Poverty of spirit (Fr. James Martin)

   When Jesus of Nazareth opened his mouth and began preaching the Beatitudes by the Sea of Galilee, as recounted in the Gospel of Matthew, his listeners were most likely confused. Or alarmed. Or even offended. 

    “Blessed are the poor in spirit"? What? At a time when poverty was usually seen as an embarrassment, or worse, as a punishment for one’s sins or for a lack of industry, the invitation to be “poor in spirit” must have struck many listeners as bizarre. Isn’t God’s Spirit a good thing? Shouldn’t I want to be rich in spirit? 

    But poverty of spirit was one of Jesus’s ways of talking about humility. Think of the Pharisee in Luke’s Gospel, who prays in the Temple, utterly confident of his own holiness. He prays, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.” Even if we don’t fast twice a week and tithe, many of us may occasionally catch ourselves thinking similar thoughts: “Boy, I’m a lot holier than that other guy!” But Jesus contrasts him with the tax collector who does not even raise his eyes to heaven and prays “God have mercy on me, a sinner.” The tax collector is poor in spirit, that is, he understands his radical reliance on God. Yet, paradoxically, he is rich in Jesus’s eyes.

    Poverty of spirit means that you understand your ultimate dependence on God--for everything. As philosophers like to say, you see that your whole life is “contingent.” 

    Yet it is not a hopeless or despairing state. Just the opposite. Why? Because everything you are, your whole being, and all of your talents and skills, comes from and is sustained by God; and so there is no need to worry about anything. Or fear anything. “My help is in the Lord,” as Psalm 121 says, “who made heaven and earth.” 

   It is also not a state of inactivity. When we are poor in spirit, we don’t simply wait around idly to let God do something, we are filled with the confidence that God is with us. And so we act. We do. We love. We participate. We contribute. We use all of the skills and talents that God gave us to help, in our own way, build up the Kingdom of God. Without God, we can do nothing. With God, all things are possible. 

    Some of those who were on the Mount of the Beatitudes that day probably have gone away confused, or even disgusted. But some of them may have lingered a bit to discuss what Jesus had said. "What do you think he meant by that?" And some of them, who were able to see in that phrase an invitation to a new way of life, followed Jesus, all the way to the Cross. 

    And there on the Cross he emptied himself totally, bringing to a close an earthly life that was, in its unique way, poor in spirit. Then, three days later he became immeasurably rich. And enriched all of us. 

--Fr. James Martin, 

Facebook, June 11, 2012 

Image source: Helena Bochorakova-Dittrichova, Sermon on the Mount, http://sacredartmeditations.com/life/detail/44

Beātitūdō (Bishop Robert Barron)

    Theologian N.T. Wright has pointed out that the Old Testament is essentially an unfinished symphony. It is the articulation of a hope but without a realization of that hope. Thus, as the fulfillment of Israel’s entire story, Jesus begins his primary teaching with the Beatitudes, a title that stems from the Latin noun beātitūdō, meaning "happy" or "blessed." 

    Why is [the Sermon on the Mount] so important? Because it is the Son of God telling us how to be happy. It is the one who can’t be wrong telling us how to achieve that which each of us most basically wants. What could be more compelling? 

    At the heart of Jesus’ program are these Beatitudes: "Blessed are the merciful" and "Blessed are the peacemakers." These name the very heart of the spiritual program, for they name the ways that we participate most directly in the divine life. 

    Through this series of paradoxes, surprises, and reversals, Jesus begins setting a topsy-turvy universe aright. How should we understand them? A key is the Greek word makarios, rendered "blessed" or "happy" or perhaps even "lucky," which is used to start each of the Beatitudes. 

    [Moreover,] one of the most important words to describe God in the Old Testament is chesed (tender mercy). The New Testament version of this is found in the first letter of John: God is agape (love). Everything else we say about God should be seen as an aspect of this chesed and this agape. Chesed is compassion; agape is willing the good of the other. Therefore, if you want to be happy, desire to be like God. Do it and you’ll be happy. 

    Here Jesus is telling us how to realize our deepest desire, which is the desire for God. 

--Bishop Robert Barron, 

Gospel Reflections, 

June 8, 2020 & November 1, 2022 

Image source: Thomas Saunders Nash, The Sermon on the Mount, Manchester Art Gallery, https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-sermon-on-the-mount-205689

To live a life shaped by the Beatitudes (Pope Francis)

   In the eyes of the world, those with less are discarded, while those with more are privileged. Not so for God: the more powerful are subjected to rigorous scrutiny, while the least are God’s privileged ones. 

