Sunday Gospel Reflection, October 3, 2021: The two shall become one flesh...

The two shall become one flesh…

Our relationship with God and with other is grounded in union!

   From the very beginning, God has intended for all of creation to be in union, a union created not by humankind but by God. In the second creation story of the Book of Genesis, God creates man out of mud, but then states: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him. God recognizes that man is not complete until woman is created and man can be other than self-focused; God creates the two to have one identity, adamah. The man recognizes that the woman is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; the woman thus has the same strength (bone) and the same vulnerability (flesh) as the man. They are equal and connected to one another, and, together, can be in union with God the Creator who has created their bond. Psalm 128 describes how that union grows with the birth of children: the man and woman are blessed by progeny, and hope to see their children’s children; in the family unit, there is also union.

   Although God has always sought union with God’s people, it is through Jesus that we gain full access to God. The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that Jesus becomes one with us – a little lower than the angels – so that he might call us brothers and sisters. Unless Jesus becomes human, he cannot enter into death to conquer death, so as to bring many children to glory. God becomes one with us to reverse man’s original choice of knowledge over God; the incarnation of Jesus is a celebration of that connection, for all have one origin. In his conversations with the Pharisees in Mark's Gospel, Jesus stresses the centrality of union, reminding them that, while Moses wrote a law to deal with divorce because of the hardness of the human heart, God’s plan was always union: the two shall be one flesh, he says, citing Genesis. Jesus includes children in this union: Let the children come to me, he says, expanding the notion of kinship even to the most vulnerable.

   All relationships come from God; we are not complete without one another – men, women, and children – and we are certainly not complete without God. Ultimately, we will know perfect union with God in heaven. Until then, let us celebrate the union God invites us to here on earth, a union in God’s love and mercy.

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

Cultivating joy (Dawna Markova)

   I don’t think anyone ‘finds’ joy. Rather, we cultivate it by searching for the preciousness of small things, the ordinary miracles, that strengthen our hearts so we can keep them open to what is difficult: delight in taking a shower or a slow walk that has no destination, in touching something soft, in noticing the one small, black bird who sings every morning from the top of the big old pine tree… I need to give my attention to the simple things that give me pleasure with the same fervor I have been giving to the complex things with which I drive myself crazy.

--Dawna Markova     

Image source: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black-and-white_Warbler/id#
Quotation source

Take my people with me (DGLS)

I been walkin’ with my face turned to the sun
Weight on my shoulders, a bullet in my gun
Oh, I got eyes in the back of my head
Just in case I have to run
I do what I can when I can while I can for my people
While the clouds roll back and the stars fill the night 

 

That’s when I’m gonna stand up

Take my people with me

Together we are going to a brand-new home

Far across the river

Can you hear freedom calling, calling me to answer?

Gonna keep on keepin’ on 

I can feel it in my bones 

 

Early in the mornin’ before the sun begins to shine
We’re gonna start movin’ towards that separating line
I’m wading through muddy waters
You know I got a made-up mind
And I don’t mind if I lose any blood on the way to salvation
And I’ll fight with the strength that I got until I die 

 

Refrain 

 

And I know what's around the bend 

Might be hard to face 'cause I'm alone 

And I just might fall 

But Lord knows I tried 

Sure as the stars fill up the sky 

 

Refrain 

 

I go to prepare a place for you (4x) 

To hear Cynthia Erivo’s song Stand Up! performed by DGLS, click on the video below. For more information about the Douglas family, click here.

Image source 1:  Leo & Diane Dillon, illustration, The People Could Fly (by Virginia Hamilton, 2004), 
http://commonreads.com/book/?isbn=9780375824050

Image source 2:  James Tissot, Moses Sees the Promised Land from Afar (ca. 1896-1904), 
https://thejewishmuseum.org/collection/26400-moses-sees-the-promised-land-from-afar/
Image source 3:  William H. Johnson, Harriet Tubman and the Combahee River Raid (1945), 
https://www.fdmuseum.org/event/harriet-tubman-and-the-combahee-river-raid/harriet-tubman-1945-william-h-johnson-smithsonian-museum-of-american-art/
Video source

The way is rough (St. Anthony Maria Zaccaria)

   That which God commands seems difficult and a burden. The way is rough; you draw back; you have no desire to follow it. Yet do so – and you will attain glory.

