Faith has an amazing power (Sia Nyasari Temu)

   Faith has an amazing power to transform our lives from a situation of despair to a hopeful one. Faith has the ability to empower us to act, to believe in the power bigger than ourselves, which is working within us to achieve a better future. 

    Faith is a powerful image for people who feel powerless, to be able to imagine a new future, where they can regain their power again, where they can reconnect and feel whole once again and see the possibilities of the present. Faith involves a prophetic imagination to be able to imagine new symbols and new images which will motivate and inspire people to act in ways that transform structures of injustice into processes of justice and freedom. Faith calls for patience and perseverance… 

    It is not surprising that the disciples appeal to Jesus: Increase our faith! (Luke 17:5). Jesus does not give his disciples an easy answer to their request for faith. And the amazing thing is what even a little faith can do. Jesus told his disciples if they had faith the size of a mustard seed, they could command a mulberry tree to be uprooted and moved to the sea. This is an image Jesus is using to illustrate the power of faith, no matter how small that faith is. He is aware that it is when we believe in something that we are able to realize it. Indeed, Jesus is not talking of a magic way of doing things, rather it is the role faith plays in realizing our vision, dreams, and desires. 

--Sia Nyasari Temu, MM 

Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustard_seed#/media/File:Mustard.png Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, October 2, 2022: If you have faith the size of a mustard seed...

If you have faith the size of a mustard seed… 

Is your faith enough? 

    The prophet Habakkuk is disturbed by all he experiences: How long, o Lord, must I cry for help, and you do not intervene? The people of Judah know that the Babylonian invasion is imminent; Habakkuk speaks of destruction and violence, strife and clamorous discord. The general sentiment is one of frustration at God’s ostensible abandonment of Judah. But God’s response to Habakkuk is clearly meant to reassure: God’s plan will not disappoint, even if the people have to wait for it. They may have to lose everything and be sent into exile, but they will return, and should be patient with the Lord; they should trust God, for the just one, because of his faith, shall live. They must, as Psalm 95 exhorts, harden not their hearts, but should bow down in worship and praise God, not because God does what they want, but because ultimately, God is and will continue to be the Rock of their salvation who has sustained them and will continue to sustain them through all. 

    Even with Jesus physically present with them, the apostles in Luke’s Gospel need to ask him, Increase our faith. Faith is always a free gift from God; it is not theirs to wield or control, but to open themselves to, to accept. Unlike the unprofitable servants of which Jesus speaks, we must not expect God to be grateful that we have followed his commands; rather, we should participate in all God has called us to do, open to his will, and true to his call. For faith is not about how much we can control our existence; faith is trust in the Lord who controls it – even when we don’t understand what he is going to do. 

   Timothy knew such frustration firsthand. He has been given the gift of God through the imposition of Paul’s hands, and is now leader of the Christian community at Ephesus. But his role is called into question because he is young. Paul exhorts Timothy to take the faith he has received and trust it will be enough to allow him to bear his share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God. If it is God’s love that drives us, we cannot fail; if we hold to his spirit of love, our faith will be stirred into flame as Timothy’s was. Such faith, though it be merely the size of a mustard seed, makes the impossible possible, and that faith, a free gift from God, is enough, always. 

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

The vanity of our false distinctions (Robert F. Kennedy)

    We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of all. We must admit in ourselves that our children’s future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled nor enriched by hatred or revenge.

--Robert F. Kennedy,
Remarks to the Cleveland City Club,
April 5, 1968

Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dives_and_Lazarus_-_Keppler._LCCN2011647640.jpg
Quotation source

To share what we have (Haley Stewart)

    Mere minimalism is an incomplete solution to our consumerism. If we ignore a deep generosity to share what we have with others and if we are unwilling to accept help in return, we have not adopted a Gospel mindset.

--Haley Stewart,

The Grace of Enough:

 Pursuing Less and Living More

in a Throwaway Culture

Image source: https://f.hubspotusercontent30.net/hubfs/2379139/Imported_Blog_Media/open-image-2-2.jpg
Quotation source

To suspend our egos (George Eliot)

   The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos in another’s world.

