited terms.

   Paul, too, has received revelations from God, he tells the Corinthians; following Jesus, Paul is called to proclaim the good news. But Paul also knows that a thorn in the flesh has been given to him to keep him from being too elated. Whatever that thorn might be – and scholars have myriad theories about this – the thorn is sent to humble Paul, and will remain with him, though he prays repeatedly that it might leave him. Paul willingly participates in Christ’s suffering, boasting only of his weaknesses, that the power of Christ might dwell in him. Like the psalmist in Psalm 123, Paul’s eyes are fixed on the Lord. It is only when Paul opens to the Lord’s voice within that he is effective in his proclamation of God’s word for the sake of Christ. 

   How open are we to God’s grace, sent to us in the form of his messengers? How often are we obstinate when confronted with that grace? How easily do we recognize our own limitations? On the other hand, how often are we open to the possibilities God places before us? And how willing are we to persist in sharing the good news, even when we encounter resistance or obstacles?

This post is based on OLMC’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com