--St. Anthony Maria Zaccaria

Image source: https://www.christianity.com/wiki/jesus-christ/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-disciple-of-christ.html
Quotation source

Aware (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

    The more alive and sensitive we are, the more we will experience excruciating heartaches. The more honest we are, the more we will be aware of our own limits and inadequacies. And the more generous and pure we are, the more we will be aware of our sin and betrayals. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI 

Facebook, January 13, 2020 

Image source: https://thefruitfultoolbox.com/self-awareness/

God is with me (St. Joan of Arc)

I am not afraid,

for God is with me.

I was born for this.

--St. Joan of Arc

Image source: Léon-François Bénouville, Jeanne d’Arc écoutant sa voix (Joan of Arc Listening to His Voice), detail, ca. 1859, https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-joan-of-arc
Quotation source

Standing with our hands open to the world (Henri Nouwen)

       Deep silence leads us to realize that prayer is, above all, acceptance. When we pray, we are standing with our hands open to the world. We know that God will become known to us in the nature around us, in the people we meet, in situations we run into. We trust that the world holds God’s secret within and we expect that secret to be shown to us. Prayer creates that openness in which God is given to us. Indeed, God wants to be admitted into the human heart, received with open hands, and loved with the same love with which we have been created.

--Henri Nouwen    

 

Image source: Sant’Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna, https://www.templestudy.com/2008/02/12/early-christian-orant-gesture-in-prayer/ 

Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 26, 2021: The precepts of the Lord give joy to the heart...

The precepts of the Lord give joy to the heart…

How open are you to God’s activity in your life?

    Moses does not have an easy time of it. In the Book of Numbers, the people of Israel complain vociferously throughout their time in the desert, to the point where Moses is simply fed up. The people are not open to God’s spirit or to God working in them. So, God offers Moses some help: Assemble for me seventy of the elders of Israel, God tells Moses. God will confer some of the spirit that is on Moses on these men, that they may share the burden of the people with Moses. Indeed, God sends the spirit to rest on all seventy men, even Eldad and Medad, two men who did not come to the tent but remained in the camp. In the end, all of the men prophesy in the camp, even Eldad and Medad, giving ecstatic expression to God’s activity in their lives. They are open to God and allow God to work through them, as the psalmist does in Psalm 19, asking the Lord to direct him and guide him and give him wisdom. The precepts of the Lord give joy to the heart, the psalmist says; like the elders, the psalmist is ecstatic in his awareness of God’s activity in his life.

    Where, in Numbers, Joshua objects to the prophesying of Eldad and Medad, in Mark’s Gospel, the disciple John is similarly concerned with potentially inappropriate behavior. Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us. Jesus corrects the disciples, for the man is following his heart, open to allowing God to work through him; he will be rewarded by God in the end. Sin can cause an individual to be thrown into Gehenna, Jesus says, but if all that we do is governed by our heart, if we are open to God, take responsibility for our deeds and are aware of God’s activity in our lives in the present moment, then we will be life-giving to others… unlike the rich who are censured by James for withholding wages from their workers. They are not open to God’s action; they are taking life rather than giving it; they have gone after glamour but not invested in anything that will last. All that remains is for them to wail over their impending miseries, for their failure to be life-giving is testimony against them.

    Imagine if, as community we were all conscious that God shifts our being, our very essence to be open to his Word and to his love in our lives! Faith is a gift of the Spirit; our job is to nurture it wherever we find it, recognizing where it is at work and remaining open to it, so that we too might be life-giving, ever aware of God’s activity in us and through us for the world, and giving ecstatic expression to that which faith reveals to us and in us.

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

It is worth any sacrifice (Dom Hélder Câmara)

By the grace You grant me
of silence without loneliness,
give me the right to plead,
to clamour
for my brothers and sister
imprisoned in loneliness without silence! 

It is worth any sacrifice,
however great or costly,
to see eyes that were listless
light up again,
to see someone smile
who seemed to have forgotten how to smile;
to see trust reborn
in someone
who no longer believe
in anything or Anyone.

--Dom Hélder Câmara, A Thousand Reasons for Living

Image source: Video, Ballerina with Alzheimer’s hears Swan Lake, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT8AdwV0Vkw
Quotation source

Who shook the jar? (Unknown)

    If you collect 100 black ants and 100 fire ants and put them in a glass jar, nothing will happen. But if you take the jar, shake it violently and leave it on the table, the ants will start killing each other. Red believes that black is the enemy, while black believes that red is the enemy, when the real enemy is the person who shook the jar.