    Jesus, who is Wisdom in person, completes this reversal in the Gospel, and he does so with his very first sermon, with the Beatitudes. The reversal is total: the poor, those who mourn, the persecuted are all called blessed. How is this possible? For the world, it is the rich, the powerful and the famous who are blessed! It is those with wealth and means who count! But not for God: It is no longer the rich that are great, but the poor in spirit; not those who can impose their will on others, but those who are gentle with all. Not those acclaimed by the crowds, but those who show mercy to their brother and sisters. At this point, we may wonder: if I live as Jesus asks, what do I gain? Don’t I risk letting others lord it over me? Is Jesus’ invitation worthwhile, or a lost cause? That invitation is not worthless, but wise. 

    Jesus’ invitation is wise because love, which is the heart of the Beatitudes, even if it seems weak in the world’s eyes, in fact always triumphs. On the cross, it proved stronger than sin, in the tomb, it vanquished death. That same love made the martyrs victorious in their trials – and how many martyrs have there been in the last century, more even than in the past! Love is our strength, the source of strength for those of our brothers and sisters who here too have suffered prejudice and indignities, mistreatment and persecutions for the name of Jesus. Yet while the power, the glory and the vanity of the world pass away, love remains. As the Apostle Paul told us: “Love never ends” (1 Cor 13:8). To live a life shaped by the Beatitudes, then, is to make passing things eternal, to bring heaven to earth.

--Pope Francis, Homily, March 6, 2021, Baghdad, Iraq 

Image source: Sadao Watanabe, Sermon on the Mount (1968), https://crtaylorbooks.com/tag/sermon-on-the-mount/ 

Full text of the Pope’s homily

When our knees hit the floor (J. Kiddard & M. Williamson)

Anything you can’t control is
teaching you how to let go.

--Jackson Kiddard 

    Something very beautiful happens to people when their world has fallen apart: a humility, a nobility, a higher intelligence emerges at just the point when our knees hit the floor. Perhaps, in a way, that's where humanity is now: about to discover we're not as smart as we thought we were, and will be forced by life to surrender our attacks and defenses, which avail us of nothing, and finally break through into the collective beauty of who we really are. 

 --Marianne Williamson 

Source of images: https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2023/january/team-damar-god-faith-and-prayer-become-the-focus-after-hamlins-heart-attack-on-the-field

If we all lived the Sermon on the Mount (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

   Jesus was a great moral teacher and his teachings, if followed, would transform the world. Simply put, if we all lived the Sermon on the Mount, our world would be loving, peaceful, and just; but self-interest is often resistant to moral teaching. From the Gospels, we see that it was not Jesus’ teaching that swayed the powers of evil and ultimately revealed the power of God. The triumph of goodness and the final power of God were revealed instead through his death, by a grain of wheat falling in the ground and dying and so bearing lots of fruit.

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser OMI,

Facebook, October 25, 2021

Image source: Cosimo Roselli, The Sermon on the Mount (1481-1482), https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Cosimo_Rosselli_Sermone_della_Montagna.jpg

Sunday Gospel Reflection, January 29, 2023: Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth...

Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth…

Do you know how much you need God? 

    In the time of the prophet Zephaniah, the people of Israel are seeking control of their own world, rather than recognizing their need for the Lord. In an attempt to turn the people from their evil ways, Zephaniah reminds them that relationship with God should be their first priority, and that relationship is born of humility and life-giving justice. When Jerusalem is restored, God will single out the remnant that remained faithful: But I will leave as a remnant in your midst a people humble and lowly, who shall take refuge in the name of the Lord. This remnant knows that they need God and recognize the qualities of God listed in Psalm 146: The Lord keeps faith forever, secures justice for the oppressed, and so on. To be humble is to live in such a way that we know we need God, that we need God’s presence, that we need God’s love, and thus we work to hold him at the center of our lives, seeking the Lord from a stance of profound humility. 