--George Eliot     

Image source: https://www.amacad.org/news/empathy-and-our-future
Quotation source

Diversus and Lazarus (Steeleye Span)

As it fell out upon a day

Rich Diversus made a feast.

And he invited all his friends

And the gentry of the best.

Then Lazarus laid him down and down,

Laid him down at Diversus' door.

“Some meat, some drink, my brother Diversus

Will you bestow upon the poor.”

“Thou art none of my brothers, Lazarus,

That lies begging at my door.

No meat nor drink will I give to thee, Lazarus,

Nor bestow upon the poor.”

Diversus sent his men

To whip poor Lazarus away.

But they had no power to strike a stroke

But flung their whips away. 

Diversus sent his hungry dogs

To bite him as he lay.

But they had no power to bite

But licked his sores away.

It fell out upon a day

Poor Lazarus grew sick and died.

There came two angels out of heaven above,

His souls thereto to guide. 

“Rise up, rise up, my brother Lazarus,

And you come along with me. 

There is a place prepared in heaven

Upon an Angel's knee.” 

And it fell out upon a day 

Rich Diversus sickened and died.

There came a serpent out of hell,

His souls thereto to guide.

“Rise up, rise up, my evil brother,

Won't you come along with me.

There is a place prepared in hell

Upon a serpent's knee.”

If I were alive again,

In the space of one half hour

I would make my peace secure

And take the devil's power. 

To hear the 1969 British folk rock band Steeleye Span perform Diverses and Lazarus, based on today’s parable in the Luke’s Gospel, click on the video below:

Image source: Bonifazio Veronese, Dives and Lazarus (1540s), 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bonifacio_de_Pitati_-_Dives_and_Lazarus_-_WGA02417.jpg
History of the Folk Song
Video source

We have to feel for one another (Audrey Hepburn)

   Nothing is more important than empathy for another human being’s suffering. Nothing – not career, not wealth, not intelligence, certainly not status. We have to feel for one another if we’re going to survive with dignity.

--Audrey Hepburn

Image source: Vincent van Gogh, Old Man in Sorrow (At Eternity’s Gate), https://www.marygauthier.com/news/practicing-empathy
Quotation source

The answer really is kinship (Fr. Greg Boyle)

   OK, the answer really is kinship. Everybody’s so exhausted by the tenor of the polarity right now in our country. And the division is the opposite of God, frankly. I always think of Dives with Lazarus — Dives is in here not because he’s rich, but because he kind of refused to be in relationship with Lazarus — that that parable is not about bank accounts and heaven, it’s really about us. And so what’s on Jesus’s mind? He says that all may be one. And that’s kind of where we need to inch our way closer — that we imagine a circle of compassion, then we imagine nobody standing outside that circle. God created, if you will, an otherness so that we would dedicate our lives to a union with each other. 

 --Fr. Greg Boyle SJ 

Image source: Fedor Bronnikov, Lazarus at the Rich Man’s Gate (1886), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_man_and_Lazarus#/media/File:Fedor_Bronnikov_007.jpg 

Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 25, 2022: Woe to the complacent in Zion...

Woe to the complacent in Zion…

How easy it to become complacent about our world? 

     God sent the prophet Amos to bring a warning to the complacent in Zion, secure on the mount of Samaria, those who feast on lambs taken from the flock and calves from the stall while paying no attention to the needs of the community around them. Blind to the circumstances of the society they live in, the complacent party on as if nothing were amiss. But God warns that they shall be the first to go into exile, and their wanton revelry shall be done away with. The complacent in Zion are like the wicked mentioned in Psalm 146, as contrasted with the oppressed, the blind, and those who are bowed down, all of whom the Lord succors in their time of need. 

