The pleasure of loving and of being loved fills the heart with infinite sweetness.
--Madeleine de Scudéry
Have you ever engaged in any bush, tree, or rose pruning? Then you know what lies ahead for the Vine grower. When I prune… I often do so reluctantly, not all that sure that where I place the blade will actually bear the fruit or bring to blossom the glorious rose, as I hope it will!
No such fear with God. Seeing the BIG picture, God knows just what to leave and what to remove. The Gospel tells us that God removes BOTH what bears fruit and what does not. “Wait! It’s not supposed to be that way!”
Allowing God a free hand to respond to the longing which exists in our deepest heart, will certainly result in an abundance we never knew possible.
--Monique Jacobs
Dear God,
I so much want to be in control.
I want to be the master of my own destiny.
Still, I know that you are saying:
“Let me take you by the hand and lead you.
Accept my love
and trust that where I will bring you,
the deepest desires of your heart will be fulfilled.”
Lord, open my hands to receive your gift of love.
Amen.
Not to save the whole of creation
shrinks our spiritual vision and
separates us from the wholeness of life.
--Sr. Joan Chittister
I want to worship
at the shrine of everywhere,
want to know every inch
of this earth as an altar—
every walk, a pilgrimage.
Every step, a step
from holy to holy
to holy.
--Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Sacred Ground
Image source: Paul Baliker, A Matter of Time (2013), which the sculptor considers “a call to action.” For close-ups of this remarkable piece, visit: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2385560/Paul-Balikers-vast-sculpture-A-Matter-Of-Time-carved-entirely-DRIFTWOOD.html
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--St. Ignatius of Loyola
To hear Dan Schutte’s song, These Alone Are Enough, based on this Ignatian prayer, click on the video below:
I found that I knew not only that there was a God but that I was a child of God. When I understood that, when I comprehended that, more than that, when I internalized that, ingested that, I became courageous.
--Maya Angelou
Image source: https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2019/2/6/maya-angelou-on-being-christian
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We know that Jesus is often called the Good Shepherd, but what does that mean? In John’s Gospel, Jesus explains, A good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. Jesus will die for our sake; he will surrender himself to the Father’s will out of a deep and abiding love for us, his sheep, with whom he feels an intimate connection: I know mine and mine know me, he says. We are baptized into the life that Jesus shares with the Father; he also shares that life with us. And we are not the only ones; Jesus will lay down his life for all sheep, even those who do not belong to his fold. In the process, Jesus will be, in the words of Psalm 118, the stone which the builders rejected that becomes the cornerstone. In its original context, that stone was a reference to the people of Israel, to whom God gave the strength to be victorious, so long as they surrendered to God’s will and held fast to their confidence that his mercy endures forever.
In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter will similarly ask that all who hear him preach the good news of salvation surrender to God’s will through belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, for there is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved. God works outside our rules, allowing his Son to be rejected and crucified, that we might be saved. In baptism we pass from death into the life we share through Jesus with God. For to be called the children of God is to share in Christ’s resurrected life. This is our first identity, the primary way we are to understand ourselves, though it is not the fulfillment of all the promises. We are still becoming: what we shall be, the First Letter of John reminds us, has not yet been revealed. Our journey toward the fullness of life is predicated on our surrender to the love the Father has bestowed on us, that we may be called the children of God. This is God’s will for us; we have but to open to it.
This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
My goal is to share good news. I want people to know that happiness is possible.
Traditions and rituals that embody that faith, values, and love have to be worked on, and so we have family histories, memories, prayer, and catechesis, and celebrations as well as family dreams, goals, and plans. In faith we remember our history; we remember that we've come this far by faith. We celebrate that faith in our liturgies. We pass on our values when we dream and plan and work together. We celebrate the love we bear for one another in family fun, being together, enjoying one another, and in family ministry. We minister to our family, we minister within our family, we minister within the Black community. We, as church, minister to our brothers and sisters, wherever we find them.
