To marvel at the Master Potter (Dan Finucane SJ)

   After all, we are but clay. We cannot center ourselves, try as we might. Our attempts end up in anger, frustration, resentment, and worse. 

   Perhaps now, God is calling us to go down to the potter’s house and see what God can do when the vessels of our lives feel de-centered or seem ruined and beyond repair. We ask for the grace to go and see, to marvel at the Master Potter, and to dream with God and one another about who we are and who we could be. 

--Dan Finucane SJ 

Image source: http://finemessblog.blogspot.com/2014/10/to-that-beginning-student.html 

Quotation source

On whom is Jesus hardest? (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

   Notice when Jesus points out sin, he doesn’t point to where we are weak and defeated; rather, he points to where we are strong, arrogant, indifferent, and judgmental. Search the Gospels and ask this question: On whom is Jesus hardest? The answer is clear: Jesus is hardest on those who are strong, judgmental, and have no feeling for those who are enduring the storm. 

    All of us will live longer and more happily if we stop trying to arrange other peoples’ lives. Jesus challenged us not to judge but to live with the tension and let God and history make the judgments. So we need to live by our own convictions and let others do the same.* 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser OMI, Facebook 

October 2, 2020 & April 14, 2021 

*The second paragraph is a paraphrase of a statement Pope Francis made in 2014. 

Image source: Domenico Fetti, The Parable of the Mote and the Beam (c.1619), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_and_the_Beam#/media/File:Domenico_Fetti_-_The_Parable_of_the_Mote_and_the_Beam.jpg

The careful balance between silence and words (Henri Nouwen)

   Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure. Somewhere we know that without a lonely place our actions quickly become empty gestures. The careful balance between silence and words, withdrawal and involvement, distance and closeness, solitude and community forms the basis of the Christian life and should, therefore, be the subject of our most personal attention. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: Odilon Redon, Silence (ca. 1911), https://www.moma.org/collection/works/34078 

Quotation source

Who is leading me? (Beth Van de Voorde)

   Christ has a way of asking questions that tap gently (or sometimes knock heavily) upon our heart’s door and open it to deep ponderings. Can the blind person guide a blind person? he asked his disciples. Of course, both will fall into a pit. But what does the deeper knocking of that question suggest to us? Perhaps it is an invitation to ask ourselves: Who is leading me? Are we being led by our own blindness or that of others? Christ wants to be our eyes. He wants us to learn to see what he sees in others, in circumstances, in our own selves, in God’s action in life, and in the world. Let’s linger in this moment of prayer and ask him where he wants to heal our blindness. 

--Beth Van de Voorde 

Image source: Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Blind Leading the Blind (1568), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_blind_leading_the_blind#/media/File:%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%82%D1%87%D0%B0_%D0%BE_%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BF%D1%8B%D1%85.jpeg 

Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 27, 2022: A good tree does not bear rotten fruit...

A good tree does not bear rotten fruit…

What kind of fruit do you bear?

    You can tell a great deal about a person by his speech, as Sirach knew: The fruit of a tree shows the care it has had; so too does one’s speech disclose the bent of one’s mind. To speak is to reveal a great deal about oneself, which is a good reason to pause before saying just about anything. Our goal, of course, is to bear good fruit: The just one shall flourish like the palm tree, like a cedar of Lebanon shall he grow, Psalm 92 reminds us. A good life is rooted where the Lord speaks to us, where we are open to the Lord and to his presence in our life, that we might allow him to work in us and through us. But all too often, our faults appear when we speak. 

   Jesus was certainly aware of this. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus recommends removing the wooden beam from our own eye before offering to remove the splinter in our brother’s eye. A lack of clarity in our vision often causes to speak of the faults of others without recognizing our own brokenness. Moreover, what is stored in the heart is revealed when we speak: every tree is known by its own fruit, Jesus says, and from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks. What do you store up in your heart? Is it a list of every hurt, every offense committed against you? Or do you store up every good act, every kindness paid to you? If kindness is your go-to, then kindness will be the fruit of the Spirit manifested through your own speech. 