     In Jesus’ time, it was the Pharisees who were complacent in their dealings with those less fortunate than themselves. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells the Pharisees the parable of the rich man who disregards a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, lying at his door; Lazarus is invisible to this rich man dressed in purple, the color of luxury, his robes soft and elegant. Like him, the Pharisees live in an enclosed and protected world, and are thus able to remain complacent in their dealings with the world. When the boundaries they have erected between themselves and their world are compromised, the Pharisees become profoundly uncomfortable, accustomed as they are to excluding those who are different, the poor and the needy. They do not pursue the righteousness that Paul counsels to Timothy; they do not keep God’s commandment without stain or reproach. Their faith has been corrupted by their own sense of complacency, and they fail to show compassion for the needy in their midst. 

     To be complacent is to show utter disregard for our world, to refuse it God’s life-giving justice. But Jesus calls us to righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness in our dealings with others. This is how we are to participate in the kingdom to which we are called, competing well for the faith and in all things, remaining life-giving, like our God who gives life to all things. Indeed, there is no room for complacency in the kingdom, only compassion and empathy and mercy worthy of the Lord who gave all that we might one day enjoy eternal life in the bosom of Abraham. 

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

We'll build a land (C. McDade & B. Zarotti)

We’ll build a land where we bind up the broken.
We’ll build a land where the captives go free,
Where the oil of gladness dissolves all mourning.
Oh, we’ll build a promised land that can be.
We’ll build a land where we bring the good tidings
To all the afflicted and all those who mourn.
And we’ll give them garlands instead of ashes.
Oh, we’ll build a land where peace is born.
We’ll be a land building up ancient cities,
Raising up devastations from old,
Restoring ruins of generations
Oh, we’ll build a land of people so bold
Come, build a land where the mantles of praises
Resounding from spirits once faint and once weak;
Where like oaks of righteousness stand her people.
Oh, come build the land, my people we seek.
Come build a land where sisters and brothers
Anointed by God, may then create peace:
Where justice shall roll down like waters,
And peace like an ever-flowing stream.

To hear We’ll Build a Land by Carolyn McDade & Barbara Zarotti, click on the video below:

Image source: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/259/promised-land
Video source

Poverty is not a character flaw (Sarah Kendzior)

   When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatise those who let people die, not those who struggle to live. 

--Sarah Kendzior 

Image source: Irving Amen, The Prophet Amos, https://www.immanuelpc.org/sermon/amos-let-justice-roll-down-like-waters-2/ 
Quotation source

To give to the poor (Pope Leo XIII)

       When the demands of necessity and propriety have been met, it is a duty to give to the poor out of that which remains. 

--Pope Leo XIII 

Image source: https://twitter.com/13thfool/status/1367234792530399233
Quotation source

A cracked iPhone 11 (Rudyard Kipling/Sadio Mané)

Beware of overconcern for money, or position, or glory.
 Someday you will meet a man who cares 

for none of these things. 

 Then you will know how poor you are. 

--Rudyard Kipling 

    Sadio Mané, a Senegalese soccer star, earns approximately $10.2 million annually. He gave the world a rude awakening after some fans were flabbergasted when they saw him carrying a cracked iPhone 11. His response was inspiring: 

   Why would I want ten Ferraris, 20 diamond watches, and two jet planes? I starved, I worked in the fields, played barefoot, and I didn't go to school. Now I can help people. I prefer to build schools and give poor people food or clothing. I have built schools and a stadium, provide clothes, shoes, and food for people in extreme poverty. In addition, I give 70 euros per month to all people from a very poor Senegalese region in order to contribute to their family economy. I do not need to display luxury cars, luxury homes, trips, and even planes. I prefer that my people receive some of what life has given me.

Image source 1: https://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/premier-league/liverpool/i-had-to-run-away-to-achieve-my-dream-my-family-would-not-help-me-sadio-mane-39112380.html
Quotation source 1 

Image source 2 & quotation source 2: https://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/sadio-mane-spotted-broken-iphone-21179746 

Committed to social justice (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

   We can never be challenged too strongly with regards to being committed to social justice. A key, non-negotiable summons that comes from Jesus himself is precisely the challenge to reach out to the poor, the excluded, to those whom society deems expendable. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser OMI

Facebook, July 22, 2022

Image source: Fernand Pelez, Sans asile (1883), http://eric.bricet.free.fr/pelez.html

The test of our progress (Franklin D. Roosevelt)

   The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

--Franklin D. Roosevelt

Image source: https://www.asianews.it/news-en/Bishop-of-Vasai:-Mother-Teresa,-the-Saint-of-the-Gutters-that-put-the-poor-at-the-centre-38530.html
Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 18, 2022: No servant can serve two masters...

