The candle or the mirror (Edith Wharton)

There are two ways of spreading light 

– to be the candle 

or the mirror that reflects it.

--Edith Wharton        

Image source: Georges de La Tour, The Penitent Magdalen (ca. 1640), detail, https://www.metmuseum.org/blogs/now-at-the-met/2014/reflections-charles-le-bruns-mirrored-presence
Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, January 2, 2022: We saw his star at its rising...

We saw his star at its rising…

What draws you to Christ?

   We are naturally drawn to light. Isaiah encourages the people of Israel to look forward to a time after their return to Jerusalem when that city will serve as a source of light for others: Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining radiance. This light comes from God; its purpose is twofold: first, so that the people of Israel themselves see the glory of God and all that God reveals; and second, so that other nations see the glory of God revealed in the Jerusalem’s prosperity. The people’s hearts shall throb and overflow with the light that is God’s very presence, a light that will draw all, even kings, to God. For the power of God is at work in kings as much as in the people themselves, as Psalm 72 reminds us: kings shall judge your people with justice, thanks to the gift of the light of wisdom, a revelation from God.

   Matthew’s Gospel makes it clear that the light of revelation is not given only to the Jewish people: magi from the east come to Bethlehem to seek the newborn king of the Jews. They are of pagan origin, yet they see the light of the star, and receive and follow the revelation from God, an epiphany that leads them to Jesus. The light affords them clearer vision to see and participate in the good news of Christ. In his Letter to the Ephesians, Paul will echo Matthew’s understanding that the message of salvation is for all humankind: the mystery was made known to me by revelation that the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and copartners in the promise. Paul sees Gentiles hearing the Word and responding to it; God shows no partiality or exclusivity.

   We don’t fully understand God’s will or God’s kingdom in its complete form; mystery remains attached to God’s plan. Christ himself is that plan, a plan that is still unfolding because we do not yet have the light to see and understand Christ in his fullness. But the light of salvation draws us to Jesus just as surely as it drew the magi. Let us watch for our star and do him homage, recognizing the great gift that is ours, the gift of salvation revealed for all.

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

This woman, this man, this swaddled babe (Elizabeth Scalia)

   As this woman, this man, this swaddled babe make entry, may they fill up every molecule of space allowed with the graces they bring to bear – even unto our fearful and anxious little hearts, our shriveled souls, so often as chilly and dark as our deepest caverns – until there is light, and we let it be.

--Elizabeth Scalia

Image source: Mike Moyers, The Manger, available for purchase at: https://ascensionpress.com/products/rejoice-art-prints-the-manger
Quotation source

In that silent baby (Brian D. McLaren)

   But in that silent baby, lying in that humble manger, there pulses more potential power and wisdom and grace and aliveness than all the rest of us can imagine.

--Brian D. McLaren         

To hear Silent Night sung in Swahili, one of the four national languages of the Democratic Republic of Congo, click on the video below:

Image source: Joseph Mulamba-Mandangi, Nativity (Democratic Republic of Congo, 2001), https://thejesusquestion.org/2011/12/25/nativity-paintings-from-around-the-world/ Quotation source
Video source

Beloved sons and daughters of God (Henri Nouwen)

    Jesus came to share his identity with you and to tell you that you are the Beloved Sons and Daughters of God. Just for a moment, try to enter this enormous mystery that you, like Jesus, are the beloved daughter or beloved son of God. This is the truth. Furthermore, your belovedness preceded your birth. You were the beloved before your father, mother, brother, sister, or church loved you or hurt you. You are the beloved because you belong to God from all eternity.

    God loved you before you were born, and God will love you after you die. In Scripture, God says, I have loved you with an everlasting love. This is a very fundamental truth of your identity. This is who you are whether you feel it or not. You belong to God from eternity to eternity. Life is just a little opportunity for you during a few years to say, I love you, too.

--Henri Nouwen     

Image source 1: https://www.ibelieve.com/faith/scriptures-to-remind-you-that-you-are-beloved.html
Image source 2: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/how-to-keep-your-childs-asthma-under-control-when-playing-outside-this-winter/
Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, December 26, 2021: Beloved, we are God's children now...

Beloved, we are God’s children now…

How do you define family?