    As Paul reminds the Corinthians, Jesus’ death and resurrection opens the capacity for us to be changed by being drawn more profoundly into the love of God. If we cling to the natural world – that which is corruptible, in Paul’s terms – we cannot envision life after death, for our understanding of our existence is limited. But if we live lives informed by the incorruptible Spirit, then we know that God gives us the victory over death through our Lord Jesus Christ. If we see his Spirit at work in our lives, we will be all the more ready to surrender our existence to him, a surrender whose fruits will be those of the Spirit, grounded in kindness and faithfulness, that we might be ever ready to give thanks to the Lord. 

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

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Love reveals the beauty of sketchy people (Anne Lamott)

   Love is gentle if sometimes amused warmth for annoying and deeply disappointing people, especially ourselves. Love is someone who will draw near when you cry. Love plops in front of the TV with a bowl of popcorn and you. Love plops but love also flies. Love reveals the beauty of sketchy people like us to ourselves. Love holds up the sacred mirror. Love builds rickety greenhouses for our wilder seeds to grow. Love can be reckless (Jesus is good at this), or meek as my dog, or carry a briefcase. Love is the old man in the park teaching little kids to play the violin; much time spent tuning, the children hearing their way into the key he is playing. Love tiptoes and love lumbers like an elephant, it naps on top of your chest like a cat. It gooses you, snickers, smooths your hair. Love is being with a person wherever they are, however they are acting. Ugh. (A lot of things seem to come more easily to God.) 

--Anne Lamott, Dusk, Night, Dawn 

Image source: https://www.hillspet.com/cat-care/resources/how-cats-help-with-anxiety

Whenever we make God's unconditional love visible (Henri Nouwen)

   Whenever, contrary to the world’s vindictiveness, we love our enemy, we exhibit something of the perfect love of God, whose will is to bring all human beings together as children of one Father. Whenever we forgive instead of getting angry at one another, bless instead of cursing one another, tend one another’s wounds instead of rubbing salt into them, hearten instead of discouraging one another, give hope instead of driving one another to despair, hug instead of harassing one another, welcome instead of cold-shouldering one another, thank instead of criticizing one another, praise instead of maligning one another . . . in short, whenever we opt for and not against one another, we make God’s unconditional love visible; we are diminishing violence and giving birth to a new community. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: https://generocity.org/philly/2020/08/11/how-we-use-restorative-justice-in-shelter/

In the thick of foes (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

   It is not simply to be taken for granted that the Christian has the privilege of living among other Christians. Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. 

--Dietrich Bonhoeffer 

Image source: Pietro Annigoni, Glory of St. Maximilian Kolbe, Basilica del Santo, Padua, https://mobile.twitter.com/fatherajds/status/1090828136349122560 

Quotation source

To find a path to our own mercy (Elizabeth Scalia)

  Jesus’ command to love those we perceive to be our enemies is actually a tool for discernment, and for our own salvation. To love our enemies means a great deal more than to simply not wish evil upon them; it means making a conscious effort to find a path to our own mercy, for their sake and our own. That path is found, Jesus tells us, through prayer: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. 

--Elizabeth Scalia, 

How Does Loving 

One’s Enemies Work, Really? 

Image source: https://www.archwpgyouthink.com/single-post/2019/05/16/cringing-and-the-path-to-mercy

The people I love the least (Dorothy Day)

   I really only love God as much as I love the people I love the least. 

 --Dorothy Day 

Image source: Timothy Schmalz, Love Your Enemies (2016), https://www.churchpop.com/2016/09/19/love-your-enemies-christ-embraces-terrorist-in-provocative-new-sculpture/ 

Quotation source

What is the test of love? (Bishop Robert Barron)

  The Lord commands us to love our enemies. What is the test of love? Jesus couldn’t be clearer in the discourse he delivers the night before he died. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. If love is willing the good of the other as other, this has to be the fullest expression, the final word, of love. 

   There is another way to test love: the love of enemies, those who cannot or will not pay you back. This also takes place in the cross of Jesus. Jews, Romans, Pharisees, Sadducees, his own disciples—everyone betrays him, runs from him, denies him, actively arranges for his death. And yet these are the very people that he loves, the very people for whom he gives his life. 

   The final test is what Jesus does when he returns from the dead. To the very people that contributed to his demise he says, Shalom. This is how we are loved; this is how we must love. Everything else is commentary. 

--Bishop Robert Barron, Gospel Reflection, June 16, 2020 

Image source: William Blake, The Soldiers Casting Lots for Christ’s Garments (1800), https://www.wikiart.org/en/william-blake/the-soldiers-casting-lots-for-christ-s-garments-1800

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 20, 2022: Love your enemies...

