Become a powerful agent of transformation (John O'Donohue)

   The way you look at things is not simply a private matter. Your outlook actually and concretely affects what goes on. When you give in to helplessness, you collude with despair and add to it. When you take back your power and choose to see the possibilities for healing and transformation, your creativity awakens and flows to become an active force of renewal and encouragement in the world. 

    In this way, even in your own hidden life, you can become a powerful agent of transformation in a broken, darkened world. There is a huge force field that opens when intention focuses and directs itself toward transformation. 

--John O’Donohue,
Benedictus – To Bless the Space Between Us

Image source: Horace Pippin, Holy Mountain III (1945). Look carefully at this remarkable painting. It contains some very unsettling elements. Yet it is God’s holy mountain that the artist chose to foreground. Read more here: https://artandtheology.org/2017/01/16/mlk-pippin-and-the-holy-mountain/
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Sunday Gospel Reflection, December 7, 2025: There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain!

There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain!
Are we ready for new life? 

    When, in Matthew’s Gospel, John the Baptist preaches in the desert of Judea, he attracts all kinds of interest, even though his message is not an easy one: Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand!, he cries. In biblical texts, the desert is often a place of transformation, barren, yet open to new life coming forth, a place where metanoia (conversion) is possible. To repent – as those coming for baptism must learn – is to see with clear vision the sins of the past, to acknowledge the divisions one has created, to mourn them and then rise from them: only then can new life come forth from that which has been barren. 

   This world in which what seemed dead will bear fruit is clear in the beautiful poetry of the prophet Isaiah, who foretells that a shoot will sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots, a bud shall blossom -- Jesus, the Son of God. In this description of the Messianic promise, Isaiah describes a remarkable transformation, a new world where justice and faithfulness trump wickedness, and enemies can come together in peace – wolf and lamb, leopard and kid – for there shall be no harm or ruin on this holy mountain, God says. Isaiah’s message of new life is echoed in Psalm 72: Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace forever. 

    Yet this transformed world is still not ours. Paul tells the Romans that by endurance and by the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope, fostering the kind of harmony that Isaiah describes, where all can glorify God with one accord. For harmony refers, musically, to two notes sung at the same time that resonate with one another. Likewise, our reading of the Scriptures teaches us that all we do affects those around us: Welcome one another, then, Paul says, as Christ welcomed you. In our quest for new life, may we strive above all for harmony, remaining open to the transformation to which we are called during this season of Advent, heeding John’s call to repent, turning from sin to love, letting that love circumscribe our existence, and glorifying God as we do. 

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

Answering God's call (Colleen Gibson, SSJ / Sarah Probst Miller DVM)

Witnessing someone embody their true calling is unmistakable.
In a society where commitment is confounding,
answering God’s call to authenticity is an astounding act. 

In an age of uncertainty,
answering such a call is risky.
It requires the courage and vulnerability
to growing relationship with God
so that you can be and become who you are.
When all is said and done,
it means standing with Jesus
when the whole world asks “why?”
and simply and sincerely responding
“How could I not?”

--Colleen Gibson, SSJ 

The Holy Spirit cannot be stopped. 

There are times for holy noes. There are times for holy yesses. 

And I would guess each of you have experienced both where you knew that waking, taking action, and being present--or not—was absolutely, exactly where you were called. 

And you moved into that moment 

with this knowing, with this grace, 

accompanied by the Holy Spirit. 

And entered into a flow 

where you felt yourself a vessel 

through which the Holy Spirit could move and breathe and live. 

Our holy noes, our holy yesses 

equate to a life lived, 

awoken by the Divine. 

--Sarah Probst Miller, DVM

 

   Tomorrow, December 4th, Our Lady of Mount Carmel pastor Fr. Patrick Michaels will celebrate the 43rd anniversary of his Ordination to the Priesthood. As he continues on his well-earned vacation through Europe, his parishioners here in Mill Valley wish to express their profound gratitude for his manifold service to our church, to our community, to the Archdiocese of San Francisco, and to each of us individually. 