    The same is true in society. Men vs. women. Black vs. white. Faith vs. science. Young vs. old. And so on. Before we fight each other, we must ask ourselves: who shook the jar? 

--Unknown       

Image source: http://serious-science.org/ant-wars-6652. Note: while ants do fight each other, there is not yet sufficient data available to confirm the details of this story, so we offer it up as a metaphor for human existence rather than as confirmed scientific fact.
Story source

Serving God (Charles Spurgeon)

   You are as much serving God in looking after your own children, and training them up in God’s fear, and minding the house, and making your household a church for God, as you would be if you had been called to lead an army to battle for the Lord of hosts. 

--Charles Spurgeon 

Image source: https://www.osvnews.com/2011/03/21/what-catholics-need-to-know-about-making-their-homes-a-domestic-church/ 

Quotation source

Open my eyes that I may see the needs of others (Alan Paton)

O Lord, open my eyes that I may see the needs of others.
Open my ears that I may hear their cries.
Open my heart so that they need not be without succor.
Let me not be afraid
to defend the weak because of the anger of the strong,
nor afraid
to defend the poor because of the anger of the rich.
Show me where love and hope and faith are needed,
and use me to bring them to those places.
And so open my eyes and my ears
that I may this coming day be able
to do some work of peace for thee.

--Alan Paton            

Image source: https://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/.a/6a00e550d89fd9883401901e0ae47e970b-pi
Quotation source

A meaningful life (Ruth Bader Ginsburg)

   To make life a little better for people less fortunate than you, that’s what I think a meaningful life is. One lives not just for oneself, but for one’s community.

--Ruth Bader Ginsburg      

Image source: https://borgenproject.org/10-ways-to-help-the-worlds-poor/
Quotation source

Once you respect others (Dalai Lama)

   I really feel that inner values are the most important thing in building a happy world. Once you consider others and respect others, there is no room for cheating, exploiting, or bullying. Then trust develops and a positive sense of competition thinking, I want to be equal to my friends. But trying to hinder others or create obstacles for them in order to come first, is a negative aspect of competition, isn’t it?

--Dalai Lama, Facebook, April 9, 2021 

Image source: https://legacycultures.com/examples-of-showing-respect-to-others-and-its-importance-in-life/

Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 19, 2021: Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me...

Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me…

Who is your primary focus in life?

    When, in Mark’s Gospel, the disciples begin to discuss among themselves who is the greatest, one senses in their preoccupation with prominence a concern for themselves. It’s not clear if they are worried about Jesus’ statement that the Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him; ostensibly, the disciples do not understand what Jesus is talking about. In any case, Jesus tries to reorient their focus by taking a child and putting his arms around it. Jesus’ concern is for the child, the poorest of the poor, the one with the greatest need. Similarly, his disciples should reorient themselves by focusing outward, on the needs of others, rather than on themselves and on their own desire to be the greatest. They are called to serve even the least, and especially the least, and must accept to be subordinate to the very lowest members of the social hierarchy.

    In fact, Jesus’ disciples are to be just, that is, life-giving, like the individual beset by the wicked in the Book of Wisdom: let us put the just one to the test that we may have proof of his gentleness and try his patience. The just one, who might be the son of God, Wisdom suggests, speaks the truth, a truth the wicked do not want to hear: he sets himself against our doings, reproaches us for transgressions of the law, and charges us with violations of our training. The wicked express concern for themselves, and are more fixated on what they themselves can get out of life than on what they can bring to it. They believe life is something they can control, whereas, as Psalm 54 reminds us, it is the Lord who upholds our lives. God is with the child, with the suffering, with anyone who is in difficulty. God hearkens to the words of our mouth, saving those beset by the wicked, whereas the wicked are prey to all of the sins of self-focus enumerated in the Letter of James: jealousy and selfish ambition and every foul practice, inconstancy and insincerity. Such men ask but do not receive, because they ask wrongly, to spend it on their passions; they are forces of disorder in the kingdom of God. Even in prayer, James suggests, we are called to serve others, focusing outward rather than on ourselves. In all we do, it is only through humility and service to other, that is, that we can be true imitators of Christ, living lives of service and sacrifice enriched by wisdom from above, full of mercy and good fruits.

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

I am because we are (Ubuntu)

   An anthropologist showed a game to the children of an African tribe. He placed a basket of delicious fruits near a tree trunk and told them: The first child to reach the tree would get the basket. When he gave them the start signal, he was surprised that they were walking together, holding hands until they reached the tree and shared the fruit. 

