The only way to reveal God in this world (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

Invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. 

Luke 14:13 

    The quality of mercy that we receive needs to instruct the quality of mercy that we give out; when it does, Christ is revealed and his love for all mankind is opened up so that all might see. It is the only way to reveal God in this world. Use the cudgel of judgment and you do is discourage and break down; use the hand of mercy and you open up the hearts of all. 

--Fr. Patrick Michaels Homily, June 20, 2022 

Image source: Pieter Bruegel, The Peasant Wedding Banquet (1568), http://www.jesuswalk.com/kingdom/10_banquet.htm. See also: https://politicaltheology.com/the-politics-of-the-table-luke-141-7-14-alastair-roberts/

Room within to welcome friends (Henri Nouwen)

   If it is true that solitude diverts us from our fear and anger and makes us empty for a relationship with God, then it is also true that our emptiness provides a very large and sacred space where we can welcome all the people of the world. There is a powerful connection between our emptiness and our ability to welcome. When we give up what sets us apart from others— not just property but also opinions, prejudices, judgments, and mental preoccupations—then we have room within to welcome friends as well as enemies. 

--Henri Nouwen       

Image source: Robert Scott Lauder, Christ Teacheth Humility (1847), https://sjvlaydivision.org/christ-model-humility/

Quotation source

Walk humbly (Arthur Ashe)

                        If wealth is the secret to
                      happiness, then the rich
                      should be dancing on
                      the streets. But only
                      poor kids do that.

                      If power ensures
                      security, then officials should
                      walk unguarded.
                      But those who live simply,
                      sleep soundly.

                      If beauty and fame bring
                      ideal relationships,
                      then celebrities
                      should have the
                      best marriages.

                      But it’s not here.
                      Simplicity leads the world.
                      Live simply.
                      Walk humbly.
                      Love genuinely.

--Arthur Ashe                         

Image source: Helen Levitt, Children dancing in Harlem, NY (c.1940), https://twitter.com/womensart1/status/1299241912461922305
Quotation source

Giant steps away from judgment (Fr. Greg Boyle)

   Lately, I’ve been reading the Acts of the Apostles really carefully. And if you start to read it and think it’s a quaint snapshot of the earliest Christian community, that’s one thing.

   But what if you were to read it as a measure of the health of any community? So, you see how they love one another, or there is no need in this community, for example. But my favorite one is – it leapt off the page to me… and it says, And awe came upon everyone, so that the measure of our compassion lies not in our service of those on the margins, but in our willingness to see ourselves in kinship. And so that means the decided movement towards awe, and giant steps away from judgment. 

--Fr. Greg Boyle, S.J.     

Image source: https://prayingthelectionary.life/2020/04/27/they-devoted-themselves-acts-242-47/
Quotation source

Humility makes us real (Thomas Merton)

    Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real. 

--Thomas Merton 

Image source: https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/848576754775542074/
Quotation source

Learning to listen to each other (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

   Thus it must be a decisive rule of every Christian fellowship that each individual is prohibited from saying much that occurs to him. Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God’s love for us that He not only gives us His Word but also lends us His ear. 

--Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together 

Image source: Jacopo Tintoretto, The Wedding Feast at Cana (ca. 1545), https://claygentry.com/2013/08/21/feasting-with-the-pharisees-an-examination-of-luke-141-24/
Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 28, 2022: The one who humbles himself will be exalted...

The one who humbles himself will be exalted…

Where is your place at the table?

    When, in Luke's Gospel, a Pharisee invites Jesus to dinner on the sabbath, Jesus takes the opportunity to offer a lesson in humility to all those who have been invited, presumably a rather affluent group, likely the relatives or wealthy neighbors of Jesus’ host, who are choosing the places of honor at the table. Jesus encourages them not to seek positions of power at the dinner table, but rather to take the lowest place; the sabbath is not an occasion to vie for power but rather to come together over a meal at which all those invited are equals. Jesus’ kingdom is not one based on hierarchy, but on intentional equality amongst all: no matter our financial situation, we all share the love of God. Jesus further encourages the Pharisee and his guests to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind to their common meals, those who can’t repay their host, that they might be lifted up to that that intentional equality that is a core tenet of Jesus’ teaching throughout his ministry, echoing Psalm 68, God gives a home to the forsaken.