    In the Old Testament, the people of Israel defined family in terms of the larger community. When, in 1 Samuel, Hannah takes her son to the temple to dedicate him to the Lord, she is not abandoning him, but deepening their relationship with God, the source of their identity. Her act is a gesture of recognition that Samuel is a gift to her from God that she dedicates back to God. For Hannah and for Samuel, Psalm 84’s refrain, Blessed are they who dwell in your house, takes on new meaning with Samuel’s dedication. The psalmist yearns to be in the presence of the Lord, and is able to find his way to God in his heart, celebrating the relationship that is at the core of his very identity as well.

    In Luke’s Gospel, time spent in the temple does not merely allow Jesus proximity to God, but gives him the opportunity to identify God as his Father: Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house? he asks his parents, who have returned to Jerusalem in a panic, looking for the son they fear has been lost. Jesus knows who he is; his identity in God, as God, is secure.

    Thus, in the New Testament, what constitutes family is related not to bloodlines, but to faith. 1 John reminds us that we are baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection and are therefore God’s children now. Our relationship with the Lord as children who inherit our identity is inspired by and brought about through the Lord’s love for us, lived out in our love for one another. Through Christ, the notion of family is broader than we might otherwise define it, and certainly broader than the limitations we normally place upon it. Only in the context of community do we find our true identity. Ultimately, we are called to one universal family in which everyone should belong, and know and live in Jesus Christ – as we prepare for our eventual home, a home that is perfect in love, and that is love, perfectly revealed.

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

The all of Christmas (Wilda English)

God grant you

the light of Christmas, which is faith;

the radiance of Christmas, which is purity;

the righteousness of Christmas, 

which is justice;

the belief in Christmas, which is truth;

the all of Christmas, which is Christ. 

--Wilda English    

Every blessing at Christmas from
Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Mill Valley!

Image source: https://www.facebook.com/mountcarmelmv/photos/a.3751521578242570/3751516858243042 Quotation source

Here was born a Child (J.R.R. Tolkien)

Grim was the world and grey last night:

The moon and stars were fled,

The hall was dark without song or light,

The fires were fallen dead.

The wind in the trees was like to the sea,

And over the mountains’ teeth

It whistled bitter-cold and free,

As a sword leapt from its sheath.

The lord of snows upreared his head;

His mantle long and pale

Upon the bitter blast was spread

And hung o’er hill and dale.

The world was blind, the boughs were bent,

All ways and paths were wild:

Then the veil of cloud apart was rent,

And here was born a Child.

The ancient dome of heaven sheer

Was pricked with distant light;

A star came shining white and clear

Alone above the night.

In the dale of dark in that hour of birth

One voice on a sudden sang:

Then all the bells in Heaven and Earth

Together at midnight rang.

Mary sang in this world below:

They heard her song arise

O’er mist and over mountain snow

To the walls of Paradise,

And the tongue of many bells was stirred

In Heaven’s towers to ring

When the voice of mortal maid was heard,

That was mother of Heaven’s King.

Glad is the world and fair this night

With stars about its head,

And the hall is filled with laughter and light

And fires are burning red.

The bells of Paradise now ring

With bells of Christendom,

And Gloria, Gloria we will sing

That God on earth is come. 

--J.R.R. Tolkien, Noël

Image source: He Qi, Nativity (1998).  For this and other interpretations of the Nativity from around the world, see https://tranthomasdesign.com/the-12-days-of-christmas-12-wonderful-and-inspiring-art-interpretations-of-the-nativity-from-around-the-world/
Poem source

To enter more deeply (Teresa Berger)

   Whatever cultural warm and fuzzy feelings we have around Christmas, God becoming human and being born among animals was not a pretty sight. This Christmas, I want to enter more deeply into that: into the communion of animals and angels who were also there, but also into communion with all the beings who are outside the stable.

    How to hold those two things in tension, I’m not sure. Maybe we’ll know more on December 26. But one thing I know: God is still entering into our lives and into this world. I am not worried about us not being able to encounter God on Christmas 2020. God will be there. God will meet us in our needs. What we can bring is our own searching for the spaces in which God, once again, comes to us.

--Teresa Berger

Image source: Fr. Patrick Michaels, crèche, OLMC Rectory, 2017, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=843340492514813&set=pb.100005166090077.-2207520000
Quotation source

Dare we allow it in? (John Shea)

It happens when we least expect it. 

 

When we wake in the night 

with the worries of the day. 