Love your enemies…

What does it take to love extravagantly? 

    God loves God’s creation extravagantly, in spite of our sin. Psalm 103 reminds us of all his benefits, not the least of which are his kindness and compassion, mercy and graciousness. But are human beings capable of loving so extravagantly? In the First Book of Samuel, King Saul seeks to harm his son-in-law David, picking three thousand men to search for him in the desert. But when night falls, and Saul and his men fall asleep, David has the opportunity to get rid of Saul, yet he refuses to do so. He will later tell Saul, Today, though the Lord delivered you into my grasp, I would not harm the Lord’s anointed. By showing mercy to his adversary, David demonstrates that he can love extravagantly, striving to love as God loves. 

    In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus will make his request clear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. It’s not enough to refrain from harm; Jesus calls upon us to love actively, renouncing enmity, and demonstrating that we too are capable of loving extravagantly if we strive to love as God loves. If such love requires transformation, so be it, for only by loving our enemies—tangibly revealing God’s love by acts of mercy—can we be children of the Most High. We must, as Paul tells the Corinthians, bear the image of the heavenly one, Jesus, who extravagantly showed his love for us all when he died on the cross, loving those who mistreated him and put him to death. That we love extravagantly is a big ask, but one the Lord clearly believes we are capable of, so long as we possess the Spirit of the risen Christ. 

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

A guide for the journey (Pope Francis)

   The Beatitudes are the guide for the journey that leads us to the kingdom of God. Meekness, [in particular] is a way of being that brings us very close to Jesus. Meekness is depth in understanding the greatness of God, and adoration. 

   The Beatitudes are the ticket, the guide sheet for our life. Read them today. 

--Pope Francis 

Image source: Sadao Watanabe, Jesus the Teacher (1965), https://scriptum.com/artwork/14612-jesus-the-teacher?artistsid=1505 

Quotation source

You are my God and I trust in you (Padre Pio)

   Live a quiet life, my dearest daughter. Cast out of your imagination whatever could dismay you, and tell Our Lord often, Oh God, you are my God, and I trust in you; you will help me and be my refuge; I will fear nothing. Not only are you with him, but you are in him and he is in you. What can a child in the arms of such a Father fear? Be like a little child, my most beloved child. Children do not ever think about their future, because they have someone else to think about it for them. They are fearless only when they are with their father. Do the same thing here, my dearest child, and be at peace. 

--Padre Pio 

Image source: Guido Reni, St. Joseph and the Christ Child (1640), https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/saint-joseph-and-the-christ-child/HgH0SCjz6vSFVQ?hl=en 

Quotation source

You are here to risk your heart (Louise Erdrich)

   Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could. 

--Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum 

Image source: https://georgianjournal.ge/entertainment/29672-enjoy-natural-heart-shapes-on-valentines-day.html

I imagine Jesus standing here blessing us (Nadia Bolz-Weber)

   Blessed are the agnostics. Blessed are they who doubt. Blessed are those who have nothing to offer. Blessed are the preschoolers who cut in line at communion. Blessed are the poor in spirit. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you. 

   Blessed are those whom no one else notices. The kids who sit alone at middle-school lunch tables. The laundry guys at the hospital. The sex workers and the night-shift street sweepers. The closeted. The teens who have to figure out ways to hide the new cuts on their arms. Blessed are the meek. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you. 

   Blessed are they who have loved enough to know what loss feels like. Blessed are the mothers of the miscarried. Blessed are they who can’t fall apart because they have to keep it together for everyone else. Blessed are those who “still aren’t over it yet.” Blessed are those who mourn. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you. 

   I imagine Jesus standing here blessing us because that is our Lord’s nature. This Jesus cried at his friend’s tomb, turned the other cheek, and forgave those who hung him on a cross. He was God’s Beatitude— God’s blessing to the weak in a world that admires only the strong. 

   Jesus invites us into a story bigger than ourselves and our imaginations, yet we all get to tell that story with the scandalous particularity of this moment and this place. We are storytelling creatures because we are fashioned in the image of a storytelling God. May we never neglect that gift. May we never lose our love for telling the story.  Amen.