    The kingdom of God is one in which everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but everyone who humbles himself will be exalted. Only when we conduct our affairs with humility, as the Book of Sirach encourages us to do, searching not for things beyond us, will we find what is truly sublime, that is, God himself. The Letter to the Hebrews likewise encourages us to humbly open ourselves to God the judge of all and Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant in the city of the living God. In that city, God, with Jesus beside him, gathers us in mercy. We have but to humbly accept our place at the table, a table to which everyone, poor and affluent alike, has a standing invitation. 

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

Abandon yourself to God (Padre Pio)

    You can be sure that the trials you are going through are all clear signs of divine delight and jewels to beautify your soul. Everything that is happening in you is the work of Jesus, and you need to believe that. It is not your place to monitor the Lord's work but instead to submit humbly to his divine operations. Give full freedom to the grace that is at work in you. Remember never to become distressed by any adverse thing that happens, knowing that distress is an impediment to the Holy Spirit. 

    Therefore, whenever you sense some uneasiness arising, run to God and abandon yourself to him with complete childlike trust, because it is written that whoever trusts in him will not be put to shame. Always be courageous and move forward. Winter will pass, and unending spring will come with abundant goodness that far outweighs the harshness of the storms. 

    The dryness of spirit that disturbs you is a very painful trial, but it is a very wonderful thing because of its spiritual fruit.... God ordains this kind of dryness to help the soul attain true devotion, which consists in a prompt willingness to serve God without any personal reward. In brief, do good insofar as it is good in itself and insofar as it gives glory and pleasure to God. 

--Padre Pio         

Image source: William Blake, Job – Vision of Christ, The Book of Job, https://earlychurchhistory.org/beliefs-2/conversation-of-job-in-the-bible/william-blakes-job-vision-of-christ/ 

Quotation source

What needs strengthening?

So strengthen your drooping hands 

and your weak knees.
 Make straight paths for your feet,
that what is lame may not be 

disjointed but healed. 

--Hebrews 12: 12-13

    This is a picture tracking bullet holes on Allied planes that encountered Nazi anti-aircraft fire in WW2.

    At first, the military wanted to reinforce those areas, because that’s obviously where the ground crews observed the most damage on returning planes… until Hungarian-born Jewish mathematician Abraham Wald pointed out that this was the damage on the planes that made it home, and the Allies should armor the areas where there are no dots at all, because those are the places where the planes won’t survive when hit.

    This phenomenon is called survivorship bias, a logic error where you focus on things that survived when you should really be looking at things that didn’t.

Image & story source: https://www.facebook.com/williamson.orgpsych/photos/a.1293475024130893/2040927782718943/?type=3

Liturgy is our entry point (Dr. Tom Neal)

   When God became flesh in the womb of Mary, he joined not just human nature but the whole created order to himself. By his violent death, burial, and Resurrection, Jesus set all of creation free from the bonds of violence, death, and corruption, precisely by planting infinite mercy into the finite heart of fallen creation. At Pentecost, Jesus opened up this torrential mercy flowing from his risen Body to all of humanity, inviting each of us, through faith and Baptism, to freely cooperate with him in planting this limitless mercy into violence, death, and corruption. 

   And so making all things new. 

   This happens above all on Sunday, in the bread-wine-alms of the Eucharist offered, profound symbols of what priestly humanity has gathered in its six days of mercy-drenched secular work. In these symbols, the whole of creation is brought by us to God for a final consecration into the everlasting kingdom. It is in the celebration of the Eucharist that Jesus draws all things to himself, though-with-in us. 

