As Clay in the Hands of the Potter (Sr. Suzanne Toolan)

As clay in the hands of the potter,  

I come to you, O Lord 

I come to you to be fashioned, 

to be fashioned by you, my Lord. 

More than dust and ashes; 

formed by creating Word, 

Your life in me I now cherish, 

 Lord of humanity. 

Refrain 

All that is wounded or broken, 

all that is dwarfed and unkept, 

I bring to you, Lord of all wholeness. 

Heal me, O Lord, my life, 

Refrain

Come with your Life-giving waters, 

come to this parch-ed clay, 

‘Liven and strengthen and shape me. 

Be to me Savior once more. 

Refrain 

This song was composed by Sr. Suzanne Toolan, SM, and shared with seminarians at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park when Sr. Suzanne taught there. 

To hear a recording of this song, click on the video below. The voices are those of Sr. John Peterson, SM, and Sr. John Evans, SM. (Published by Pretzel Records, Resource Publications, San Jose, CA, 1979). 

Here is OLMC Pastor Fr. Patrick Michaels’ tribute to Sr. Suzanne’s work: 

   Sr. Suzanne Toolan, SM, is a significant part of the Church's identity in the Bay Area, as she has worked and functioned as a Sister of Mercy at Mercy Center, Burlingame. Her hymn, "I Am the Bread of Life" is a part of the musical memory of generations of Catholics (and other Christians) throughout the Bay Area, across the United States, and around the world. She was a significant part of our life and training at St. Patrick's Seminar in Menlo Park, leading us in music for the Friday Liturgies at the Seminary. We seminarians were her first opportunity, in the late 1970's (this album dates from that time), to work with men's voices (and boys’ antics) in her professional career, as she had always worked in the context of her Order at the girls’ high school at Mercy. She learned and we learned...she laughed and we laughed...she grew in love and we grew in love. It was a marvelous time for all of us. She would write what she referred to as "throw-away" music for us to sing once. I have a whole binder that I failed to throw away. She would continue to grow musically and spiritually through the music of Taizé, becoming one of the most moving leaders of Prayer Around the Cross in the Bay Area. She continues to reside at Mercy, Burlingame. 

 Image, video & text source:  Fr. Patrick Michaels, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Mill Valley

Love doesn't die, people do (Merrit Malloy)

     When I die, give what’s left of me away

     to children and old men that wait to die.

     And if you need to cry,

     cry for your brother walking the street beside you.

     And when you need me, put your arms around anyone

     and give them what you need to give me.

     I want to leave you something,

     something better than words or sounds.

     Look for me in the people I’ve known or loved,

     and if you cannot give me away,

     at least let me live in your eyes and not in your mind.

     You can love me best by letting hands touch hands,

     and by letting go of children that need to be free.

     Love doesn’t die, people do.

     So, when all that’s left of me is love,

     give me away.

--Merrit Malloy, Epitaph

In November we remember All Souls...                   

Image source:  https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/hands_on_research

Advent is the time of promise (Fr. Alfred Delp)

    Advent is the time of promise; not yet the time of fulfillment.  We are still in the midst of everything, and in the logical inexorability and relentlessness of destiny. Space is still filled with the noise of destruction and annihilation, the shouts of self-assurance and arrogance, the weeping of despair and helplessness.  But round about the horizon the eternal realities stand silent in their age-old longing.  There shines on them already the first mild light of the radiant fulfillment yet to come.  From afar sound the first notes as of pipes and voice, not yet discernable as a song or melody.  It is all far off still, and only just announced and foretold.  But it is happening, today.

--Fr. Alfred Delp, S.J.         

 

Image source:  https://calvinvoices.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/advent-week-one-just-before-dawn-2/

Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, November 29, 2020: Be watchful! Be alert!

Be watchful!  Be alert!

How can we best prepare to receive the Lord during Advent?