          When we mask a child 

too young to have her face unseen. 

When we ache to see people 

but fear to invite them. 

When we touch a forehead 

and hope it is not hot. 

Sometimes comfort comes, 

          arriving as grace 

          into exhaustion. 

It must be a mistake, 

nothing has changed. 

 

Dare we allow it in? 

 

Are the angels of Bethlehem 

still wandering the world, 

          trumpets uplifted,

visiting us with Christmas news? 

 

There is One among you 

          who brings peace.

--John Shea,
poet & theologian, 2020

Image source 1: https://mountcarmelmv.org/pb/wp_0d658da9/wp_0d658da9.html
Image source 2: https://www.thebrookchi.com/blog/post/whos-harold-no-hark-the-herald-angels-sing 

Poem source

The Babe that I carry (St. Ephrem the Syrian)

   The Babe that I carry carries me, saith Mary. 

--St. Ephrem the Syrian 

Image source: Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato, Madonna and Child (1640), https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3842492 

Quotation source

Unconventional and inconsequential (Kaya Oakes)

    In Elizabeth Johnson’s book on Mary, Truly Our Sister, [the author] has a very different view of Mary, reframing her as a radical visionary who sees a more equitable world as God’s desire for humanity. 

    During the pregnant Mary’s visit to her older but also pregnant cousin Elizabeth, Mary sings the Magnificat, which Johnson describes as the prayer of a poor woman. In the Magnificat, Mary speaks of a world where God raises the lowly and sends the rich away, where the social order is upended and the poor and vulnerable are the most beloved. Mary, being young, female, and living under the oppressive rule of the Roman empire, is chosen by God because she is unconventional and inconsequential. 

    And she sings this song not to an audience of powerful men, but to another pregnant woman. 

    Mary is a reminder that the least likely person is sometimes the one who will wind up changing the world, even if that world is just the world of the family we grew up in.

--Kaya Oakes        

Image source: Romare Bearden, The Visitation (1941), https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2015/04/22/a-homecoming-for-romare-beardens-the-visitation/
Quotation source

To discover your role in God's story (Bishop Robert Barron)

   I’ve always been fascinated by Mary’s haste in the story of the Visitation. Upon hearing the message of Gabriel concerning her own pregnancy and that of her cousin, Mary proceeded in haste into the hill country of Judah to see Elizabeth.

   Why did she go with such speed and purpose? Because she had found her mission, her role in the theo-drama. We are dominated today by the ego-drama in all of its ramifications and implications. The ego-drama is the play that I’m writing, I’m producing, I’m directing, and I’m starring in. We see this absolutely everywhere in our culture. Freedom of choice reigns supreme: I become the person that I choose to be.

   The theo-drama is the great story being told by God, the great play being directed by God. What makes life thrilling is to discover your role in it. This is precisely what has happened to Mary. She has found her role – indeed, a climactic role – in the theo-drama, and she wants to conspire with Elizabeth, who has also discovered her role in the same drama. Like Mary, we have to find our place in God’s story.

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

Image source: The Visitation, Basilica of the Visitation in Ein Karem, the birthplace of John the Baptist, 

https://media.ascensionpress.com/2019/12/11/advent-reflection-the-visitation-through-marys-eyes/ 

When have you felt the Lord's presence in your life? (Ricardo da Silva SJ)

   How does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?, Elizabeth asks Mary. It’s a reasonable question for Elizabeth to put to her cousin: How is it that Mary I to become the mother of God. But on another level, it’s an extraordinary question: Elizabeth is in awe of God’s presence and feels undeserving of such a special visit. 

   Elizabeth’s question is a question for us, too. Think about the times where, like Elizabeth, you have felt the Lord’s presence in your life. Remember what it felt like to know that God was with you. That’s the promise we’re given today. Emmanuel, from the Hebrew word meaning God-is-with-us. And as you bring yourself to feel God’s presence in your life, in both ordinary and extraordinary ways, ask that same question that Elizabeth asked, as you wait for Jesus’ coming into our world at Christmas, in just a few days now. 