   Yet... the accomplishment of all of this hinges on our daily yes to God, our feeble willingness to Ite, to go with the grain of God by living in harmony with his economy, his action, his will, his plan, his Christ, to save the world by consecrating it through our beautiful, faithful, truthful, hopeful, merciful, loving, kind, just, generous, peaceful, courageous, selfless, gentle, compassionate, pure, sacrificial, humble, surrendered lives. Through lives that manifest the full range of meaning compressed into these dense words of consecration: For this is my Body which will be given up for you; the Chalice of my Blood, which will be poured out for you and for many.

   In those words is the whole meaning of consecration, which is our one life mission. 

   This Christ-like way of life, this path of divine-human synergy, is what we call liturgy. Liturgy is our entry point into the divine-human labors of the God-Man, the Master Carpenter who forever labors to join heaven and earth, justice and mercy, eternity and time, God and humanity, man and man, creation and Creator. 

--Dr. Tom Neal, 

Mass and Creation: 

See, I Make All Things New 

Image source 1: Photos taken by Jackie Bacon after the Palm Sunday liturgy, 2020, during which Mass was celebrated by Fr. Pat with only two ministers in attendance; as Fr. Pat mentioned at the end of his homily yesterday (August 21, 2022), the crowd attending outside in their cars were a joy to see at the end of the service.  https://www.facebook.com/mountcarmelmv/photos/a.3012501658811236/3012501772144558 

Image source 2:  Live-stream of Mass, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Mill Valley, August 21, 2022.

Commitment (Epictetus)

   Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Therefore, give yourself fully to your endeavors. Decide to construct your character through excellent actions and determine to pay the price of a worthy goal. The trials you encounter will introduce you to your strengths. Remain steadfast and one day you will build something that endures: something worthy of your potential. 

-- Epictetus       

Image source: https://www.aboutcivil.org/Stone%20Construction.html 
Quotation source

Willing to die for it (Che Guevara)

   We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it. 

 ―Ernesto Che Guevara 

Image source: Jais Nielsen, Joan of Arc (1923),  
https://www.chairish.com/product/2985652/joan-of-arc-by-jais-nielsen-1923-paris-salon-dautomne-section-dor-group-of-thirteen-benezit?gclid=CjwKCAjwqauVBhBGEiwAXOepkbxg22tlZgy5eeX9eFzr_Lpoeksds3Vhx3Djux9mCSorFQurjk29ABoC6fUQAvD_BwE 
Quotation source

Suffering (Dalai Lama)

    How you perceive life as a whole plays a role in your attitude to suffering. If you see suffering as negative and to be avoided at all costs and in some sense as a sign of failure, this will add a sense of anxiety and intolerance when you encounter difficult circumstances, a feeling of being overwhelmed. But if you accept that suffering is a natural part of existence, this will help you withstand life’s adversities. 

--Dalai Lama        

Image source: Jacobello del Fiore, The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, https://www.deaconrudysnotes.org/memorial-of-st-lawrence-deacon-and-martyr/

Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 21, 2022: Strive to enter through the narrow gate...

Strive to enter through the narrow gate…

Are you fully committed to the love of God? 

    Midway through Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is making his way to Jerusalem, where he will die, and nothing must stand in the way of his reaching that city and succeeding in his aim. Jesus continues to proclaim the kingdom to his disciples, and so when he is asked, Lord, will only a few people be saved?, his response must be understood in the context of his own imminent death. Strive to enter through the narrow gate, he responds, for many will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough. Committed to his own goal, Jesus is asking for their single-minded commitment as well, a commitment which requires surrendering to his love and to God’s will. While we are concerned with things other than the kingdom, the master will not open the door that he has locked, Jesus adds, and others whom his followers might deem unworthy will have perhaps entered before them: some who are last will be first. To enter the kingdom through the narrow gate, we must be one with him, fully surrendering to the power of his love at work in our lives. 

    Such commitment is not always easy, as the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us. In that community, some have rejected their faith in order to preserve their lives; the persecutions are the trials that the author of the Letter says they must endure as ‘discipline.’ They are children of the Lord, he reminds the community, and must stay true to the Lord’s path in spite of any and all difficulties. Firm in their commitment, they will be like the fugitives the Lord will send to the nations and distant coastlands in the Book of Isaiah, ready to proclaim God’s glory among the nations following the dictum to praise the Lord given in Psalm 117. We too must remain true to that relationship, committed to God’s love. 