   When he asked them, why did you do that when every one of you could get the basket only for himself, they answered with astonishment: Ubuntu. That is, how can one of us be happy while the rest are miserable? Ubuntu in their civilization means, I am because we are.

--Author unknown     

Image source: http://www.amyreesanderson.com/blog/ubuntu-i-am-because-we-are/#.YN0ZEhNKgzU
Story source

All wrapped up in self (Kendrick Gazette)

   When one gets all wrapped up in self, one makes for a very small package.

--Kendrick Gazette (1921)

Image source: https://thoughtsonhowhelovesus.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/tangled-heart.png
Quotation source

A sacrifice must empty ourselves (St. Mother Teresa of Kolkata)

   A sacrifice, to be real, must cost, must hurt, and must empty ourselves. Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in his love than in your weakness.

--St. Mother Teresa of Kolkata 

Image source: Carl Bloch, An Angel Comforting Jesus Before His Arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane (1873), https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/04/10/when-did-agony-christ-begin 

Quotation source

The cross is where we meet God (Fr. James Martin)

   What does it mean to accept our crosses? To begin with, it means understanding that suffering is part of everyone’s life. Accepting our cross means that at some point – after the shock, frustration, sadness and even rage – we must accept that some things cannot be changed. That is why acceptance is not a masochistic stance but a realistic one. Here is where Christianity parts ways with some belief systems, which say that suffering is an illusion. No, says Jesus from the cross, suffering is part of the human reality. The disciples had a difficult time understanding this – they wanted a leader who would deliver them from pain, not one who would endure it himself. We often have a difficult time with this, too. But acceptance is what Jesus invites us to on the cross.

   By ignoring or failing to embrace the cross, we miss opportunities to know God in a deeper way. The cross is often where we meet God because our vulnerability can make us more open to God’s grace. Often, we find ourselves incapable of believing that God might have new life in store for us. Nothing can change, we say. There is no hope. This is when we end up mired in despair, which can sometimes be a reflection of pride. That is, we think that we know better than God. It is a way of saying, God does not have the power to change this situation. What a dark and dangerous path is despair, far greater than death.

   Wait for the resurrection. In every cross, there is an invitation to new life in some way, often in a mysterious way. Perhaps even Jesus was surprised on Easter.

--Excerpted from Fr. James Martin, Jesus: A Pilgrimage

Image source: https://www.adventistreview.org/reconciling-the-resurrection

Bring your peace to our violent world (Pope Benedict XVI)

 

   God of love, compassion, and healing, look on us, people of many different faiths and traditions, who gather today at this site, the scene of incredible violence and pain.

   We ask you in your goodness to give eternal light and peace to all who died here – the heroic first-responders: our fire fighters, police officers, emergency service workers, and Port Authority personnel, along with all the innocent men and women who were victims of this tragedy simply because their work or service brought them here on September 11, 2001.

   We ask you, in your compassion, to bring healing to those who, because of their presence here that day, suffer from injuries and illness. Heal, too, the pain of still-grieving families and all who lost loved ones in this tragedy. Give them strength to continue their lives with courage and hope.

   We are mindful as well of those who suffered death, injury, and loss on the same day at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Our hearts are one with theirs as our prayer embraces their pain and suffering.

   God of peace, bring your peace to our violent world: peace in the hearts of all men and women and peace among the nations of the earth. Turn to your way of love those whose hearts and minds are consumed with hatred.

   God of understanding, overwhelmed by the magnitude of this tragedy, we seek your light and guidance as we confront such terrible evens. Grant that those whose lives were spared may live so that the lives lost here may not have been lost in vain. Comfort and console us, strengthen us in hope, and give us the wisdom and courage to work tirelessly for a world where true peace and love reign among nations and in the hearts of all. 

--Pope Benedict XVI at Ground Zero, September 11, 2015

Image source: Zurab Tsereteli, Tear Drop Memorial (also known as the Tear of Grief), given to the United States as an official gift by the government of Russia to commemorate the attacks on September 11, 2001. It sits directly across from New York City in Bayonne, New Jersey. Originally named To Struggle Against World Terrorism, the tear drop represents the grief of the world in the face of the attacks, while the cracked façade is intended to recall the shape of the twin towers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_the_Struggle_Against_World_Terrorism#/media/File:Tearsofgriefbayonne.JPG
Quotation source

Unless you crucify your ego (Bishop Robert Barron)

   True conversion – the metanoia that Jesus talks about – has to do with a complete shift in consciousness, a whole new way of looking at one’s life. Jesus offered a teaching that must have been gut-wrenching to his first-century audience: If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

   His listeners knew what the cross meant: a death in utter agony, nakedness, and humiliation. They didn’t think of the cross automatically in religious terms, as we do. They knew it in all of its awful power. Unless you crucify your ego, you cannot be my follower, Jesus says. This move – this terrible move – has to be the foundation of the spiritual life.

