The skies sing your glory, Lord (Brother Isaiah)

The skies sing your glory, Lord
Day to day, tell the story, Lord
That you are the Risen One
And that death, it is overcome
And the death of the smallest seed
Giving birth to the tallest trees
They all sing the story, Lord
They all tell your story, Lord

Of how you overcame in that victory over the grave
And how you are the life that is flowing through my veins
Yes, you’re flowing through my veins
Yes, you’re flowing through my veins

And the smile of the tiny child
In the hope that is born through trial
It all tells a story, Lord, and it all cries glory, Lord
In the spring after winter’s cold
In the sunshine that warms my soul
It all tells your story, yes,
It all sings glory, Lord

Refrain

You are the life, you are the Lord,
Yes you are, yes you are the Resurrection, Lord
Yeah, yeah, yeah You are the life, o Lord 

To hear Brother Isaiah sing The Story, click on the video below. To purchase his new CD Shade, click here.

Image source: http://darrowmillerandfriends.com/2017/08/14/weighty-glory-of-god/
Video source

Everyone whom I allow to touch me (Henri Nouwen)

   Everyone whom I allow to touch me in my weakness and help me to be faithful to my journey to God’s home will come to realize that he or she has a gift to offer that may have remained hidden for a very long time. To receive help, support, guidance, affection, and care may well be a greater call than that of giving all these things because in receiving I reveal the gift to the givers and a new life together can begin. 

--Henri Nouwen, Walk with Jesus

Image source: Jesus Mafa (Cameroon), Healing of the Daughter of Jairus, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN, http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56455

Invite him into your life (Gary Zimak)

   God will never reject your efforts to grow closer to him. Whenever you make an attempt to draw near, he will respond. Don’t let the challenges of life distract you. Get in the habit of inviting him into your life every day. 

 --Gary Zimak, Stop Worrying & Start Living 

Image source:  Photograph widely -- and erroneously -- identified as The Hem of His Garment (purportedly a manifestation of the Aurora borealis), but in fact created by a Russian photographer using fluorescent lamps, an electromagnetic field, and long-exposure photography.  Still, it does call to mind the woman who reached for Jesus' garment and is kind of cool... You can read more about how the photographer created the image here:  https://aroundandabout.us/aurora-borealishem-of-his-garment-not-at-all/

To be Christ-like is to respond in love (Sr. Gabrielle Bottani)

   [In the story of the healing of the woman who has been hemorrhaging for thirty years,] Jesus shows us the immeasurable power of compassionate presence and proximity to those who need us – regardless of who they are, under what circumstances they come to us, and what it might cost us to respond to them in love.

   We need this example from Jesus. The victims of suffering and oppression need to know that there are Christ-like people who will listen to them, acknowledge them, believe them, love them, and help them. We who strive to be Christ-like people need to be reminded of this Jesus when others reach out to us in faith and hope for help, healing, or liberation. Like Jesus, we need to be willing to prioritize the human person in our midst over the social and religious constructs, customs, and norms of our time and respond to them in love. 

--Sr. Gabrielle Bottani

Image source: Gabriel Max, The Raising of the Daughter of Jairus (1881), https://art.thewalters.org/detail/35058
Quotation source

Restored, revived, reclaimed and redeemed (Audrey Hepburn)

   People, even more than things, have to be restored, revived, reclaimed and redeemed. Never throw out anyone.

--Audrey Hepburn        

Image source: Yelena Cherkasova, Christ Raises the Daughter of Jairus, https://dominicanes.me/tag/jairus-daughter/
Quotation source

Faith is key (Ben Witherington)

   [In the stories of the woman who has suffered hemorrhaging for thirty years and that of the daughter of Jairus,] neither woman is viewed as unclean or as a source of uncleanness by Jesus, but rather is treated as a person in need of help. Thus, the way is paved for women to participate more fully in Jesus’ own community. In both stories, faith is a key commodity, a commodity in which the healed woman is as capable of possessing as Jairus.

   Certainly, the healed woman is made an example by Jesus when he calls her to centre stage and speaks of her faith. In Mark’s presentation of the event, the woman appears in a more favourable light than the exasperated disciples. Moreover, while an ordinary rabbi might have treated the loss of a daughter as less significant than the loss of a son, when one compares this story to that of the raising of the widow of Nain’s son, Jesus exhibits an equal concern over the loss of either son or daughter.