    Are we ready to commit to the Lord’s path, holding firmly to our faith, surrendering to the power of his love in our lives, suffering, if necessary, but always and everywhere ready to proclaim God’s glory through praise? Will we strive to enter through the narrow gate? As disciples, we must be strong, because, Jesus tells us, it’s worth it! 

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

Keep it lit (Mary Lou Retton)

Each of us has 

a fire in our hearts 

for something. 

It’s our goal in life 

to find it and keep it lit. 

--Mary Lou Retton 

Image source: https://www.liveabout.com/mary-lou-retton-3529897 

Quotation source

Hanging on when all seems hopeless (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

   We’ve all heard tales of physical heroism. Heroism often consists in staying the course long enough, of hanging on when all seems hopeless. 

  Scripture teaches much the same thing about moral heroism. In the Second Letter to the Thessalonians, Paul ends a long, challenging admonition by stating: You must never grow weary of doing what is right. 

   This sounds so simple and yet it cuts to the heart of many of our moral struggles. We give up too soon, give in too soon, and don’t carry our solitude to its highest level. We simply don’t carry tension long enough. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser OMI, 

Facebook, June 13, 2022 

Image source 1: The Prophet Jeremiah, sculpture, Saint-Pierre, Moissac, https://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/1romanes/po-12c11/05f_1100.html 
Image source 2: Waldemar Otto, Jeremiah, Notre Dame University, Indiana https://news.nd.edu/news/ottorsquos-ldquojeremiahrdquo-and-our-own/

A life not tethered to the earth (Sr. John Chittister)

   Psalm 16 sings, You will not allow the one you love to see the pit; you will reveal the path of life to me, give me unbounded joy in your presence. Those whom God loves, the psalm promises, will be raised up above the thousand daily deaths that come into every life. When we raise our hearts and souls to God, the things that drag us down will lose their grip on us. When we refuse to become imprisoned by things and status and ambition and self and greed, our souls are set free and our bodies are unburdened. Life becomes livable again. Enough becomes enough. God becomes God again. 

   But where can we possibly go to find someone whose life is not tethered to the earth to the point of death? What proof do we have that anyone can rise above what we want to what we can become? The answer surely is Mary of the Assumption whose love of God lifted her far above the goals and gains of those who had never really seen the Christ for what he was, because their mind’s eye was taken up totally with what they were themselves. 

   Mary of the Assumption teaches us to keep our eyes on the things of heaven; to free ourselves from the fetters of anything lesser; to develop a vision outside of ourselves; and to allow ourselves to be lifted up beyond the petty and the transient to the eternal and the unalloyed. Mary of the Assumption is a sign of what we can become if we are willing to let go of what we have planned for ourselves.

--Sr. Joan Chittister, In Pursuit of Peace: 

 Praying the Rosary Through the Psalms

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of 

the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary! 

Image source: Antonio da Correggio, Assumption of the Virgin (1536-1530), Cathedral of Parma. To see details (and an analysis) of this remarkable fresco, visit: https://smarthistory.org/correggio-assumption-of-the-virgin/ 
Image source 2: St. Mary of the Assumption, San Francisco, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/295759900499889996/

To create one spark (John O'Donohue)

Close your eyes. 

Gather all the kindling 

About your heart 

To create one spark. 

That is all you need 

To nourish the flame 

That will cleanse the dark 

Of its weight of festered fear. 

--John O'Donohue, 

Benedictus, To Bless 

the Space between Us 

Image source: Jesus makes a fire, The Chosen,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5odcmQBYaVg

Drifting from the truth (Selwyn Duke)

   The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it. 

--Selwyn Duke     

Image source: https://www.sgcofc.com/lest-we-drift-away/ 

Image source 2: http://www.luciasblog.com/2015/11/the-true-anchor.html 

Quotation source

The flame I bear (Ven. Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan)

   Jesus proclaimed that he had come to bring fire to the earth. By continuing his mission, I keep alive the flame that my hands received from Christ Jesus. Just as a runner descends Mount Olympus carrying the Olympic torch, I want to traverse the entire world in order to transmit the flame of Christ to others. 