No servant can serve two masters…

What are you working for?

    The prophet Amos has a warning for those who work entirely for personal gain without concern for the poor and needy in their midst: The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Never will I forget a thing they have done! A prophet of social justice, Amos chronicles the transgressions of those who trample on the needy and destroy the poor of the land; their abuses are violations of the covenant with God. Their economy is meant to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, and is built upon dishonesty; prosperity is eating away at social values, breaking down community. How little these abusers value their neighbors except as a means for gain for themselves! Psalm 113 is a clear rebuke to such activity: Praise the Lord who lifts up the poor, the psalmist sings. The Lord calls all to a world order in which all will be treated equally: from the dunghill he lifts up the poor to seat them with princes. All humankind has equal value in God’s eyes. Moreover, if we praise God’s name, we must back it up by living in such a way that all can join in that praise because they too have the means to live and sustain themselves. 

    In Luke’s Gospel, a rich man’s steward is reported to him for squandering his property, and must scramble to deal with the fallout of his own actions. His plan is curious but effective: he reduces each of his master’s debtors’ debts so as to eliminate his own profit, thereby investing not in money, but in the good will of the people he had previously cheated. Jesus invites his disciples to consider what they are investing themselves in: are they investing in the world they live in, or just taking what they can from it? The steward gains community by losing profits; his generosity creates a more generous world in which he himself is better off, albeit not in the financial sense. 

    Christ came that all humankind might have access to salvation: God our savior wills everyone to be saved, Paul tells Timothy. Consequently, Paul requests that the prayer of Timothy’s community be universal: supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings are to be offered for everyone. To pray for all is to draw into a deeper relationship with all those in need, the needy, the poor, and the lowly as well as kings and all in authority. We are meant to strive for unity, not dissension; for justice, not inequality; for peace, not discord, anger or argument. When we work for all, when we acknowledge our shared existence and function with the Lord rather than in opposition to him, we are participating in the kingdom of God. Is there anything more worth working toward? 

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

Mercy is transformative (Bryan Stevenson)

   Mercy is most empowering, liberating, and transformative when it is directed at the undeserving. The people who haven’t earned it, who haven’t even sought it, are the most meaningful recipients of our compassion. 

--Bryan Stevenson 

Ponder this message in conjunction with the last 9 minutes of George Balanchine’s ballet Prodigal Son, featuring Mikhail Baryshnikov in the role of the Son (click on the video below):

Image source: https://www.mariinsky.ru/en/playbill/playbill/2019/7/26/1_1900/ 

Quotation source 

Video source

Rejoice with me! (Henri Nouwen)

   Celebration belongs to God’s Kingdom. God not only offers forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing, but wants to lift up these gifts as a source of joy for all who witness them. In all three of the parables that Jesus tells to explain why he eats with sinners, God rejoices and invites others to rejoice with him. Rejoice with me, the shepherd says, I have found my sheep that was lost.  Rejoice with me, the woman says, I have found the drachma I lost.  Rejoice with me, the father says, this son of mine was lost and is found.

   All these voices are the voices of God. God does not want to keep his joy to himself. He wants everyone to share in it. God’s joy is the joy of his angels and his saints; it is the joy of all who belong to the Kingdom. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: Eugene Burnand, The Lost Coin, drawing. Illustration for Les Paraboles, 1908. http://artandfaithmatters.blogspot.com/2016/09/art-lectionary-ten-coins.html 

Quotation source

Mercy empowers us (Dr. Tom Neal)

     Mercy is the most human aspect of our faith. It embraces our broken human condition and empowers us to rise from the ashes. 