--Nadia Bolz-Weber 

Image source: https://www.tmc.edu/news/2020/04/cleaning-hospital-linens-during-a-global-pandemic/ 

Quotation source: Benediction read at the funeral of Rachel Held Evans, June 1, 2019

Focus on trust (Fr. Thomas Keating)

   Focus on trust. When you trust that we are all part of something beautiful beyond our wildest imagination, you will find healing. 

--Fr. Thomas Keating 

Image source: Valley of Flowers, India, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/travel/destinations/a-walk-through-some-of-indias-most-scenic-valley-of-flowers/as66679081.cms 

Quotation source

Living the beatitudes (Donald R. Clymer)

   Peacemaking contains all the elements of the Christian faith. Peacemaking is the result of not only taking the beatitudes seriously, but living them. It involves right relationships. Right relationships with God, right relationships with God’s people and right relationships with God’s creation. It involves love. Proper love of self, love of God and creation, and love of all people—even our enemies. It is not passive, it is active; it is peacemaking not peacekeeping. Above all, it is following the way of Jesus, which was the way of the cross, where his power was made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). 

―Donald R. Clymer, 

Meditations on the Beatitudes: 

 Lessons from the Margins 

Image source: Károly Ferenczy, The Sermon on the Mount (1896),  

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Sermon_on_the_Mount_K%C3%A1roly_Ferenczy.jpg

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 13, 2021: Blessed are they who hope in the Lord...

Blessed are they who hope in the Lord… 

How strongly do you trust in God’s plan? 

    It’s challenging to trust in the Lord, particularly when we are beset with difficulties. The prophet Jeremiah suffered both political and social isolation; his community persecuted him because they did not like the message he delivered on God’s behalf. But Jeremiah knew that Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, for only when we trust do we have the possibility for growth, like the tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream. God didn’t always do what Jeremiah expected, but Jeremiah nevertheless opened himself to the Lord and allowed the Lord to work through him. Secure in right relationship with God, Jeremiah is like the man who delights in the law of the Lord of Psalm 1, trusting that whatever he does, will prosper. 

   In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus makes it clear in his Sermon on the Plain that to follow him involves sacrifice and pain: Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. But Jesus promises that if we have faith, if we trust in God’s plan, if we open ourselves to the challenges of continuous change to which the Lord calls us, we will be among the blessed. To do so requires us to work to see past our own limited vision, to see the Lord on the Lord’s own terms, as Paul challenges the Corinthians to do: If Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead? Faith always requires moving past what we believe we know of God and seeking to grow until we know him fully. Whose power defines us? Ours? Or God’s power in us? Jesus calls us to allow God’s action in our lives to define us and open us to the future, defined only as God would have us be defined, open to God’s plan alone. 

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

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Take me where you want me to go (Fr. Mychal Judge)

   Lord, take me where You want me to go, let me meet who You want me to meet, tell me what You want me to say, and keep me out of your way. 

--Fr. Mychal Judge, American Franciscan friar 

and chaplain to the New York Fire Department; 

he was killed while praying at the 

World Trade Center by the second plane 

that attacked the buildings. 

Image source: https://www.mylivinghope.church/devotionals-list/2017/12/25/walking-with-god-obeying-what-you-already-know-to-be-gods-will
Quotation source

God is the Great Initiator (Fr. Peter Bosque)

   It is God who unfolds his plan: God is the Great Initiator who must be credited for all. Humans can cooperate with God’s plan, but our hands must be energized and guided by the Holy Spirit. 

--Fr. Peter Bosque, 

Homily for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception 

of the Blessed Virgin Mary, December 8, 2021 

Image source:  Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino), The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (1515), 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miraculous_catch_of_fish#/media/File:V&A_-_Raphael,_The_Miraculous_Draught_of_Fishes_(1515).jpg

The question is no longer How? but When? (Chris Williams SJ)

Mere discipleship 

Sheds easy excuses, 

Burns hot and bright. 

All escapes slam shut. 

Merely strikes with searing clarity 

Of a metallurgist’s mallet. 

Sparks flying 

Bending resistant, habit-bound, 

Rough hewn raw materials 

Into instruments of peace. 

 

Mere discipleship 

Means begin ready 

To give everything away 

For the sake 

Of sorely unloved souls. 

 

Mere discipleship means 

Remaining 

Where Jesus told us he would rest – 

With weary, poor, repugnant, 

Ill and sin filled 

People in pain. 