   Fr. Pat’s gifts are legendary – from the artistic, musical, and culinary, to his “golden tongue” as a homilist and his extraordinary sense of liturgy – and we are profoundly grateful that, when the Lord called him so many years ago, Fr. Pat gave a resounding Yes! Fr. Pat embodies his true calling, accompanied by the Holy Spirit, daily, giving witness to his profound faith as he reveals God’s love to our world. 

It's already December 4th in Europe, so…
Happy Anniversary, Fr. Pat!
Enjoy your vacation and come home safe and soon!
You are missed, but we know
you are in one of your happiest places on the planet. 

Image source 1: Jorge Cocco Santángelo, The Right Side (2021), available for purchase at: https://jorgecocco.com/product/the-right-side/
Image source 2: OLMC pastor, Fr. Patrick Michaels, on retreat in Assisi, November 2025. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=3105012203014286&set=pcb.3105053069676866
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True encounter with Christ (Thomas Merton)

    True encounter with Christ liberates something in us, a power we did not know we had a hope, a capacity for life, a resilience, encounter an ability to bounce back when we thought we were completely defeated, a capacity to grow and change, a power of creative transformation. 

--Thomas Merton 

Image source: https://www.oursundayvisitor.com/encountering-christ-inclusion-and-conversion/
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God is determined to make room (Natalia Imperatori-Lee)

      In the Incarnation, God, too, makes room. God is determined to make room. Room for light in the darkness. Room for joy in our sadness. Room for triumph in our defeats. Room for peace in our broken, war-torn world. God is determined to make space among the ruins for celebration, to make possible within our vulnerability a sense of safety. God is determined to make room in the darkness that surrounds us for an inextinguishable light. 

     How are we being called to make room in our lives? For forgiveness of ourselves or others? For peace amid our anxious thoughts? For justice for the most excluded among us? Are we determined like God to make room for good in this world filled with suffering? 

--Natalia Imperatori-Lee 

Image source: https://www.jesusnotjesus.org/be-kind/questioning-jesus-what-good-is-a-light-if-its-not-plugged-in
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Christ interferes with your very self (C.S. Lewis)

   Put right out of your head the idea that these are only fancy ways of saying that Christians are to read what Christ said and try to carry it out—as a man may read what Plato or Marx said and try to carry it out. They mean something much more than that. They mean that a real Person, Christ, here and now, in that very room where you are saying your prayers, is doing things to you. It is not a question of a good man who died two thousand years ago. It is a living Man, still as much a man as you, and still as much God as He was when He created the world, really coming and interfering with your very self; killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self He has. At first, only for moments. Then for longer periods. Finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity. 

--C. S. Lewis,
Mere Christianity

Image source: https://thewayoftheworshipper.com/2020/06/17/the-butterfly-effect/
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In the face of tribulations (Fr. James Martin)

    This does not seem like a joyful Advent reading! But in the end, it is definitely good news. Because for those who remain “vigilant” and who do not “become drowsy,” not only from drunkenness and carousing but from the “anxieties of daily life” (a kind of moral stupor), there will be vindication. In other words, for those who remain resolute, the end times or the end of our lives are nothing to fear. Instead, they are a source of joy and redemption. 

    But what enables us, in the face of the “tribulations” we face—whether it’s anxiety over our families, our jobs, our health, our politics or our church—not to grow drowsy? 

    One answer comes from Pope Francis, who has a wonderful insight on this reading. “Prayer is what keeps the lamp of our heart lit. This is especially true when we feel that our enthusiasm has cooled down. Prayer re-lights it because it brings us back to God, the center of things.” 

--Fr. James Martin,
Outreach, November 30-
December 1, 2024

Image source: https://www.globalsistersreport.org/spirituality/comfort-and-joy-engaging-advent-christmas-rush
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