--Dr. Tom Neal, 

Stolen Umbrellas: 

Fumbling into the Kingdom of God 

Meditate upon God’s mercy as you listen to Orlando di Lasso’s profound setting of Psalm 51, the Miserere, as performed by the Tolz' Boys Choir, by clicking on the video below: 

Image source: Sybil Andrews, Prodigal Son, linocut on paper (1939), https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1993-0228-33 

Video source

Standing beside grace (Fr. James Martin)

On the tenth anniversary of 9-11, Fr. James Martin recalled all he had seen that day:

    The streets surrounding the morgue are covered by two inches of soot. More paper blows around; I notice an office memo with its edges charred brown. Twisted girders covered with grime must be stepped over. All I can think of is a banality. But, though banal, it is true: this is like hell—full of immense sadness and terror and pathos. 

    And yet, here is grace. There are hundreds of rescue workers: firefighters and police officers and army personnel and construction workers and truck drivers and counselors and doctors and nurses. Almost all are in motion. They are purposeful, efficient, hard-working. 

    Some of the the firefighters and police officers sit by a staging area near the doorway of the temporary morgue, resting. Though most are New Yorkers, a surprising number are not, having traveled great distances (from Massachusetts, says one; from Florida, says another) to help. We talk about what they have seen, how they feel, what they think. In the midst of this hell, they are inspiring to speak with, and say simple things, made profound to me by their situation: “Just doing my job, Father.” “One day at a time.” “Doing the best I can, Father.” I cannot resist the urge to tell them what great work they are doing. 

    Suddenly I realize that I am standing beside grace. Here are men and women, some of whom tell me “I lost a buddy in there,” who are going about their business—a business that includes the possibility of dying. “Greater love has no person,” said Jesus, “than the one who lays down his life for another.” And this is what that looks like. Here it is. 

--Fr. James Martin, World Trade Center Journal: Part One 

Image source: https://www.ksat.com/features/2020/09/10/20-years-later-these-911-photos-remain-just-as-haunting/
Quotation source & complete article

Such is the logic of grace (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

   We know we need God’s mercy, but if grace is true for us, it has to be true for everyone; if forgiveness is given us, it must be given everybody; and if God does not avenge our misdeeds, God must not avenge the misdeeds of others either. Such is the logic of grace and such is the love of the God to whom we must attune ourselves. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser OMI,

Facebook, May 9, 2022 

Image source: Timothy P. Schmalz, Prodigal Son, https://sundayprep.org/art-faith-4th-sunday-of-lent-year-c/

A restoration to family (Sr. Anne Celestine Ondigo)

     [In the Parable of the Prodigal Son,] the father keeps watching and waiting for the return of his wayward son. The father sees him from afar and is filled with compassion. He runs to embrace him with open hands. He makes a banquet in his honor. 

     The elder son, unaware of his fathers’ depth of compassionate mercy, sees this and is indignant saying, I have been faithful all these years, yet you have not thrown a party in my honor. He seemed to have a calm spirit before the brother arrived, however, as the African proverb puts it, calm water does not mean there are no crocodiles. At the same time, wise men avow that faults are like a hill, you stand on top of your own and talk about those of other people. The elder brother wants retributive justice applied on his brother-he wants to see some kind of punishment. 

    However, the father’s justice is different because it is based on mercy, love and forgiveness that leads to restoration. The father intervenes by re-awakening his conscience from a selfish spirit and rebuke to the marvels of a sincere re-entry of his lost brother who has returned, a dead brother who is alive and a repentant brother who needs love, mercy and restoration to the family. 

    Pope Francis’ encyclical Fratelli Tutti, exhorts us to this kind of re-awakening to spiritual brotherliness, sisterliness, to the sense of one family of God, a reconciled human race. In this sense, God the father draws the elder sons’ attention to true repentance and reconciliation where the old passes away and we are recreated anew. 

--Anne Celestine Ondigo, FSJ 

Image source: James Tissot, The Return of the Prodigal Son (1862), https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:James_Tissot_-_The_Return_of_the_Prodigal_Son.jpg

Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 11, 2022: I have been mercifully treated...

I have been mercifully treated…

How does God manifest his love for us? 