 

Or rather, 

To recognize 

That I am the ill and sin filled, 

Perhaps hidden 

As I feign fullness. 

 

Just ask some simple questions: 

 

Do I love God more than everything else? 

 

Do I pray every day? 

 

Do I forgive my enemies? 

 

Would I really sell all I have,  

Give to the poor, 

And follow Jesus 

If he asked? 

 

Does the existence 

Of one innocent victim 

Inflict an overwhelming wound? 

 

Does my own indifference 

Garner a guilt that 

Nauseates my every nerve? 

 

Do I believe 

That my heart too 

Bears the original wound 

That with sin continuously pins – 

Today – Christ’s body on the cross? 

 

Can I still believe I am unconditionally loved? 

 

Do I believe God will forgive my greatest sin, 

Even if I commit it 

Over and over again? 

 

Will I give away 

What I see to be my deepest desire 

If God deigns I do so, 

Even when it feels 

Like I’ve lost everything 

That holds me steady? 

 

Do I believe that my spirit must die to live? 

 

Once I see 

How far I am 

From mere discipleship, 

God’s voice is no longer hidden. 

 

The question is no longer How? 

But When? 

 

God’s voice 

The metallurgist’s mallet, 

I cannot miss. 

I can only choose 

Whether or not to submit. 

 

If I do not go now, 

The pounding 

Of the merely mercilessly merciful mallet will 

Still unceasingly echo 

In the haunted hallways of my heart. 

--Chris Williams, SJ            

Image source: Jules Didier, La Metallurgie, detail (1881), https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Jules_Didier_-_La_m%C3%A9tallurgie_%2C_Esquisse_pour_l%27%C3%A9cole_de_la_rue_Ch%C3%A2teau-Landon%2C_10%C3%A8me_arrondissement_de_Paris_-_PPP3969_-_Mus%C3%A9e_des_Beaux-Arts_de_la_ville_de_Paris.jpg

Poem source

Once Jesus decides to get in your boat (Bishop Robert Barron)

  Friends, today’s Gospel gives us the story of the miraculous draught of fishes. In many ways, the whole of the spiritual life can be read off of this piece. 

  Without being invited, Jesus simply gets into the fisherman’s boat. This is to insinuate himself in the most direct way into Simon’s life. And without further ado, he begins to give orders, first asking Simon to put out from the shore and then to go out into the deep. This represents the invasion of grace. The single most important decision that you will ever make is this: Will you cooperate with Jesus once he decides to get into your boat? 

  In many ways, everything else in your life is secondary, is commentary. When the Lord Jesus Christ gets into your boat, he will always lead you to the depths. Duc in altum, as St. John Paul II loved to quote. More dangerous? Yes. More exciting? Yes. 

  Now, mind you, the depths we’re talking about here are spiritual depths. The excitement we’re talking about is the true excitement that comes from spiritual transformation. The depths have nothing to do with what the world considers important or exciting. 

--Bishop Robert Barron, Gospel Reflection, September 5, 2019 

Image source: Stained glass window, St. Anthony’s of Mendocino, https://stanthonysofmendocino.org/

Irregularities (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

 Last of all, as to one born abnormally, 

he appeared to me.  (1 Corinthians 15:8) 

    Perhaps it's in the irregularities that we are to find the absolute activity of God, the exceptions; perhaps they point us in the direction of God's activity that doesn't make sense in the otherwise orderly way of things. 

--Fr. Patrick Michaels, Homily, September 8, 2021 

Image source: Jorge Cocco, The Call, available for purchase at: https://altusfineart.com/products/jorge-cocco-the-call-apostles-call-ministry

Encountering God (Alyson Rockhold)

We cross our forehead so that the Word of God 

may be in our thoughts and purify our minds. 

We cross our lips so that our speech 

may be holy and incline us 

to share the Gospel with others. 

And we cross our hearts to invite God 

to strengthen our love for him and others. 

All of this is so that we might know, 

proclaim, and love Jesus Christ all the more. 

The three-cross prayer reminds me that encountering God is not a solitary activity. When I make that gesture, I am not the first, the last, or the only person praying for God’s word to be on my mind, lips, and heart. Instead, I am joined by believers around the world and throughout the generations in our collective desire to know God. And even if we have different skin tones or customs, wear different clothes or speak different languages, we are united as God’s children. We are not alone, and we truly are more alike than we are different. 