   The flame I bear is love, the élan of fervour, the strength of God, destined to inflame and consume sin and to renew all things.  But am I really a burning flame or an icy wind? Am I a stove without a flame? ... 

   To feed this fire I must pour the oil of my daily prayer into others. I will prepare their torches so that the Holy Spirit will set them ablaze, dispelling their darkness and renewing the face of the earth. 

--Venerable Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan 

Image source: https://www.nba.com/suns/news/nash_torch_100212.html# 

Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 14, 2022: I have come to set the world on fire!

I have come to set the earth on fire! 

How willing are you to witness to God’s truth, 

even in the face of difficulty? 

   The prophet Jeremiah was not popular among the people to whom God sent him to prophesy, particularly because Jeremiah was to inform them of their city’s imminent destruction by the neo-Babylonian warrior-king Nebuchadnezzar. The princes of Judah tell King Zedekiah that Jeremiah ought to be put to death; he is demoralizing the soldiers and all the people, and so Jeremiah is thrown into a cistern where he sinks into the mud. One can well imagine Jeremiah praying Psalm 40: Lord, come to my aid! Finally, at the request of a court official, King Zedekiah has Jeremiah taken out of the cistern before he should die. Jeremiah is true to the word of God; he does not even speak throughout his ordeal because he is a necessary witness to the truth of what God reveals, even in the face of difficulty, and he will continue to give witness to that truth, no matter the personal cost. 

   Jesus likewise knows that his death and rising will create division among the people to whom he has come to reveal God’s truth: I have come to set the earth on fire, he tells his disciples in Luke's Gospel. Do you think that I have come to establish peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. And that division will be where we least expect it: a father will be divided against his son, and a son against his father. But the fire of which Jesus speaks is meant to destroy all that is unnecessary, anything that might compromise the truth he has come to proclaim. Jesus loves humankind profoundly; he longs for us to be purified of our sin and redeemed, so that we might rise with him. We, for our part, must be ready to stand behind the love that he came to reveal, no matter what division we must face to do so, no matter what transformation we must undergo, no matter what sin we must vanquish. 

    The persecuted community addressed in the Book of Hebrews is aware of this charge: Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us. It was hard to be a Christian in the early Church; Christians endured much opposition. Yet they had but to keep their eyes fixed on Jesus to see how he endured such opposition, so that they could have the strength to struggle against sin and persevere. We as a Christian community are called to no less. 

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

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

The skies are full of promise (St. Augustine)

    God of our life, there are days when the burdens we carry chafe our shoulders and weigh us down; when the road seems dreary and endless, the skies grey and threatening; when our lives have no music in them, and our hearts are lonely, and our souls have lost their courage. 

    Flood the path with light, turn our eyes to where the skies are full of promise; tune our hearts to brave music; give us the sense of comradeship with heroes and saints of every age; and so quicken our spirits that we may be able to encourage the souls of all who journey with us on the road of life to your honor and glory. 

--St. Augustine      

Image source: https://www.classical-music.com/features/works/the-best-pieces-of-classical-music-inspired-by-storms/ 

Prayer source

You carry trust (Sadie Robertson)

   It’s not that things aren’t going to be scary, it’s when you are in the face of fear, you carry peace. You carry a confident trust that you are able to speak to that fear knowing you have victory over it, because your God is bigger. 

--Sadie Robertson         

Image source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/focusing-what-we-can-control-does-hurt-protect-us-sharon-m-pollard 

Quotation source

Waiting very actively (Henri Nouwen)

   Most of us consider waiting as something very passive, a hopeless state determined by events totally out of our hands. The bus is late? We cannot do anything about it, so we have to sit there and just wait. It is not difficult to understand the irritation people feel when somebody says, Just wait. Words like that push us into passivity. 