--Ben Witherington III,

Women in the Ministry of Jesus

Image source: Healing of the Bleeding Woman, ca. 4th century, Catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter, Rome, https://illustratedprayer.com/2018/07/01/the-bleeding-woman/

Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 27, 2021: If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured...

 

If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured…

What restores us to relationship?

   The Book of Wisdom states it very clearly: God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living. God wants to be with us, not separate from us; God wants to be in relationship with humankind, and so God formed man to be imperishable, and God found his creation very good. It was Adam and Eve in the garden who brought death upon themselves, jeopardizing their relationship with God through their sin. To be formed in the image of God means that we are to reveal God to the world, and to that, we must live according to God’s Wisdom, that we might be life-giving blessing to our world. As Psalm 30 reminds us, God is merciful: his anger lasts but a moment, a lifetime his good will. In spite of our sin, we believe that God will restore us to wholeness, that we might remain righteous, in right relationship with him.

   Jesus also supplies life-giving mercy in Mark’s Gospel, first to the woman who has been afflicted with hemorrhages for thirty years, and then to the daughter of the synagogue official, Jairus, who, her father tells Jesus, is at the point of death. The first woman takes it upon herself to touch Jesus’ cloak, thinking, If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured; she has faith in Jesus’ power to heal her, to restore her to community by drying up the flow of blood that makes her ritually impure. In Jairus’ home, Jesus’ touch – he takes the child by the hand, although to do so makes him ritually impure – is life-giving as well. As the Book of Wisdom reminds us, God intends that all things might have being, and so Jesus reaches in and meets the girl where she is, transmitting the restorative love of God. And, as Paul tells the Corinthians, we are called to be life-giving to others, embracing poverty that others might be rich, supplying all they need. This is how we live according to God’s Wisdom; this is how we will one day know God’s love in its perfection. 

    Every day, by any number of questionable actions, we risk separation, both from God and from one another. An unkind word, a hasty judgment, an insensitive action or gesture... and yet, redemption is available! Jesus gives life, not only to the dead but to those who are separated from relationship because they fail to live life perfectly, in perfect union with God and with other, that is to say, all of us. God’s is the power at the heart of these stories – the power of new life, new hope, new being. How, then, might we reach out and touch the cloak of Jesus? How, then, might we foster the faith necessary to believe that his power is there to heal us, to heal our divisions, always?

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

I need help (Anne Lamott)

   Again and again I tell God I need help, and God says, Well, isn’t that fabulous? Because I need help too. So you go get that old woman over there some water, and I’ll figure out what we’re going to do about your stuff.

--Anne Lamott,
Traveling Mercies

Image source: Carl Heinrich Bloch, Woman at the Well, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carl_Heinrich_Bloch_-_Woman_at_the_Well.jpg

Tempest and cloud (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

When the primeval 

All-holy Father 

Sows with a tranquil hand 

From clouds, as they roll, 

Bliss-spreading lightenings 

Over the earth, 

Then do I kiss the last 

Hem of his garment, 

While by a childlike awe 

Fill’d is my breast. 

 

For with immortals 

Ne’er may a mortal 

Measure himself. 

If he soar upwards 

And if he touch 

With his forehead the stars, 

Nowhere will rest then 

His insecure feet 

And with him sport 

Tempest and cloud. 

 

Though with firm sinewy 

Limbs he may stand 

On the enduring 

Well-grounded earth, 

All he is ever 

Able to do, 

Is to resemble 

The oak or the vine. 

 

Wherein do gods 

Differ from mortals? 

In that the former 

See endless billows 

Heaving before them; 

Us doth the billow 

Lift up and swallow, 

So that we perish. 

 

Small is the ring 

Enclosing our life, 

And whole generations 

Link themselves firmly 

On to existence’s Chain never-ending. 

 

--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 

The Boundaries of Humanity 

 

Image source: William Blake, Job Confessing His Presumptions to God Who Answers from the Whirlwind, https://bibleartists.wordpress.com/2011/02/05/job/

We can withstand even the most frightening storms (Bishop Robert Barron)

   In this wonderful story of the calming of the storm at sea, we witness some of the spiritual dynamics of fear and trust. The disciples stand symbolically for all of us journeying through life within the narrow confines of the fearful ego.

   When they confront the storm and the mighty waves, they are immediately filled with terror. Similarly, when the trials and anxieties of life confront the go, the first reaction is fear, since three is no power beyond itself upon which it can rely. In the midst of this terrible storm, this inner and outer tension, Jesus symbolizes the divine energy that remains unaffected by the fear-storms generated by the grasping ego.