   How does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 

--Ricardo da Silva, SJ 

Image source: Jacopo da Pontormo, The Visitation, detail (1528-1529), https://www.artandobject.com/press-release/morgan-hosts-pontormos-visitation-first-time-us 

Quotation source

God breaks into human life at every turn (Joseph F. Chorpenning, OSFS)

   The Visitation is not an event consigned to the past, but ever present in the here and now in daily experience: God breaks into human life at every turn, and Mary, in the first place, and the saints of the Visitation* model the appropriate human response to these daily divine visitations.

--Joseph F. Chorpenning, OSFS

   *Per St. Francis de Sales, “the saints who were present at the mystery of the Visitation” were “the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, St. Joseph, St. John the Baptist, patriarch of hermits, St. Zechariah, and St. Elizabeth.”

Image source:  James Janknegt, The Visitation (2008). For an interview with the artist, see https://www.creatorspiritus.org/creator-spiritus-blog/2016/12/17/the-visitation-an-interview-with-artist-james-janknegt  To view several more images of the Visitation at which St. Joseph and Zechariah are present, see: https://osjusa.org/st-joseph/art/subjects/visitation/
Quotation source: Joseph F. Chorpenning, OSFS, “Mother of Our Savior and Cooperator in Our Salvation: Imitatio Mariae and the Biblical Mystery of the Visitation in St. Francis de Sales,” Marian Studies 53 (2002), Article 8.

Worth waiting for (Henri Nouwen)

   One of the most beautiful passages in scripture is Luke 1:39-56, which tells us about Mary’s visit to Elizabeth. What happened when Mary received the words of promise? She went to Elizabeth. Something was happening to Elizabeth as well as Mary. But how could they live that out?

   I find the meeting of these two women very moving because Elizabeth and Mary came together and enabled each other to wait. Mary’s visit made Elizabeth aware of what she was waiting for. The child leapt for joy in her. Mary affirmed Elizabeth’s waiting. And then Elizabeth said to Mary, Blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled. And Mary responded, My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. She burst into joy herself. These two women created space for each other to wait. They affirmed for each other that something was happening worth waiting for.

   Here we see a model for Christian community. It is a community of support, celebration, and affirmation in which we can lift up what has already begun in us. The visit of Elizabeth and Mary is one of the Bible’s most beautiful expressions of what it means to form community, to be together, gathered around a promise, affirming what is happening among us.

--Henri Nouwen, The Path of Waiting

Image source: Master M S (Hungary), The Visitation (ca. 1506), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Visitation_(MS)#/media/File:Master_M_S_-_The_Visitation_-_WGA14334.jpg

Sunday Gospel Reflection, December 19, 2021: Blessed are you who believed...

 

Blessed are you who believed…

Do you trust that salvation will come?

    Sometimes it’s hard to imagine that things can get better. Psalm 80 gives voice to the desires of a people looking for God’s guidance and salvation: Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face, and we shall be saved. The people long for a messiah who will unite them, and look forward to the Lord rousing his power to take care of his vine, Israel. Similarly, while the prophet Micah does spend a good deal of time proclaiming oracles of punishment to the people, he also looks forward to a messiah coming in the line of David: From you shall come forth one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, he says. Salvation is coming, Micah assures the people, if you trust in the Lord who makes this promise. The messiah, Micah adds, shall be peace, ensuring harmony among the people. But they have to wait for the fulfillment of the promise.

   A member of the people of Israel, Mary was surely also among those who hoped and waited for a messiah, so when, in Luke's Gospel, the angel announces that she will bear that messiah, she wonders only how this will be possible; she does not hesitate to say yes. Thus, when Mary visits her cousin, Elizabeth is immediately filled with the Holy Spirit and affirms that Mary is blessed because she believed that what was spoken to her by the Lord would be fulfilled. Mary knows bodily the fulfillment of the promise made to her people, and Elizabeth is made aware of that same truth when her infant John prophetically leaps in her womb. The Visitation is testimony to the fulfillment of God’s promise in Mary.

   The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that, to fulfill God’s will, to take away our sins, Jesus offers himself as the ultimate sacrifice. Thus, when Christ came into the world – when he was born – it was with the absolute intent of fulfilling his Father’s plan: behold, I come to do your will, o God. From his birth to his death and rising, from incarnation to resurrection, all Jesus did was done to accomplish God’s plan. Moreover, by this will, we have been consecrated, baptized into his death that we might rise with him. We have but to trust, to trust that salvation will come, to trust in the fulfillment of that promise, and believe!