 

   Advent is a penitential season, a time during which we prepare to receive light into our lives.  But there is so much we have to let go of for that to happen!  After returning from exile, the people of Third Isaiah are faced with having to rebuild everything, and this causes them to feel distance from God.  However, they are confused as to what their own responsibilities are:  why do you let us wander, o Lord, from your ways, and harden our hearts so that we fear you not?  It is as if they are blaming the Lord for their own sinfulness, when in truth, only they can allow God into their heart, to soften it, for where love is allowed to work, hardening of heart cannot take place. Similarly, in Psalm 80, the people ask, Lord, make us turn to you – when in truth, the ability to turn to God lies with the people themselves; it’s their own choice.  God planted the vine, but they have become not what God intended, but what they have themselves chosen, which is distant from the Lord, and it is up to them to open to God’s will. It may be, as the people say in Isaiah, that God is our father; we are the clay and you the potter – but ultimately, the choice to be soft clay in the hands of God lies with us.

 

   In like manner, in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus places the responsibility for being watchful on the shoulders of his disciples:  Be alert!  You do not know when the time will come.  If we are constantly focused in God, if our lives are unceasingly directed toward his service, if we are dedicated to loving the human race at every moment, then we are indeed watchful and alert.  But we must stay focused, ready for whatever God calls us to rather than stuck in our own plans.  The Corinthians are not there yet.  Paul notes that they have been given all they need – I give thanks… that in [God] you were enriched in every way, he writes.  Paul preached to them, taught them, gave witness to them by his life, yet they still clamor after something else.  Only if they open to God’s love, the source of all grace evident in the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, can they remain firm and irreproachable in the end.  But they must remain watchful, alert, and aware of their own responsibilities, setting aside their own strong-willed natures in order open to the will of God.  As we move through Advent this year, may we all remain watchful and alert, aware of our own responsibilities in our relationship with the Lord, but also open to the power of his love at work in us all.

 

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

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com

 

Honor the present moment with God (Terry Hershey / Karen Carpenter)

 At the end of the day, I ask…

What did you see today that surprised you?

What made you stop?

What allowed you to be glad?

What was the thing that made your heart glad to be alive?

Name these things, because they give them extraordinary power.

Power to honor the present moment with God.

 

--Terry Hershey             

 

To hear the late Karen Carpenter sing Sometimes, which similarly reminds us to reflect upon the good things and those we love, click on the video below. 

 

Image source:  https://talkofjesus.com/feasts-thanksgiving-god/

Quotation source

Video source

Father, we thank thee (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

For the flowers that bloom about our feet,

Father, we thank Thee,

For tender grass, so fresh and sweet,

Father, we thank Thee,

For the song of bird and hum of bee,

For all things fair we hear or see,

Father in heaven, we thank Thee.

 

For blue of stream and blue of sky,

Father, we thank Thee,

For pleasant shade of branches high,

Father, we thank Thee,

For fragrant air and cooling breeze,

For beauty of the blooming trees,

Father in heaven, we thank Thee.

 

For this new morning with its light,

Father, we thank Thee,

For rest and shelter of the night,

Father, we thank Thee,

For health and food, for love and friends,

For everything Thy goodness sends,

Father in heaven, we thank Thee.

 

--Ralph Waldo Emerson,                

Father, We Thank Thee                

 

Image source:  https://naturespotted.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/imgp4562.jpg

Poem source

In knowing mercy, gratitude (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

  Our lives are a dialogue between God’s mercy and our weaknesses. We are forever falling short at something, no matter the strength of our sincerity, good intention, and willpower.  Only mercy, receiving it and giving it, can lead us out of the choppy waters of our own anxieties, worry, and joylessness.  Only in knowing mercy do we know gratitude.

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI

Facebook, July 6, 2020

 

Image source:  https://body.io/weathering-choppy-waters/

Shepherd My Thoughts (Brother Isaiah)

            Shepherd my thoughts, O Lord,

on the mountains of my heart,

on the mountain of my heart,

where you dwell.

           

You quiet my soul, O Lord,

with a touch of your hand,

with a touch of your hand,

you quiet my soul,

with a touch of your hand,

with a touch of your hand,

and gentle voice.