   Continuing to read this story at a spiritual level, we see that it is none other than this divine power that successfully calms the waves: he rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm. This beautiful narrative seems to suggest that if we but awaken to the presence of God within us, if we learn to live and to see at a deeper level, if we live in basic trust rather than fear, then we can withstand even the most frightening storms.

--Bishop Robert Barron, Gospel Reflection, June 20, 2020

Image source: Sadao Watanabe, Boat in a Storm (1967), https://www.sarugallery.com/default.php?L=4&NR=466

Fatherhood (Fr. Lawrence Lovasik)

   Fatherhood is a vocation in God’s service, to be not held lightly or frivolously, but with the serious determination of serious men.

 --Fr. Lawrence Lovaski

 

Happy Father's Day to all who fill the role of father, 

and a special Happy Father's Day to our pastor, 

Fr. Patrick Michaels, 

for his profound commitment 

to proclaiming the good news 

and to leading our sometimes unruly community 

as gifted shepherd, at one with his sheep.

Image source: https://www.facebook.com/mountcarmelmv/photos/4091115994283125
Quotation source

The same storm (Damian Barr)

 We are not all in the same boat, 

but we are all in the same storm. 

--Damian Barr     

Image source: Barbara Kelley, Same Storm, https://www.damianbarr.com/latest/tag/We+are+not+all+in+the+same+boat.+We+are+all+in+the+same+storm.

During the stormy moments of our life (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

   During the stormy moments of our life when our very souls are in fear of drowning, it will seem like God is asleep. But what calms the storms in life is not that all of our problems suddenly disappear but that within them, we realize that because God is still in charge, all will be well – whiplash, bruises, ransacked houses, alcoholic spouses, lost houses, lost jobs, loneliness, and the shadow of death itself notwithstanding. All will be well because God is still Lord. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser OMI,
Facebook, June 29, 2020

Image source: J. A. Swanson, The Storm, available for purchase and with the artist’s reflection on this gospel text: https://www.johnaugustswanson.com/default.cfm/storm.html

Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 20, 2021: They cried out to the Lord in their distress...

They cried to the Lord in their distress…

Who’s got your back?

   Job experiences all manner of suffering. When his adversary (called the ha-satan in Hebrew) questions the upright Job’s sincerity of heart, God allows many terrible things to befall Job. After much suffering, Job finally begs to be allowed to speak with God in order to understand all that he has gone through, but, rather than offering reasons for Job’s suffering, God speaks of the wonders of creation, and most specifically of God’s bringing order to chaos: Who shut within doors the sea when it burst from the womb? God asks. The ability to set limits on the roiling waters of creation marks the divine; the establishment of order upon chaos is a revelation of God’s saving power.

   When. therefore, Jesus, in Mark’s Gospel, rebukes the wind and says to the sea, Quiet! Be still! he is revealing his divine nature. Jesus is not concerned about the storm; indeed, he’s napping as the violent squall comes up and waves are breaking over the boat. The disciples, however, are terrified. Do you not yet have faith? Jesus asks them. With faith comes trust – trust in God’s plan, on God’s time. In the chaos of the moment, the disciples have clearly forgotten the words of Psalm 107: He hushed the storm to a gentle breeze, and the billows of the sea were stilled. Afterwards, they are filled with great awe, asking Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey? They have as yet no idea of the full lengths Jesus will go to to save them all.

   Nowhere is the Lord’s saving power more evident than in the sacrificial death of Jesus himself. Paul reminds the Corinthians that Jesus died for all. Why? So that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised. Like the new order placed upon chaos in both Job and Mark, Christ’s death produces a whole new order – the old things have passed away, Paul states; behold, new things have come. Leaving behind the chaos of their past lives, Christians are called to live for Christ, aware of the love of Christ that impels them to live for other, trusting that in all they do, the Lord has their back.

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

Trust the author (Unknown)

God is still writing your story.

Quit trying to steal the pen.

Trust the author.

--Author unknown       

Image source: https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/fountain-pen-ink-writing-5834804/
Quotation source

What God's kingdom is like (Rachel Held Evans)

   This is what God’s kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there’s always room for more. 

--Rachel Held Evans 

Image source: Artist unknown, Jesus at the Home of Martha and Mary (ca. 1430), https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Legend_of_Sts._Mary_and_Martha_(detail).jpg
Quotation source

Grace and faith are irrevocably related (Matt Nelson)

   When we believe by faith, we hold things to be true that we cannot prove. So there is an incongruence between 1) what our natural faculties of reason can prove and 2) what we know to be true. By faith we become certain of more than we can prove. Sounds scandalous, right? 