--Alyson Rockhold 

Image source: Image source:  The Call of Isaiah, Coptic Church of St. Anthony, Egypt.  For more images from this church, visit:  https://artsandculture.google.com/story/step-inside-the-chapel-of-st-anthony-39-s-coptic-church-american-research-center-in-egypt/1AUhuOMfhde0CQ?hl=en

Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 6, 2022: Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men...

Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men…

How much can God accomplish in and through you?

   The prophet Isaiah is not so sure he is worthy to serve the Lord. When Isaiah has a vision of the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne and seraphim stationed above, he cries out in alarm, Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips…. But in fact, when one of the seraphim touches Isaiah’s mouth with an ember, Isaiah is transformed:  your wickedness is removed, your sin purged, the seraphim tells him. Isaiah is now ready to be sent by God. St. Paul similarly recognizes his own unworthiness to serve the Lord: I am the least of the apostles, he tells the Corinthians, not fit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. Yet once called, Paul, by the grace of God, hands on to them as of first importance what he also received, namely, the Truth. Paul knows that God’s grace is not ineffective, because Paul allows the Lord to work in him; in spite of his unworthiness, Paul has faith that God will accomplish great things through him.

   Jesus’ disciples must similarly open to all that the Lord can accomplish in and through them. In Luke’s Gospel, although they are exhausted because they have worked hard all night and have yet to clean their nets, Peter and his fellow fishermen follow Jesus’ instructions and put their nets out once again. Where they see impossibility, Jesus sees only possibility. Jesus shows them that, with him, they can do more than they had ever thought possible: the boats are so full of fish that they are in danger of sinking. Peter, too, questions his own worthiness: Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man, he tells Jesus. But the Lord isn’t concerned about Peter’s unworthiness; so long as Peter and his friends remain open, Jesus can overlook their concerns and fear and sins and failure and see only all that is possible in and through them. Peter and the other fishermen abandon everything in order to follow Jesus, conscious, somehow, that he is preparing them for something radically new. The story is a testimony to the depths of God’s love, which pushes past our brokenness by accepting it and embracing it as part of the whole of who we are. We may not be worthy; indeed, it is more than likely we are not. Yet, like the psalmist in Psalm 138, we know that because of the Lord’s kindness and truth, he will complete what he has done for us, building up strength within us. And so, in the sight of the angels, we too will sing the Lord’s praises, recognizing that with God, all things are indeed possible. 

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

Anna's witness (Kathy Lilla Cox)

    Both Simeon and Anna wait for the Messiah, recognize the Messiah, speak about him, and praise God. Both witness the expectation of Israel fulfilled in Jesus. Simeon speaks for himself, speaks to Mary and Joseph. Anna goes and speaks to the community and whomever will listen about the infant Jesus. She proclaims God’s presence in Jesus to the community. [...]

   What does the presentation and revelation of God, as witnessed by Anna, mean for us today? Anna challenges us when we are tempted to despair and lose hope. By attending to Anna’s story, we are asked can we wait with her for an undetermined period of time? Can we prepare with fasting and prayer? Can we develop a willingness to see the infancy of God’s promises being incarnated into the world, a world awaiting and needing restoration, reconciliation, redemption, and peace? And then when God arrives, in persons young, vulnerable, and needing care, can we recognize that we are seeing God face to face, give thanks, and proclaim God’s presence in our midst to others awaiting redemption, even as we continue to hope for God’s promises to be fully realized? 

--Kathy Lilla Cox      

Image source: Ludovico Carracci, The Presentation of the Christ Child in the Temple (ca. 1605), https://www.museothyssen.org/en/collection/artists/carracci-ludovico/presentation-christ-child-temple 

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Let compassion grow rampant (Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer)

If sorrow is how we learn to love, 

then let us learn. 

Already enough sorrow’s been sown 

for whole continents to erupt 

into astonishing tenderness. 

Let us learn. Let compassion grow rampant, 

like sunflowers along the highway. 

Let each act of kindness replant itself 

into acres and acres of widespread devotion. 

Let us choose love as if our lives depend on it. 

The sorrow is great. Let us learn to love greater— 

riotous love, expansive love, 

love so rooted, so common 

we almost forget 

the world could look any other way.

--Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Love, Love 

Image source: https://www.lonestartravelguide.com/texas-sunflower-fields-farms/ 

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