           

And through every weather

you show yourself shepherd,

you show yourself faithful

and patient and true.

           

Please teach me and lead me, Lord,

yes, teach. me and lead me, Lord.

And help me to follow, follow after you,

Yes, help me to follow, follow after you.

           

I shall not want, no no no no no,

I shall not want with you, O Lord,

I shall not want with you, Good Shepherd

I shall not want with you, Lord.

           

Mine know me and I know mine,

Mine know me and I know mine, he said.

I know mine and mine know me,

And I know you child, yes, I know you

through and through.

Come follow after me,

come follow after me.

           

And through every weather

You show yourself shepherd

You show yourself faithful

and patient and true.

 

To hear Brother Isaiah perform “Shepherd My Thoughts,” click on the video below:

 

Image source:  Shepherd King, http://wherehavewebeenandwherearewegoing.blogspot.com/2011/11/shepherd-king-and-surprise-of-righteous.html
Video source

Faith in the Kin-dom (Jennifer Owens-Jofré)

  To become a people of Christian hope, we are called to feed the hungry, to comfort the afflicted, even to afflict the comfortable.  To become a people of Christian hope, we are called to stand with the economically poor and those who are afflicted – not as voices for the voiceless, but as those who make space for the voices of the afflicted to emerge, to speak their truth, to be heard and heeded… 

  Let us become a people of radical Christian hope.  Let us place our faith in the Kin-dom that is to come.  Let us embrace our charge to partner with God in bringing the Kin-dom about, in the here and now.  Let us follow the example of our brother Jesus who showed us what it means to embody hope in his choices about where and alongside whom he stood.

 

--Jennifer Owens-Jofré

 

Image source:  https://www.sharing.org/information-centre/blogs/people%E2%80%99s-responsibility-stand-solidarity-poor

Quotation source

When great souls die (Maya Angelou)

When great trees fall,  

rocks on distant hills shudder, 

lions hunker down 

in tall grasses, 

and even elephants 

lumber after safety.  

When great trees fall 

in forests, 

small things recoil into silence, 

their senses 

eroded beyond fear. 

When great souls die, 

the air around us becomes 

light, rare, sterile. 

We breathe, briefly. 

Our eyes, briefly, 

see with a hurtful clarity. 

Our memory, 

suddenly sharpened, 

examines, 

gnaws on kind words 

unsaid, 

promised walks 

never taken. 

Great souls die and 

our reality, bound to 

them, takes leave of us. 

Our souls, 

dependent upon their 

nurture, 

now shrink, wizened. 

Our minds, formed 

and informed by their 

radiance, 

fall away. 

We are not so much maddened 

as reduced to the unutterable ignorance 

of dark, cold 

caves. 

And when great souls die, 

after a period, peace blooms, 

slowly and always 

irregularly. Spaces fill 

with a kind of 

soothing electric vibration. 

Our senses, restored, never 

to be the same, whisper to us. 

They existed. They existed. 

We can be. Be and be 

better. For they existed. 

 

~ Maya Angelou 

In November we remember All Souls...                 

 

Image source: Muir Woods National Monument, Marin County, California, https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60909-d124638-Reviews-Muir_Woods_National_Monument-Mill_Valley_Marin_County_California.html#photos;aggregationId=&albumid=&filter=7&ff=465890707

Lord, have mercy (Henri Nouwen)

 

   Lord, have mercy… This prayer for God’s mercy comes from a heart that knows that human brokenness is not a fatal condition of which we have become the sad victims, but the bitter fruit of the human choice to say No to love.