    When, in the Book of Exodus, the people of Israel create and worship a molten calf, God is justifiably displeased, and proposes letting his wrath blaze up against them to consume them. But Moses reminds the Lord of the relationship they have established: the malfeasants, Moses says, are your own people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with such great power and with so strong a hand. It is God’s mercy alone that will keep them together as a people, and so God relents in the punishment he had threatened to inflict on his people. In the end, God’s mercy wins out over God’s wrath. David asks for no less in Psalm 51, the Miserere: Have mercy on me, o God, in your goodness. David recognizes the depth of his sin against God in the murder of Uriah; David knows how far he has fallen, and asks that the closeness of relationship between himself and the Lord might be restored: Cast me not out from your presence, and your Holy Spirit take not from me. 

    Jesus similarly stresses the mercy of God in the parables he shares with the scribes and Pharisees in Luke’s Gospel. God desires that all should dwell in his love, and so God goes after the lost sheep until he finds it, whereas the scribes and Pharisees have written off sinners as unworthy of mercy. The parable of the woman who loses a coin reminds them that any one sinner that is lost diminishes the community, and their repentance is thus cause for rejoicing. The scribes and Pharisees believe they understand God’s love, but they are not ready to extend that love to all, unlike God, whose love, as seen in the parable of the prodigal son, knows no boundaries. The father in the parable is filled with love and compassion for the son who returns home after having sinned against heaven; his love is equally strong for the older son who becomes angry at his father’s mercy toward his brother. In every case, conversion is necessary; we must know that all are God’s children; to focus on the “otherness” of our brother is to make it impossible for us to know and fully appreciate the profound depth of God’s love for every single person, sinners included. 

    Perhaps no one was more aware of God’s mercy than Paul who, in his First Letter to Timothy, claims to have been foremost among sinners, having been a blasphemer and a persecutor and arrogant. But it is precisely his sin, born of ignorance, that causes God’s mercy to flow forth: for that reason, I was mercifully treated, Paul says. If God can show mercy towards Paul, then surely all have access to that mercy; mercy is, after all, what Christ came to proclaim. His love for Paul has transformed Paul, strengthening him and giving him every reason to share the good news of God’s mercy, the most perfect manifestation of his love for us that exists. 

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

Jesus comes asking us to follow (Lee Camp)

   Jesus of Nazareth always comes asking disciples to follow him--not merely accept him, not merely believe in him, not merely worship him, but to follow him: one either follows Christ, or one does not. There is no compartmentalization of the faith, no realm, no sphere, no business, no politic in which the lordship of Christ will be excluded. We either make him Lord of all lords, or we deny him as Lord of any. 

―Lee Camp, Mere Discipleship: 

Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World 

Image source: https://rchristianbohlen.com/surrender/

New eyes for seeing (Krista Tippett)

   Taking in the good, whenever and wherever we find it, gives us new eyes for seeing and living.
 

--Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise: 

An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living 

Image source 1: Olympic runner Abbey D'Agostino helps up competitor Nikki Hamlin at the 2016 Rio games.  https://worldathletics.org/news/news/ioc-fair-play-hamblin-dagostino 

Image source 2: https://www.naturespath.com/en-ca/blog/5-ways-teach-kids-compassion-towards-animals/

Restoring to work its dignity (Walter Ciszek)

    There is a tremendous truth contained in the realization that when God became man, he became a working man. Yet he did not think it demeaning, beneath his dignity, dehumanizing. If anything, he restored to man’s work its original dignity, its essential function as a share in God’s creative act. He did it to make it plain that the plainest and dullest of jobs is—or at any rate can be, if viewed properly in respect to God and to eternity—a sharing in the divine work of creation and redemption, a daily opportunity to cooperate with God in the central acts of his covenant of salvation. 

--Walter Ciszek          

Image source: Ade Bethune, Jesus the Carpenter, published in The Catholic Worker, https://portsmouthabbeymonastery.org/2019-archives  

Quotation source

Yes, we have met Wisdom (Sr. Patricia Bruno)

   Wisdom is the breath of the power of God. A breath that rejoices with the Divine and in the dance of love together give life to the Incarnate Word – the Child of Wisdom – the Word who pitched a tent among us as the fourth gospel reminds us. 