   But there is none of this passivity in Scripture. Those who are waiting are waiting very actively. They know that what they are waiting for is growing from the ground on which they are standing. Right here is a secret for us about waiting. If we wait in the conviction that a seed has been planted and that something has already begun, it changes the way we wait. Active waiting implies being fully present to the moment with the conviction that something is happening where we are and that we want to be present to it. A waiting person is someone who is present to the moment, believing that this moment is the moment. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: https://faithstrongtoday.com/robynroste/how-to-practice-active-waiting
Quotation source

The audacity to trust (Tom Shriver on Fr. Thomas Keating)

   In our last conversation [two months before his death, Fr. Thomas Keating] emphasized trust. He heard my confession and stopped me when I said I was struggling to trust in these times of fear and violence and division. Focus on trust, he said. When you trust that we are all part of something beautiful beyond our wildest imagination, you will find healing. 

   As we neared the end of our time, he gave me an instruction in prayer: Keep returning to silence. It’s God’s first language, and everything else is a poor translation. And say just one Hail Mary, but say it slowly so you can feel the unconditional trust that made it possible for Mary to allow God’s love to take over her life.... Meet her and understand her model of trust in God and let her heal you.

   I left him moments later. Til we meet again were his final words to me, yet another expression of a man who trusted in the totality of God’s love and who taught prayer as an act of surrender, an act of presence, an act of love. Have the audacity to trust that we all belong to God: It may seem like an unlikely call to action in 2018, but it may be the only call that can start the healing in our divisive and fearful times. 

--Tom Shriver 

Image source: Bartholomé Esteban Murillo, The Virgin of the Annunciation (ca. 1670-80), https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bartolom%C3%A9_Esteban_Murillo_-_The_Virgin_of_the_Annunciation_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg
Quotation source

Faith (John Piper)

   In the time of Jesus, the mount of transfiguration
was on the way to the cross. In our day,
the cross is on the way to the mount of transfiguration. 
If you would be on the mountain,
you must consent to pass over the road to it. 

--Henry Clay Trumbull

   Faith begins with a backward look at the cross, but it lives with a forward look at the promise. 

--John Piper    

Happy Feast of the Transfiguration!        

Image source: https://crestviewchurch.org/messages/messages-by-series/messages-by-series-2021/looking-back-to-look-forward-the-message-and-mission-of-jesus/ 
Quotation source 1

Quotation source 2

To have trust in a promise (Pope Francis)

Change moves at the speed of trust.

--Stephen Covey

   There is a voice that suddenly resonates in Abraham’s life. A voice that invites him to undertake a journey that he knows is absurd: a voice that spurs him to uproot himself from his homeland, from his family roots, in order to move toward a new, different future. And it is all based on a promise, in which he needs only to have trust. And to have trust in a promise is not easy. It takes courage. And Abraham had trust. 

   Abraham sets out. He listens to the voice of God and trusts in His word. This is important: he trusts the Word of God. And with this departure of his, a new way of understanding the relationship with God arose. It is for this reason that the patriarch Abraham is present in the great Jewish, Christian and Islamic spiritual traditions as the perfect man of God, capable of being submissive to Him even when His will proves arduous, if not completely incomprehensible. 

   Abraham is thus the man of the Word. When God speaks, man becomes the receptor of that Word and his life the place in which it seeks to become flesh. This is a great novelty in man’s religious journey: the life of a believer begins to be understood as a vocation, thus as a calling, as the place where a promise is fulfilled; and he moves in the world not so much under the weight of an enigma, but with the power of that promise, which one day will be fulfilled. And Abraham believed God’s promise. He believed and he set out without knowing where he was going — thus says the Letter to the Hebrews (Hebrews 11:8). But he had trust. 

   In reading the Book of Genesis, we discover that Abraham experienced prayer in constant faithfulness to that Word, which periodically appeared along his path. In short, we could say that in Abraham’s life, faith becomes history. Indeed Abraham, with his life, with his example teaches us this path, this path in which faith becomes history. God is no longer seen only in cosmic phenomena, as a distant God, who can instill fear. The God of Abraham becomes my God, the God of my personal history, who guides my steps, who does not abandon me; the God of my days, companion in my adventures; the God Providence. I ask myself and I ask you: do we have this experience with God? My God, the God who accompanies me, the God of my personal history, the God who guides my steps, who does not abandon me, the God of my days? Do we have this experience? 