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

Joy (St. Mother Teresa of Kolkata)

Joy is prayer;

joy is strength;

joy is love;

joy is a net of love 

by which you can catch souls.

--St. Mother Teresa of Kolkata      

Image source: https://focuspocusnow.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/inol-gold-net-with-catch.jpg
Quotation source

A heart full of joy (Franz Joseph Haydn)

When I think of God,
my heart is so full of joy 

that the notes leap and dance
as they leave my pen. 

--Franz Joseph Haydn            

To hear Wynton Marsalis join the Boston Pops Orchestra to perform notes that leap and dance in Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto, click on the video below: 

Image source:  Haydn's score for Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser, 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Haydn#/media/File:Haydn_Kaiserlied_Reinschrift.jpg
Quotation source 

Video source

To see your face (Salt of Sound)

Unveil my eyes to see your face

That I might recognize your grace

And all these plans you have for me

Use them to set them free.

To hear Salt of the Sound perform the meditative song Unveil My Eyes (lyrics above), click on the video below:

Image source: Giovanni Strazza, The Veiled Virgin (early 1850s), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Veiled_Virgin#/media/File:Veiled_virgin.jpg
Video source

The Messiah is very near! (St. Pope John Paul II)

 The Messiah is very near!

   Advent is… preparation for a great and glorious change. This alteration will radically mutate man’s situation in the world… 

   Advent is nothing other than annual meditation on the work of salvation and sanctification, the work of grace and love which the Lord began and continually begins in every person and in every generation down to the last coming of Jesus Christ, when this work shall be brought to completion.

--St. Pope John Paul II    

Image source: https://spiritandtruthonline.org/mary-the-mother-of-jesus-defining-true-greatness/
Quotation source

God is near (St. Monica)

 Nothing is far from God.

 --St. Monica    

Image source: Byzantine mosaic, Nativity (ca. 1025), https://www.wikiart.org/en/byzantine-mosaics/nativity-1025
Quotation source

Ears to hear and eyes to see (Henri Nouwen)

     The Lord is coming, always coming. When you have ears to hear and eyes to see, you will recognize him at any moment of your life. Life is Advent; life is recognizing the coming of the Lord.

--Henri Nouwen      

Image source: https://blog.obitel-minsk.com/2019/01/a-unique-icon-expectant-mother-of-god.html

Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, December 12, 2021: The Lord is near...

The Lord is near…

You have access to God – what else do you need?

    Like many prophets before him, Zephaniah is charged by God to call out the people of Israel for having denied their own beliefs and taken on the faith practices of the communities among whom they have been exiled. Having failed to be true to covenant, they feel a penalty has been imposed on them by God. But Zephaniah also offers hope for the future: The Lord has removed the judgment against you, he tells the remnant of Israel. Zephaniah wants to bring the people back to proper worship of the Lord. The Lord, your God, is in your midst, Zephaniah says, a mighty savior – you just weren’t paying attention. But God will rejoice over you with gladness and renew you in his love, singing joyfully because of you! The prophet Isaiah builds on this statement by inciting the people to joyful song: Cry out with joy and gladness: for among you is the great and Holy One of Israel! God’s great works are to be proclaimed to all the nations, and most significant among those works is God’s very presence among them, the fountain of their salvation. All have access to God – what more do they need to be joyful?

   In Luke’s Gospel, John the Baptist will underscore the need for the people to open themselves to the God who will soon be revealed to them: one mightier than I is coming who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire, John tells the crowds. To do so, they must not only repent, but also do justice by one another, eschewing extortion from the poor, for example, and every false accusation, and instead sharing their cloaks with the person who has none. They are to act upon the love of God that will be revealed among them, and open themselves to the radical transformation Jesus calls them to. If their kindness is known to all, Paul instructs the Philippians, then they can rejoice in the Lord always. For the Lord is near whenever we serve others with justice rather than dwelling upon any cause for anxiety. Thanks to the death and rising of Jesus Christ, we all have access to God – what more do we need to be joyful?

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

A spotless and pure abode for our Lord (Joe Heschmeyer)

   The Virgin Mary is given more graces than any creature in history, because she has the most special and unique role, as the hinge of the Incarnation, the woman from whom Jesus takes flesh, the woman who conceives, bears, births, and raises Jesus Christ, mothering him, serving him, and following him even to the cross. For nine months, she was his sanctuary and his earthly Temple. 