   The Word, who like Wisdom is not aloof. The Word, who like Wisdom revealed God’s abundance: full crops in untended fields, pearls buried in vacant lots, wild bushes housing and protecting new born birds of the air. 

   Nothing or no one is insignificant – not a coin or a disheartened and despairing disciple. Nothing, no one – lost. 

   We know what Wisdom looks like in human form. We have met Jesus in prayer and scripture. And because of that, we can recognize Wisdom’s presence in our own life. For in each generation she passes into holy souls and makes them (us) friends of God and prophets. Yes, we have met Wisdom. 

--Sr. Patricia Bruno, OP 

Image source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvOpb1sxx8Q 

Quotation source

Wisdom (St. Gregory the Great)

 

We make idols of our concepts, 
but Wisdom is born of wonder. 

--St. Gregory the Great  

Image source:  The Northern Lights, http://www.unmuseum.org/7wonders/northernlights.htm
Quotation source

Lord, let me see and hear (Henri Nouwen)

Dear Lord, 

Give me eyes to see and ears to hear. I know there is light in the darkness that makes everything new. I know there is new life in suffering that opens a new earth for me. I know there is a joy beyond sorrow that rejuvenates my heart. Yes, Lord, I know that you are, that you act, that you love, that you indeed are Light, Life, and Truth. People, work, plans, projects, ideas, meetings, buildings, paintings, music, and literature all can only give me real joy and peace when I can see and hear them as reflections of your presence, your glory, your kingdom. Let me then see and hear. 

Let me be so taken by what you show me and by what you say to me that your vision and hearing become my guide in life and impart meaning to all my concerns. 

Let me see and hear what is really real, and let me have the courage to keep unmasking the endless unrealities, which disturb my life every day. Now I see only in a mirror, but one day, O Lord, I hope to see you face to face. 

Amen. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: A waterfall that is not a waterfall, Mascarene Plateau, Mauritius, https://www.insider.com/optical-illusions-nature-photos-t2018-5 

Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 4, 2022: That we may gain wisdom of heart...

That we may gain wisdom of heart…

How can we ever hope to see as God sees?

    It should be no surprise to anyone that God’s way of thinking about things is vastly different from humankind’s way of thinking about things. The Book of Wisdom reminds us of this vast difference: Who can conceive what the Lord intends? For the deliberations of mortals are timid, and unsure are our plans. God’s wisdom is not our wisdom, but the author of the Book of Wisdom knew that God does at times give wisdom and send his holy spirit from on high. The wise person, therefore, remains open to God’s guidance and will, attentive to God’s revelation; he moves through life accompanied by God so that he might participate in the ongoing miracle that is life in God. His path is straight because God walks with him and he walks with God. The author of Psalm 90 knows this: In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge. The psalmist asks the Lord to teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart; with such wisdom, the psalmist hopes to see as God sees, with a changed vision, a changed perspective. 

    Jesus’ wisdom is no less challenging, both to his disciples and to us. It’s hard for just about anyone to get his head around Jesus’ statement in Luke’s Gospel that If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. But his is a radical call to discipleship; we are called to surrender all in order to follow. If we do so, if we choose Christ first, then everything important will come, including solid relationships with family members, because our connections will be in Christ. Like the king marching into battle, we must know what tactics are necessary for success in advance, and in the case of Jesus, that success comes through the cross, through sacrifice and renunciation. We can only understand such a request if we have wisdom of heart, if we seek to see with God’s vision rather than our own. Likewise, Paul urges Philemon, his beloved co-worker in Christ, to see the slave Onesimus with new eyes, to see him no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a brother. Philemon would have to sacrifice some aspects of his relationship with Onesimus, but he would choose to do so for his friend Paul, and also for Christ. 

    We sometimes lose sight of all that Christ calls us to. But if we strive to see as the Lord sees, if we open to God’s wisdom and allow him to fill us with his kindness, we will be laying a firm foundation of faith, our eye ever on the prize that is eternal life. 

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