--Servant of God Sr. Thea Bowman
Image source: Br. Mickey McGrath, Sr. Thea Bowman, https://www.loyola.edu/department/campus-ministry/justice/spirituality-sister-thea-bowman
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Like the first disciples, do not neglect to nourish your life and your apostolate with the Word of God, the Eucharist and prayer. For the mission, like communion, is first and foremost a mystery of Grace. It is not our work, but God's; we do it not alone, but moved by the Spirit and docile to his action. Mission and communion spring from prayer, are shaped day by day by listening to the Word of God - listening in prayer - and have as their ultimate goal the salvation of the brothers and sisters the Lord entrusts to us. Without these foundations, they become empty and end up being reduced to a mere sociological or welfare dimension. And the Church is not interested in providing welfare… helping, yes, but first of all, evangelizing, bearing witness: if you give assistance, let it come from witnessing, not from proselytizing methods.
Image source: Nicolas Poussin, Sts. Peter and John Healing the Lame Man (1655), https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/are-the-acts-of-the-apostles-examples-for-us-to-follow/
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Dear brothers and sisters, the Lord does not seek skilled commentators of the Scriptures, as much as he seeks docile hearts that, welcoming his Word, allow themselves to be changed within. This is why it is so important to be familiar with the Gospel, to always have it at hand — even a small-sized Gospel in our pockets, in our purses to read and reread, to be passionate about it. When we do this, Jesus, the Word of the Father, enters into our hearts, he becomes intimate with us, and we bear fruit in Him. It is not enough to read it and understand that we should love God and our neighbour. It is necessary that this commandment, which is the “great commandment”, resound in us, that it be assimilated, that it become the voice of our conscience.
--Pope Francis
Image source: https://www.bibles4mideast.com/home-1/2017/03/05/carry-and-read-the-bible-as-if-it-were-a-mobile-pope-francis
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That humble gratitude for Christ’s love when we were not lovable, our redemption and dignity in God, makes us love mercifully and generously in return. This mercy, St. Francis [de Sales] would often say, should extend not only to our neighbors and our intimates, but also to ourselves. The “gentle struggle of friendship” is all of these; it is the interior life of every Christian. It makes its bonds much more permanent because they are founded on Christ, it makes its intimacy deeper and its day-to-day life gentler and more elastic, and finally, it reaches out, always inviting equals and unequals to share in its medicinal participation in the very intimacy of the Trinity.
--Terence McGoldrick,
The Sweet and Gentle Struggle:
Francis de Sales on the Necessity of Spiritual Friendship
Image source: San Rafael Homeless Find Christmas Succor at [St. Vincent de Paul] Dining Room https://www.marinij.com/2017/12/25/san-rafael-homeless-find-christmas-succor-at-dining-hall/
The search for community is a deeply human search and I have felt that the ideal community remains mostly the object of my hopes and dreams. But I have also experienced that if I keep those hopes and dreams alive, true community will reveal itself in the most unexpected places and times. Somehow, community is first of all a quality of the heart, a quality that touches all those whom you meet in your life, not only your own family, but also the people you work and play with.
The source of all community, however, is your most intimate relationship with the Lord because the deeper you enter into communion with him, the more clearly you will find that all those whom you love are hidden in his heart. This truth does not solve all our pains and problems, but it certainly can set us free at times to travel on and to move forward even though our emotions can make us feel very lonely.
Keep close to the Bible and taste it to the full. There is a very deep hunger in many people for the life in the Spirit and many people need to be nurtured continuously by the Word of God.
--Henri Nouwen
Source of images: J. Bacon & J. Kraus, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church, Advent, December 2023, https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.757479833084100&type=3
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The resurrection ultimately is about the transcendent power of God breaking into nature and into our lives and doing for us what we can’t do simply through will-power and positive thinking. It is a power that can rearrange the very atoms inside of our physical bodies, our aching emotions, and our divided world and raise up new life from the ashes.
--Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Facebook, April 24, 2019
Image source1: https://brightly.eco/blog/controlled-burns-benefits
Image source 2: https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2021/08/15/a-year-after-fire-burned-santa-cruz-forests-painted-with-green-but-regrowing-takes-time/
We have heard the story of the encounter between Jesus and Mary of Magdala, two people who love each other. Jesus says, “Mary.” She recognizes him and says, “ ‘Rabboni,’ ” which means Master” (John 20:16). This simple and deeply moving story brings me in touch with my fear as well as my desire to be known…
Often I am tempted to think that I am loved only as I remain partially unknown. I fear that the love I receive is conditional and then say to myself, “If they really knew me, they would not love me.” But when Jesus calls Mary by name he speaks to her entire being. She realizes that the One who knows her most deeply is not moving away from her, but is coming to her offering her his unconditional love…. Mary feels at once fully known and fully loved. The division between what she feels safe to show and what she does not dare to reveal no longer exists. She is fully seen and she knows that the eyes that see her are the eyes of forgiveness, mercy, love, and unconditional acceptance…
What a joy to be fully known and fully loved at the same time! It is the joy of belonging through Jesus to God and being fully safe and fully free.
--Henri Nouwen
Image source: Mary Magdalene in the Garden with Jesus, detail of a mosaic, Resurrection Chapel, Washington National Cathedral, https://trinitasblog.wordpress.com/2020/01/25/mary-magdalene-and-the-reversal-of-eden/ Quotation source
On a daily level, the Resurrection reminds us that no matter how bleak life may seem, things can change. I often think of the disciples on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, cowering behind closed doors, certain that everything is over, nothing good can happen and things are done. Easter shows us that suffering is never the last word and nothing is impossible with God. Nothing. And that is something that should be proclaimed every day! Happy Easter!
Image source: Maurice Denis, Le Mystère de Pâques (Easter Mystery, 1891), with an explanation from the Art Institute of Chicago, https://www.facebook.com/artic/photos/a.60730488149/10159003639318150/?type=3
Today there is a great silence over the earth, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages. God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled.
--A reading from an ancient homily for Holy Saturday
Image source: Vallmitjana Barbany, Agapito, The Dead Christ (1872), https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/the-dead-christ/38b9ccaa-8846-4927-a8cf-00a93a997ce5
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The deeper sorrow carves into your being,
the more joy you can contain.
--Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
On this Good Friday, we commemorate Christ's suffering and death on the cross for our sake. As a subject of meditation, we share this setting of Tenebrae Factae Sunt by Michael Haydn, which the St. John Paul II Schola Cantorum recently performed at Blessed Trinity Church in Buffalo:
Tenebrae factae sunt, dum crucifixissent Jesum Judaei:
et circa horam nonam exclamavit Jesus voce magna:
Deus meus, ut quid me dereliquisti?
Et inclinato capite, emisit spiritum.
Exclamans Jesus voce magna ait:
Pater, in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum.
Et inclinato capite, emisit spiritum.
Darkness fell when the Jews crucified Jesus:
and about the 9th hour Jesus cried with a loud voice:
My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?
And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.
Jesus cried with a loud voice and said,
Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.
And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.
Click HERE to be taken to Youtube, if you would like to hear St. John Paul II Schola Cantorum perform Tenebrae Factae Sunt.
Image source: https://kmooreperspective.blogspot.com/2016/07/father-into-your-hands-i-commit-my.html
Video source
From the hands it came down
From the side it came down
From the feet it came down
And ran to the ground
Between heaven and hell
A teardrop fell
In the deep crimson dew
The tree of life grew
And the blood gave life
To the branches of the tree
And the blood was the price
That set captives free
And the numbers that came
Through the fire and the flood
Clung to the tree
And were redeemed by the blood
From the tree streamed a light
That started the fight
'Round the tree grew a vine
On whose fruit I could dine
My old friend Lucifer came
Fought to keep me in chains
But I saw through the tricks
Of six-sixty-six
Refrain
From his hands it came down
From his side it came down
From his feet it came down
And ran to the ground
And a small inner voice
Said "You do have a choice"
The vine engrafted me
And I clung to the tree
Refrain
From his hands it came down
From his side it came down
From the feet it came down
And ran to the ground
To hear Johnny Cash’s meditation on the Cross of Christ, Redemption, click on the video below:
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