--Henri Nouwen,
With Burning Hearts 

 

Image source: Jesus Cures Two Blind Men (Mt 20:30), mosaic (12^th-13^th c.), Cathedral of the Assumption, Monreale, Sicily, https://01varvara.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/another-instalment-in-the-series-of-12th-century-new-roman-mosaics-of-the-basilica-cattedrale-di-santa-maria-nuova-di-monreale-in-sicily-12th-century/01-anonymous-christ-heals-the-two-blind-men-on-the-road-to-jericho-duomo-di-monreale-monreale-sicily-it/

Our King is calling (Malcolm Guite)

 

               Our King is calling from the hungry furrows

               Whilst we are cruising through the aisles of plenty,

               Our hoardings screen us from the man of sorrows,

               Our soundtracks drown his murmur:  I am thirsty.

               He stands in line to sign in as a stranger

               And seek a welcome from the world he made,

               We see him only as a threat, a danger,

               He asks for clothes, we strip-search him instead.

               And if he should fall sick then we take care

               That he does not infect our private health,

               We lock him in the prisons of our fear

               Lest he unlock the prison of our wealth.

               But still on Sunday we shall stand and sing

               The praises of our hidden Lord and King.

 

-- Malcolm Guite,

The Feast of Christ the King, a sonnet

 

Image source: Dirk van Baburen, Christ with the Crown of Thorns (1623), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus,_King_of_the_Jews#/media/File:Dirk_van_Baburen_-_Kroning_met_de_doornenkroon.jpg

Poem source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, November 22, 2020: For he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet...

For he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet…

What does the reign of God look like?

 

   The prophet Ezekiel conveys to the leaders of Israel in exile God’s great dismay at their failure to lead the people rightly, to shepherd the people as they ought.  Consequently, God says, I myself will look after and tend my sheep… I will rescue them, and the lost I will seek out.  As for the wayward leaders, God’s intent is to destroy all their impulses toward independence, the inward brokenness that has led them to fail the people.  Only God, who, Psalm 23 reminds us, is our shepherd, has the capacity to heal brokenness, for he shepherds out of love for all he has created – even the most incompetent and reviled leaders of God’s people.

 

   In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus reminds his disciples that they are to care for all as if they were caring for Jesus himself:  For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink.  At the time when Matthew was writing, these words also apply to the way the community is treating the apostles sent out to proclaim the good news, who were sometimes welcomed, but often rejected, ridiculed, or even physically harmed.  But those who belong to Christ will inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world.  Paul reminds the Corinthians that Jesus Christ will gather everything and make it subject to himself:  he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet.  It is the power of his mercy, his great love for all Creation, that destroys humankind’s narrow delusions.  If we hope to know the mercy of God in our hearts, we must participate in God’s plan, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, caring for the ill, and, most importantly, letting go of the narrow vision that leads to hatred, exclusion and oppression, that we might embrace the all-powerful love of the Shepherd King of Kings that heals all brokenness and division.

 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s 2017 homily for the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com

The world needs your gifts (Greg Kimura)

You enter life a ship laden with meaning, purpose and gifts

sent to be delivered to a hungry world.

And as much as the world needs your cargo,

you need to give it away.

Everything depends on this.

 

But the world forgets its needs,

and you forget your mission,

and the ancestral maps used to guide you

have become faded scrawls on the parchment of dead Pharoahs.

The cargo weighs you heavy the longer it is held

and spoilage becomes a risk.

the ship sputters from port to port and at each you ask:

Is this the way?

But the way cannot be found without knowing the cargo,

and the cargo cannot be known without recognizing there is a way,

and it is simply this:

You have gifts.

The world needs your gifts.

You must deliver them.

 

The world may not know it is starving,

but the hungry will know,

and they will find you

and start to give it away.

 

--Greg Kimura, Cargo                  

 

Image source:  https://www.redbubble.com/people/thecollectioner/works/29943702-postcard-ottoman-admiral-galley?asc=u&c=753879-ships

Poem source

Different gifts (Ven. Fulton J. Sheen)

 

  God has given different gifts for different people.  There is no basis for feeling inferior to another who has a different gift. Once it is realized that we shall be judged by the gift we have received, rather than the gift we have not, one is completely delivered from a false sense of inferiority.