   Faith is a comprehensive act of the whole person. It often begins in the intellect. But faith also involves a kind of revealing that surpasses the intellectual. Thus, the certitude of faith involves reasons, but it does not end with them. 

   All in all, faith begins and ends in an act of love by the infinite God. Eventually it involves a submission of the intellect – but [this is] a justified submission. And grace and faith are irrevocably related. We are saved by grace through faith, writes St. Paul (Eph. 2:8-9). Grace, being a free and unmerited gift of God, comes to us externally in the form of God’s revelation of himself through the Word of God, but also interiorly through the action of God within us, especially through the sacraments. 

--Matt Nelson

Image source: https://www.thepoachedegg.net/2012/03/ten-quotes-on-faith-and-reason.html
Quotation source

Faith is an attitude of trust (Bishop Robert Barron)

   Faith is an attitude of trust in the presence of God. Faith is openness to what God will reveal, do, and invite. It should be obvious that in dealing with the infinite and all-powerful personal God, we are never in control.

   That is why we say that faith goes beyond reason. If we can figure it out, calculate precisely, predict with complete accuracy, we’re in charge – and by definition, we are not dealing with a person. Would you use any of those descriptors in talking about your relationship with your husband, wife, or best friend? Instead, you enter into an ever-increasing rapport of trust with such people.

   One of the most fundamental statements of faith is this: your life is not about you. You’re not in control. This is not your project. Rather, you are part of God’s great design. To believe this in your bones and act accordingly is to have faith.

--Bishop Robert Barron,
Gospel Reflection, February 15, 2021

Image source: https://livingtheword.org.nz/tag/parable-of-the-mustard-seed/

Planted in faith (Elisabeth Elliot)

Don’t dig up in doubt 

what you planted in faith.

--Elisabeth Elliot          

Image source 1: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustard_plant
Image source 2: 
https://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/article/industrynews/marvelous-mustard-time-in-the-north-bay/
Quotation source

To continue to receive the OLMC Blog by email...

  For some time now, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Mill Valley's daily blog has been automatically emailed to people who have subscribed through the blogger.com website. It is also regularly posted to our Facebook page. 

  We recently received notice that those of you who receive the automated email posts from blogger.com will no longer be receiving those posts after July 2021 -- the "widget" will no longer be supported by this page. But don't despair! We have set up an alternative email system and the blog will continue to be sent out daily to anyone who would like to receive it! 

   So... if you would like to continue to receive daily posts by email, please comment on this post and include your email. We will not publish these comments (comments don't post until they are approved by the blog authors), but we will collect the emails and add them to our alternative mailing list. Or, if you prefer, you can also message us through our Facebook page with this information. Thank you for your patience through this transition! 

 --Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Mill Valley

Image source:   https://mountcarmelmv.org/

All that God allows to happen (St. Jane de Chantal)

   If we patiently accept through love all that God allows to happen, then we will begin to taste even here on earth something of the delights the saints experience in heaven.

--St. Jane de Chantal

Image source: Georges de La Tour, Job Ridiculed by His Wife, https://bibleartists.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/16b-job-ridiculed-by-his-wife-de-la-tour.jpg
Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 13, 2021: We walk by faith, not by sight...

We walk by faith, not by sight…

Do you trust in the promises of God?

   God calls Ezekiel when the soon-to-be prophet is already in exile in Babylon, and Ezekiel’s message is not, at first, a promising one; much of it has to do with the destruction of Jerusalem. But eventually the prophet does deliver a beautiful, hope-filled image in which God promises to restore David’s kingdom: I, too, will take from the crest of the cedar, and plant it on a high and lofty mountain so that it can become a majestic cedar, God says. And what God plants, flourishes, giving shelter to all: Birds of every kind shall dwell below that majestic cedar. God promises that God’s kingdom will embrace all the earth, and all shall be aware of God’s power. Psalm 92 confirms that power: They that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. We only have life when we are in relationship with the Lord, in proximity to our God, when our lives are planted by God and nurtured by God, entrusted to God’s own dwelling, living in hope of God’s promises.