   God preserves her from sin so that the Ark of the New Covenant will be a spotless and pure abode for our Lord. In exchange for the much that she has been given, much is expected. This is fulfilled in her ready responsiveness to Christ, but it doesn’t stop with the end of her earthly life. After all, the Virgin Mary is given to the world for all of us, because she’s given to the world for the sake of Jesus’ mission. And that mission is ongoing. So it is because God chose Mary from all eternity, purified her, and brought about the Incarnation (and our subsequent salvation) through her free cooperation that we can count on her to continue to give freely and generously from the wealth of graces which she has received. Santa Maria, Immaculata, ora pro nobis! 

--Joe Heschmeyer 

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the

Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary! 

Image source: Frederick James Shields, The Annunciation (1894), https://wikioo.org/paintings.php?refarticle=AQV4E3&titlepainting=The%20Annunciation&artistname=Frederick%20James%20Shields 

Quotation source

Human, vulnerable, weak, incomplete, needy (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

   Incarnation is not yet the resurrection. Flesh in Jesus, as in us, is human, vulnerable, weak, incomplete, needy, painfully full of limit, suffering. Christmas celebrates Christ’s birth into these things, not his removal of them. Christ redeems limit, evil, sin and pain. But they are not abolished. Given that truth, we can celebrate at Christ’s birth without in any way denying or trivializing the real evil in our world and the real pain in our lives. Christmas is a challenge to celebrate while still in pain. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI     

Image source: https://www.twr360.org/blog/details/3791/christianity--s-central-focus-incarnation-or-atonement
Quotation source

Changing (Rumi)

Yesterday I

was clever,

so I wanted

to change

the world.

Today I am

wise, so I

am changing

myself.

--Rumi                                         

Image source: https://heartypsych.com/2019/10/28/what-is-the-most-important-activity-for-self-transformation/
Quotation source

Love precedes our very existence (Bishop Robert Barron)

   If we play the game of loving God in order to get God to love us, then we are lost.  If we think we can earn salvation or we can work our way into God's heart, then we are lost.  Here's a way to think about it: we wouldn't exist were it not for God's love.  God needs nothing; therefore, whatever exists outside of God exists because God desires some good for it.  Love precedes, therefore, our intelligence, our courage, our wills, our designs and purposes, indeed, our very existence.

--Bishop Robert Barron, 

Gospel Reflection, November 7, 2021

Image source 1:  St. John's Bible, Genesis frontispiece, https://dailytheology.org/2015/07/06/merciful-conspiracy/

Image source 2:  William Blake, The Ancient of Days, 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_creation_narrative#/media/File:Europe_a_Prophecy,_copy_D,_object_1_(Bentley_1,_Erdman_i,_Keynes_i)_British_Museum.jpg

Grace so stupendous (St. Leonard of Port Maurice)

   What tongue, human or angelic, may ever describe a power so immeasurable as that exercised by the simplest priest in Mass? Who could ever have imagined that the voice of man, which by nature hath not the power even to raise a straw from the ground, should obtain through grace a power so stupendous as to bring from Heaven to earth the Son of God? 

--St. Leonard of Port Maurice (1676-1751) 

We wish for you, Fr. Patrick Michaels, every blessing on this, the anniversary of your ordination. Over the first twenty months of the ongoing pandemic, you served your flock with unflagging persistence, celebrating Mass daily from day two of lockdown. Your devotion to your vocation is a constant gift and blessing to us all. 
 May God bless you with peace and rest during your well-deserved vacation.  You remain in our prayers, daily! 

Happy Anniversary, Fr. Pat! 

Image source: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3218782054849861&type=3
Quotation source

Make straight! (Dr. Tod Worner)

   John the Baptist was his own man. Not cowed by Pharisees or soldiers, townsfold, or even King Herod Antipas, he told uncomfortable truths and rubbed people the wrong way. He stared too long and spoke too sharp. In a way, four centuries of pent-up prophetic silence since Malachi were released in the thundering God-ordained declarations made by this seemingly feral man: Justice is here. Make straight! Prepare! Repent! Here is the winnowing fan! Here the unquenchable fire! But so is mercy. The rough will be made smooth! The kingdom is at hand! And with it, fullness and grace!