--Bishop Robert Barron, Gospel Reflection, May 22, 2021

Image source: A Strasburgian painter, possibly Hermann Schadeberg, Jesus Crucified Between Two Thieves, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion#/media/File:Crucifixion_Strasbourg_Unterlinden_Inv88RP536.jpg

Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 12, 2021: Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it...

Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it…

How difficult it is to see all that God has made possible!

    The suffering servant of whom the prophet Isaiah speaks does not refuse the call of God; indeed, he is ready to accept any and all abuse – I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard, he says – provided that he remains able to hear what the Lord is saying: the Lord God opens my ear that I may hear. The servant is open to God, seeks to work in concert with God’s will, and is true to what God says through him, trusting that, no matter the abuse with which he is confronted, the Lord God will be his help. God is also the help of the psalmist in Psalm 116: I love the Lord because he has heard my voice in supplication. Like the suffering servant, the psalmist is very aware of all that God has made possible in his life, and is grateful for it.

   In Mark’s Gospel, the disciples have a more difficult time opening their ears that they may hear. When Jesus explains that, as the Christ, he must suffer greatly, be rejected and be killed, Peter will have none of it: Peter takes him aside and begins to rebuke him. But Jesus knows who he is, knows the truth of what is coming, and so he speaks that truth to the disciples, whether they want to hear it or not. They do not yet see all that God has made possible: You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do, Jesus tells Peter. Jesus’ code of conduct is clear: Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. God’s call is for us to discover who we are and what we are capable of, but our expectations rarely meet God’s reality; what God has made possible by creating us is an ongoing discovery. James challenges his audience to show him the faith they have: faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead. James wants them to show him, in other words, that their faith is alive in them; he wants to see clearly that they have been changed for the better by the death and resurrection of Jesus. We cannot earn faith, but once we accept it, we have to do something with it or our faith is dead. 

   God’s love for us is eternal; our love for him exists so that we can remain open to God’s word and to God’s gifts, gifts that are given for the sake of the world. Jesus challenges us to commit our lives completely to the service of other, even if that faith means accepting the sacrifice of self and the embracing of the cross of Christ. For this, ultimately, is what God has made possible; we have but to open to it. 

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

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

A more courageous radiating of the Church's wide compassion (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

   As a church, giving witness to Christ today requires that we build communities that are wide enough to hold our differences. What we need is not a new technique, but a new sanctity. We don’t need some updating of the gospel to make it more acceptable to the world, we need a more courageous radiating of its wide compassion. We also don’t need some new secret that catches people’s curiosity, but a way of following Christ that can hold more of the tensions of our world in proper balance so that everyone, irrespective of temperament and ideology, will find themselves better understood and embraced by what we hold most dear.

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI      

Image source: Cover, Creating a Culture of Encounter:  A Guide for Joyful Missionary Disciples,  
https://www.usccb.org/committees/cultural-diversity-church
Quotation source

Show no partiality (Dorothy Day)

  The Gospel takes away our right forever to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving poor.

--Servant of God
Dorothy Day

Image source: Original illustration for Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, https://www.amazon.com/Oliver-Illustrated-complete-original-illustrations-ebook/dp/B00GJWH5HY
Quotation source

Work anoints us with dignity (Pope Francis)

   We do not get dignity from power or money or culture. We get dignity from work. Work is fundamental to the dignity of the person. Work, to use an image, anoints with dignity, fills us with dignity, makes us similar to God who has worked and still works, who always acts. I address a strong appeal that the dignity and the safety of the worker always be protected.

--Pope Francis

Image source: Fritz Eichenberg, Holy Family Farmworkers (1954), https://cjd.org/2011/02/01/justice-in-economics-is-not-socialism-the-catholic-worker-and-workers/
Quotation source

Compelled to hear the Word (Bishop Robert Barron)

   To heal the deaf man who had a speech impediment, Mark tells us, Jesus took him "off by himself away from the crowd."  Jesus then "put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, ‘Ephphatha! that is, Be opened.’"  Looking up to his Father and inserting his fingers into the man’s ears, Jesus establishes, as it were, an electrical current, literally plugging him into the divine energy, compelling him to hear the Word.