   Jesus likewise uses the image of planting to give the crowds a sense of the potential for God’s action to establish God’s kingdom. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus speaks first of a man who scatters seed on the land and then… goes to sleep! The man has no consciousness of the power of God at work until it’s time to harvest, yet he seems to intuit God’s promise of bounty: And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once. That man knows that God sees our potential through to harvest; we then participate in that potential, cooperating in God’s life with God.

   The kingdom of God will take root, as God promises, producing fruit in the most unlikely of places, from the most unlikely of beginnings – witness the lowly mustard seed. We are called to be witnesses to the power of God’s love at work, living with courage as we trust in God’s promises. We are always courageous, Paul tells the Corinthians, for we walk by faith, not by sight. And so we need to live for the promises we hope for, ever open to transformation, ever open to restoration, ever open to the power of God’s love, active in our lives.

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

What's the point of going? (Christopher Alt, SJ)

   All of us have formed habitual, often just-below-the-surface, resistance to letting ourselves be radically transformed by our Eucharistic faith and practice. 

  Many churchgoers have been unable to participate in the liturgy for months. Some are just now beginning to return. Where is the grace in this hiatus and slow trickle back? Perhaps it gives us a chance to pause and ask ourselves where chasms have formed between how we regard and treat others with the radical faith Jesus gifted us. 

   Perhaps, it gives us a moment to simply ask: What’s the point of going, if the bread changes but we don’t?

--Christopher Alt, SJ

Image source: https://www.facebook.com/mountcarmelmv/photos/a.3493244037403660/3493239240737473
Quotation source & complete article

Nearness in Eucharist (Nadia Bolz-Weber)

   The movement in our relationship to God is always from God to us. Always. We can’t, through our piety or goodness, move closer to God. God is always coming near to us. Most especially in the Eucharist and in the stranger.

--Nadia Bolz-Weber,

Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith

of a Sinner & Saint

Image source: Plautilla Nelli, Last Supper (detail, ca. 1568). For an article about this remarkable work, likely the earliest Last Supper ever painted by a woman, see https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/first-last-supper-woman-painter-florence

A meal shared among friends (Fr. Greg Boyle)

   Jesus doesn’t lose any sleep that we will forget that the Eucharist is sacred. He is anxious that we might forget that it’s ordinary, that it’s a meal shared among friends, and that’s the incarnation, I think. 

--Fr. Greg Boyle, 

interviewed by
Krista Tippett 

for On Being (link below)

Image source: Sadao Watanabe, Last Supper, https://globalworship.tumblr.com/post/124862924200/visions-of-the-last-supper-art-set-1
Interview source

Teach me to be bread, God (Brother Isaiah)

You feed me with the finest wheat
Now milk and honey flowing deep inside me, inside me
You feed me with the finest, feed me with the finest
You feed me with your life, your love
You feed me with the finest wheat
Now milk and honey flowing deep inside me, inside me
You feed me with the finest, feed me with the finest
You feed me with your very self

And I will be bread, he said
Food for your soul and your pilgrim way
To give you hope and let you know I’ll never leave you alone (bis)

Refrain

Drink deep of my love from this cup, he said
And take this food, it’s my flesh, it’s my blood, he said
And learn to live in me and find in me
That all you need you’ll find in me, oh child
Drink deep of my love from this cup, he said
And take this food, it’s my flesh, it’s my blood, he said
And learn to live in me and come to see
That all you need you find in me, oh child
Drink deep from my love from this cup, he said
And take this food, it’s my flesh, it’s my blood, he said
And come to learn to see
That all you need you’ll find in me, you’ll find in me, oh child
Drink deep from my love from this cup, he said
And take this food, it’s my flesh, it’s my blood, he said
And learn to live in me and come to see
That all you need you find in me, oh child

Refrain

And teach me to be bread, God,
Food for hungry hearts and empty hands
Teach me to be bread, God,
To give my life away (bis)

Refrain

To hear Brother Isaiah perform Finest Wheat, click on the video below (or on the word video highlighted here). To purchase Brother Isaiah’s new CD Shade, click here. 

Image source: Master of the Brussels Initials, Initial N: The Last Supper (ca.1389-1404), https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/7-things-to-look-for-in-paintings-of-the-last-supper/

Video source

God enters into us (Br. Peter Martyr Jospeh Yungwirth OP)

   In the Eucharist, God has done something even more marvelous than speak from a burning bush or descend into a tabernacle in the wilderness. Now, God enters into us. 