   John the Baptist was jarringly clear-eyed. He wasn’t simply a wild-eyed howling figure barking from some lone rock in the dusty outskirts of Jerusalem. He could see what others couldn’t – what others needed, even unwittingly craved for their fulfillment, for their salvation, for their peace.

   But what is most striking about this saint is not his recalcitrant nonconformity to the norms and styles of the day, but rather his radical conformity to God. While everyone else was breaking faith, he was keeping it. Notwithstanding his fiery admonitions, he did not seek to destroy. He sought only to build. In all of this saint’s lack of domestication, in all of his alien starkness, we miss how utterly obedient, how truly servile, and how unquestionably deferential John the Baptist was to the will of God. He was a revolutionary who followed all the rules.

--Dr. Tod Worner, Word on Fire

To read more of Dr. Worner’s article, click here.

Image source: Domenico Ghirlandaio, Preaching of John the Baptist (fresco, 1486-1490), Cappella Tornabuoni, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2019/12/07/st-john-the-baptist-prophet-of-advent-and-preacher-of-repentance/
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Sunday Gospel Reflection, December 5, 2021: All flesh shall see the salvation of God...

All flesh shall see the salvation of God…

What is your hope for the future?

    The prophet Baruch knows that the people of Israel have been traumatized by their exile in Babylon, and so he offers them a beautiful poem of consolation filled with hope for the future: take off your robe of mourning and misery; put on the splendor of glory from God forever, he tells them. Though they may be wallowing in their grief and pain, the people are called to look not to the past, but to the future – to what God is going to do in their lives: God has commanded that every lofty mountain be made low, and that the age-old depths and gorges be filled to level ground, creating a path along which the remnant that has been faithful to the covenant may return. In this future vision, God is leading Israel in joy! Once the people return from exile, Psalm 126 reminds us, they will recognize that The Lord has done great things for us, and be grateful for their return home though they know much work remains to be done to restore their homeland. 

    In Jesus’ time, Luke’s Gospel tells us, it is once again God who clears the way, creating a path back to relationship: Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low, John the Baptist assures the people, calling them to a baptism of repentance, that they might participate in preparing the way of the Lord. Through repentance, the people seek release from all that stands in the way of their path to God. The Philippians understood the importance of participating in God’s action through partnership for the gospel; Paul knows that they understand the love that is theirs and have given their hearts over to the work so that their love may increase ever more and more. If love is the vehicle by which we perceive the world, then love helps us to discern what is valuable and what is not, and all of our decisions are made out of love of other. 

   Why are we here? Are we ready to repent, ready to change? We follow Jesus knowing that he prepares the way to God for us, and we also know that ongoing work will be necessary: the work of growth and change and conversion… until we get to the point where we have no perception save that which love gives us. Our participation in the promise is based on our ability to embrace the love that defines it. When we live in the context of this love and that loves drives our lives, we too may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness, ready to see the salvation of God.

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

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

The state of the world (Henri Nouwen)

    The state of the world suggests to me the urgent need for a spirituality that takes the end things very seriously, not a spirituality of withdrawal, nor of blindness to the powers of the world, but a spirituality that allows us to live in this world without belonging to it, a spirituality that allows us to take the joy and peace of the divine life even when we are surrounded by the powers and principalities of evil, death, and destruction.

    I wonder if a spirituality of liberation does not need to be deepened by a spirituality of exile or captivity. I wonder if a spirituality that focuses on the alleviation of poverty should not be deepened by a spirituality that allows people to continue their lives when their poverty only increases. I wonder if a spirituality that encourages peacemaking should not be deepened by a spirituality that allows us to remain faithful when the only things we see are dying children, burning houses, and the total destruction of our civilization.

    May God prevent any of these horrors from taking place, may we do all that is possible to prevent them, but may we never lose our faith when great misery [descends] on the land and wrath on this people… [when there are] signs in the sun and the moon and the stars… [when] nations [are] in agony, bewildered by the clamor of the ocean and its waves (Luke 21: 24-26). I pray that we will not be swept away by our curiosity, sensationalism, and panic, but remain attentive to him who comes and will say, Come, you whom my Father has blessed, take for your heritage the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world (Matthew 25: 34-35).

--Henri Nouwen

Image source: Victor Vatnetsov, The Last Judgment (1904), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Judgment#/media/File:Vasnetsov_Last_Judgment.jpg
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