--Ven. Fulton J. Sheen              

 

Image source:  https://www.proflowers.com/blog/types-of-flowers

To give yourself as gift (David Brooks)

 

   The reason for life, Jacques Maritain wrote, is self-mastery for the purpose of self-giving. It’s to give yourself as a gift to people and causes you to love and to receive such gifts for others.  It is through this love that each person brings unity to his or her fragmented personality.  Through this love, people touch the full personhood in others and purify the full personhood in themselves.

 

--David Brooks,

Personalism:  The Philosophy We Need,

New York Times, June 14, 2018

 

Image source:  https://www.drdaycare.com/10-things-shel-silversteins-the-giving-tree-taught-us-besides-giving-that-is/

Quotation source

We shall never again hear the laughter of our friend (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

   Bit by bit… it comes over us that we shall never again hear the laughter of our friend, that this one garden is forever locked against us.  And at that moment begins our true mourning, which, though it may not be rending, is yet a little bitter.  For nothing, in truth, can replace that companion.  Old friends cannot be created out of hand.  Nothing can match the treasure of common memories, of trials endured together, of quarrels and reconciliations and generous emotions.  It is idle, having planted an acorn in the morning, to expect that afternoon to sit in the shade of an oak.

   So life goes on.  For years we plant the seed, we feel ourselves rich; and then come other years when time does its work and our plantation is made sparse and thin.  One by one, our comrades slip away, deprive us of their shade.

--Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars

In November we remember All Souls...

Image source: https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/05/28/antoine-de-saint-exupery-wind-sand-and-stars/

Quotation source

Gifts (Virginia Woolf)

 

I do not believe that gifts, 

whether of mind or character, 

can be weighed like sugar and butter.

--Virginia Woolf             

 

Image source:  https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/how-to-weigh-baking-ingredients/

Our true gifts (Henri Nouwen)

   It is worthwhile making a distinction between talents and gifts.  More important than our talents are our gifts.  We may have only a few talents, but we have many gifts.  Our gifts are the many ways in which we express our humanity.  They are part of who we are:  friendship, kindness, patience, joy, peace, forgiveness, gentleness, love, hope, trust, and many others.  These are the true gifts we have to offer each other…

--Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved      

 

Image source:  https://thriveglobal.com/stories/the-most-meaningful-gift-you-can-give-this-holiday-season-cannot-be-wrapped/

Sunday Gospel Reflection, November 15, 2020: Well done, my good and faithful servant...

Well done, my good and faithful servant…

What are your talents?

 

  How often do you ponder the gifts God has given you?  In the Book of Proverbs, the husband of the worthy wife recognizes that her value is far beyond pearls; she is an unfailing prize.  She recognizes that her life and her gifts have been given to her by the Lord for the service of others: her children, her husband, her community.  She reaches out her hands to the poor, and extends her arms to the needy, we are told.  Like the woman described as a fruitful vine in Psalm 128, she has used her gifts in the service of the Lord, and she and her family are blessed because of her efforts. 

 

  In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus uses the parable of the talents to remind his disciples that each of us has been blessed with gifts with the expectation that we will use them.  Two of the servants to whom the man entrusts his possessions invest the talents they are give; the third buries his talent in the ground. The kingdom of heaven depends on our ongoing investment in it; we must invest ourselves in people, in each other, in community.  Our gifts – especially the greatest gift, which is the love of God – must be shaped and put to use, and this can only be done in the context of the community they are meant to serve.  The servant who buries his talent in the ground loses his opportunity to gain the kingdom; the two other servants share their master’s joy, for they have recognized the value of the gifts they have been given, and have multiplied their blessings.

 

  The Lord gives each of us a set of gifts; it is up to us to discover what they are and to use them in his service, not for the prosperity of self, but of all. Our blessings multiply when we use them for the good of others.  Paul reminds the Thessalonians that they are not in darkness but rather they are children of the light, and must therefore stay alert and sober, aware of all that God has done and will continue to do for them, aware of their blessings and ever conscious of the final blessing that is to come.  May we, too, be aware of our gifts and put them to good use in the service of the kingdom of God!

 

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

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com