--Br. Peter Martyr Joseph Yungwirth, OP 

Image source: https://www.indiancatholicmatters.org/sunday-homily-closer-to-him-in-the-eucharist/ 

Quotation source

 

Configured to Christ (Bishop Robert Barron)

   At the Last Supper, Jesus promises eternal life to those who eat his Flesh and drink his Blood. Many of the Church Fathers characterized the Eucharist as food that effectively immortalizes those who consume it. 

   They understood that if Christ is really present in the Eucharistic elements, the one who eats and drinks the Lord’s Body and Blood becomes configured to Christ in a far more than metaphorical way. The Eucharist Christifies and hence eternalizes. 

   If the Eucharist were no more than a symbol, this kind of language would be so much nonsense. But if the doctrine of the Real Presence is true, then this literal eternalization of the recipient of Communion must be maintained. 

   But what does this transformation practically entail? It implies that the whole of one’s life – body, psyche, emotions, spirit – becomes ordered to the realm of God. It means that one’s energies and interests, one’s purposes and plans, are lifted out of a purely temporal context and given an entirely new spiritual valence. 

--Bishop Robert Barron, Gospel Reflection 

for the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ 

Image source: http://www.popefrancishomilies.com/eucharist

Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 6, 2021: This is my blood of the covenant...

This is my blood of the covenant…

How are you transformed by Eucharist? 

   In the Book of Exodus, after he has recorded the commandments that God has given to him, Moses delivers the tablets to the people and prepares for a sacrifice by constructing an altar at the foot of the mountain. Taking the blood from the sacrifice, Moses sprinkles half of it on the people, stating, This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you. The blood, an essential life force and God’s gift to all, is representative of them as a people and serves as a peace offering between them and the Lord. The twelve pillars Moses erects will stand in perpetuity to represent their ongoing commitment to the covenant between God and God’s people; the blood represents the sacrifice of the people themselves to the Lord, and is meant to help them realize that it is their lives they are committing to God’s covenant. Psalm 116 speaks of a sacrifice of thanksgiving for all the good God has done for the psalmist; here, the psalmist gives public witness to this ongoing commitment to covenant.

   The Book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus is mediator of a new covenant; having entered once for all into the sanctuary … with his own blood, his sacrifice establishes a covenant that is eternal, achieved through the gift of God’s own Son. At his Last Supper with the disciples, in Mark's Gospel, Jesus tries to give them a sense of this new covenant when he takes bread, blesses it, breaks it and shares it with them – this covenant will endure because Jesus will offer himself as a sacrifice for all humankind. The disciples will soon understand that they can never go back; like the waters of the Red Sea that closed behind Moses and the people when they fled the land of Egypt, this new Passover sacrifice marks a change, a transformation that has occurred.

   When we participate in Eucharist, we bring to the altar all that we wish to be transformed. The bread and wine that become the body and blood of Christ represent us, and should come from us, from the midst of the congregation, carried by members of the assembly. Simultaneously, however, we bring ourselves forward for transformation; it is a covenant we must work to enter into ever more deeply at every celebration of Eucharist. Participating in Christ’s sacrifice through Eucharist purifies us from the dead works of sin. Eucharist should renew us in Christ, who died and rose for us, renew us in his presence and in his love – it is meant to keep transforming us, that we might continue to grow toward the perfection that we hope will someday be ours. 

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

All of humanity is being invited into the dance (Sharon Zaenglein Chipman)

   Our human clumsiness broke the heart of God, again and again. But God, being who God is, came even closer, and became humanly one of us, to show us more clearly the steps of the dance. We watch Jesus in his human walk, dance with God. If we listen well, we can hear the music of the Spirit, which is the love song between them.

   And as Jesus describes the dance, it’s all about being healed and made whole, because that is the meaning of being saved… Look around you – what is happening today in this world-wide crisis. All of humanity is being invited into the dance. The Ancients said that the kiss between the Creator and the Redeemer is the Holy Spirit. The kiss, the love I see in the world today, is so exquisite, so profound. 

--Sharon Zaenglein Chipman

Image source: Artwork by Fr. Patrick Michaels, whose explanation of the origins and genesis of this image, may be found here: http://mountcarmelmv.blogspot.com/2019/06/perichoresis-ring-dance-of-holy-trinity.html
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God is like a looking glass (St. Elizabeth Ann Seton)

   God is like a looking glass in which souls see each other. The more we are united to him by love, the nearer we are to those who belong to him.

--St. Elizabeth Ann Seton     

Image source: https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/do-two-mirrors-facing-each-other-produce-infinite-reflections/ 

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