   Now let’s look at this healing in terms of its spiritual significance. The crowd is a large part of the problem. The raucous voices of so many, the insistent braying of the advertising culture, the confusing Babel of competing spiritualities – all of it makes us deaf to God’s word. And therefore, we have to be moved to a place of silence and communion. Jesus draws us into his space, the space of the Church. There, away from the crowd, we can immerse ourselves in the rhythm of the liturgy, listen avidly to Scripture, study the theological tradition, watch the moves of holy people, take in the beauty of sacred art and architecture. There, we can hear.

--Bishop Robert Barron, Gospel Reflection, February 21, 2021

Image source: https://evs-translations.com/blog/translation-services-megaprojects/

Grow (Eric Butterworth)

Don’t go through life,
grow through life. 

--Eric Butterworth          

 

Image source: https://viola.bz/plants-that-never-give-up/
Quotation source

Imagining as God imagines (John Pungente & Monty Williams)

   When our imaginations are frozen, we end up with the notion that reality cannot be changed; when our imaginations are subverted by evil, we end up creating distorted forms of reality; but when our imaginations are liberated by God, we end up imagining as God imagines and creating as God creates.

--John Pungente, SJ & Monty Williams, SJ

Image source: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-06-21/liberating-the-captured-imagination/
Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 5, 2021: Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared...

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened,
the ears of the deaf be cleared…

How does the Lord transform us?

   The first part of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah is written during the Babylonian captivity, a time of great distress during which the people’s hearts are frightened; they look to God for reassurance that one day their exile will end. And God promises to do what human beings cannot: God will come to save them, Isaiah tells them, opening the eyes of the blind, clearing the ears of the deaf. This will be a time of great transformation when all that occurs will be beyond remarkable: the lame will leap, the mute will sing, and more. The people of Israel read this as God’s future vindication of God’s people: God will transform the world as they know it. The people had lost hope, but Isaiah’s message restores that hope as they experience a shift in how they understand their own journey. They will one day be able to praise the Lord, as in Psalm 146, for the Lord keeps faith forever, fulfilling his every promise.

   So much of what we hope for is not within our abilities but is within God’s. When, in Mark's Gospel, Jesus heals the deaf man who has a speech impediment, he orders witnesses not to tell anyone, yet the more he orders them not to, the more they proclaim it. They are moved by God’s activity, by the hand of God at work in Jesus, who fulfills the promises of the Prophet Isaiah, and so they want to make it known that God is in their midst, that God is with them. It is the natural human response to God’s love to proclaim it. Jesus creates a moment of intimacy with the deaf man: he puts his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touches his tongue. It is through intimacy that Christ transforms us: by entering into us, into our selves, into our very lives, whether we are clean and tidy or not. Only God can take sin and transform it; we have to be open to that transformation, and let go of any impediment in the way. We must relinquish control and surrender; we must let go of what we think defines us, so that his love can. Such surrender is at the core of the Letter of James, which encourages his audience to show no partiality. To do so, the people must see as God sees; they must allow God to transform them, to transform their vision, to open their blind eyes, that they might recognize the poor in the world as those most like Christ and move ever closer toward that perfect union in love with the Lord to which they are called. Our call to transformation is no different.

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

My tendencies toward self-reliance (Brother Isaiah)

From the distrust of your provision,
Deliver me, deliver me, oh God
From the distrust of your protection,
Deliver me, deliver me, oh God
From the lie that you are not a good Father,
Deliver me, deliver me, oh God
From my tendencies toward self-reliance
Deliver me, deliver me, oh God 

And loosen my grip oh Lord from empty fearfulness
And open my heart to the joy of your love,
The joy of your love, the joy of your love, the joy of your love
This love you have for me (bis) 

In the faith that with you I shall not want
Strengthen me, oh strengthen me, oh God
In the faith in your ever watchful care
Strengthen me, oh strengthen me, oh God
In the trust in your tender love for me
Strengthen me, oh strengthen me, oh God
And in the knowledge of who I am in your sight
Strengthen me, oh strengthen me, oh God 

Refrain

To hear Brother Isaiah perform Little Litany, click on the video below. To purchase his new CD Shade, click here.

Image source: https://unlockingthebible.org/2019/08/moving-self-reliance-grace-reliance/
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