--Pope Francis, Papal Audience, June 3, 2020 

Image source: Scenes from the Story of Abraham, embroidered textile (linen worked with silk thread), mid-17th century, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/229007 Complete text

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 7, 2022: Faith is the realization of what is hoped for...

Faith is the realization of what is hoped for…

How strong is our faith in God’s promise? 

     The Book of Wisdom reminds us that the people of Israel had deep faith in God’s promise of the salvation of the just. When they are told by Moses to offer a sacrifice of one lamb per household, placing the blood of the lamb on the lintel and eaten the roasted lamb with unleavened bread, they know they are preparing to flee their adversaries. The faith of the Israelites is the source of their glory; God can glorify them because they have faith in the Lord. They know they are, as Psalm 33 states, the people the Lord has chosen to be his own, and they trust that the Lord will deliver them from death and preserve them in spite of famine. The people may question their faith when faced with difficulties, but according to their covenant with the Lord, they are to hold to that faith nonetheless, putting their hope in the Lord. 

    Abraham similarly had a profound faith in God’s promise: by faith, Abraham obeyed, the Book of Hebrews recounts; by faith, he sojourned in the promised land, and by faith he received power to generate. This is what faith looks like in practice. Abraham did not see the fulfillment of God’s promise, but he lived in hope, for he thought that the one who made the promise was trustworthy. Abraham even goes so far as to offer up Isaac when put to the test, because he had received the promise that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. 

    We do not see eternal life in this life, but we live for the hope that it will come. Like Abraham, like the Israelites, we are aliens in this land, while our identity remains in the Lord. Jesus reiterates God’s promise in Luke’s Gospel: your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom. Like the servants who remain vigilant while they await their master’s return, we must be ready to answer the door when he knocks. We are true servants if we trust the master and allow the master to entrust us with much, with the kingdom, no less. Our job is to know the master’s will and follow through on it, participating in God’s plan and keeping our eye on the inexhaustible treasure in heaven that awaits us, confident in that treasure that is God’s promise to all who hope in faith. 

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

Christ, here and now (C.S. Lewis)

    Christ is all and in all.
-- Colossians 3:11

   A real Person, Christ, here and now, in that very room where you are saying your prayers, is doing things to you. It is not a question of a good man who died two thousand years ago. It is a living Man, still as much a man as you, and still as much God as He was when He created the world, really coming and interfering with your very self; killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self He has. At first, only for moments. Then for longer periods. Finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity. 

--C.S. Lewis 

Image source: https://www.axiawomen.org/blog/who-might-we-become-if-we-walk-steps-christ

Quotation source

I was empty-handed (Martha Snell Nicholson)

One by one He took them from me,

All the things I valued most,

Until I was empty-handed;

Every glittering toy was lost.

And I walked earth’s highways, grieving,

In my rags and poverty. 

Till I heard His voice inviting,

“Lift your empty hands to Me!”

So I held my hands toward heaven,

And He filled them with a store

Of His own transcendent riches, 

Till they could contain no more. 

And at last I comprehended 

With my stupid mind and dull, 

That God could not pour His riches 

Into hands already full! 

--Martha Snell Nicholson, Treasures 

Image source: https://www.crosswalk.com/special-coverage/easter/reasons-the-resurrection-is-important-for-your-life-today.html
Poem source

Consider the shortness of time (St. Gerard Majella)

   Consider the shortness of time, the length of eternity, and reflect how everything here below comes to an end and passes by. Of what use is it to lean upon that which cannot give support? 

--Saint Gerard Majella      

Image source: https://www.ncregister.com/blog/3-views-of-time-and-eternity 

Quotation source

Bonus for today's blog:  Where in lovely Mill Valley are you likely to find this statue of St. Gerard Majella with his characteristic attributes, that is, dressed in a Redemptorist habit, holding a crucifix, with lilies and a skull near his feet?