    In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus offers the Beatitudes, or blessings, as part of his Sermon on the Mount. In each and every case, the people who are blessed are notable for some manifestation of humility: they are poor in spirit, recognizing their dependence upon God, for without God, life is without meaning; or they hunger and thirst for righteousness, for right relationship with God, a relationship in which humility trumps self-sufficiency; or they are persecuted and insulted precisely because they recognize overtly their need for God. Each is acutely aware of their need for God; each seeks to hold the Lord at the center of their lives. As Paul will later tell the Corinthians, God chose the lowly and the weak, those who count for nothing to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast in God. Christianity is a reversal of the world order that prizes self-sufficiency and control; it is through our humility, our openness to reliance upon God, that God will work in and through us. Our participation in worship is a marker of that dependence: to worship is to recognize our profound need for God and the place God holds in our lives. Let us come together to embrace his presence and his love, that he might lead us ever closer to him.

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

We're called to walk together (Sr. Thea Bowman)

 

  Today we’re called to walk together in a new way toward that Land of Promise and to celebrate who we are and whose we aren’t. If we, as a Church, walk together – don’t let nobody separate you – that’s one thing black folk can teach you – don’t let folks divide you up – you know, put the lay folk over here and the clergy over here – put the bishops in one room and the clergy in the other room – put the women over here and the men over here – The Church teaches us that the Church is a family of families and the family got to stay together and we know, that if we do stay together– we know that if we do stay together – if we walk and talk and work and play and stand together in Jesus’ name – we’ll be who we say we are – truly Catholic and we shall overcome – overcome the poverty – overcome the loneliness – overcome the alienation and build together a Holy city … where they’ll know that we are here because we love one another. 

--Sr. Thea Bowman

 

Image source 1: https://shanekastler.typepad.com/pastor_shanes_blog/2017/10/different-backgrounds-yet-one-in-christ.html 
Image source 2: https://freegiftfromgod.com/2019/10/becoming-one-in-christ-jesus/
Quotation source. 

Do not fear what may happen tomorrow (St. Francis de Sales)

   Be at peace. Do not look forward in fear to the changes of life; rather look to them with full hope as they arise. God, whose very own you are, will deliver you from out of them. He has kept you hitherto, and He will lead you safely through all things; and when you cannot stand it, God will bury you in his arms. Do not fear what may happen tomorrow; the same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you then and every day. He will either shield you from suffering, or give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, and put aside all anxious thoughts and imagination. 

--St. Francis de Sales

Happy Feast of St. Francis de Sales!    

Image source: Lorenzo Veneziano, Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew (ca. 1370), https://www.wga.hu/html_m/l/lorenzo/venezian/predell2.html 

Quotation source

To listen to the call of God (Rich Mullins)

   To listen to the call of God means to accept some of the emptiness we have in our lives and rather than always trying to drown out that feeling of emptiness, we allow it instead to be a door we go through in order to meet God. 

--Rich Mullins        

Image source: https://frdurkee.org/2020/05/07/jesus-is-the-open-door/ 
Quotation source

Trust at all times that God is with you (Henri Nouwen)

    You are constantly facing choices. The question is whether you choose for God or for your own doubting self. You know what the right choice is, but your emotions, passions, and feelings keep suggesting you choose the self-rejecting way. 

    The root choice is to trust at all times that God is with you and will give you what you most need… God says to you, “I love you. I am with you. I want to see you come closer to me and experience the joy and peace of my presence. I want to give you a new heart and a new spirit. I want you to speak with my mouth, see with my eyes, hear with my ears, touch with my hands. All that is mine is yours. Just trust me and let me be your God.” 

    This is the voice to listen to. And that listening requires a real choice, not just once in a while but every moment of every day and night. It is you who decides what you think, say, and do. You can think yourself into a depression, you can talk yourself into low self-esteem, you can act in a self-rejecting way. But you always have a choice to think, speak, and act in the name of God and so move toward the Light, the Truth, and the Life. 

--Henri Nouwen  

Image source: https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/02/17/2244804.htm
Quotation source

Imperfect people (Jeffrey Holland)

   Imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with. It must be terribly frustrating to Him, but He deals with it. 

--Jeffrey R. Holland 

Image source: The Last Supper, fresco in a church in Goreme, Turkey (13th c.), https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Biblical_Studies_%28NT%29/III._THE_TWELVE_APOSTLES#/media/File:Last_supper_capp.JPG 

Quotation source

Fishers of men (Bishop Robert Barron)

   [In this Sunday’s Gospel,] Jesus calls his first disciples. What is it about this scene that is so peaceful and right? Somehow it gets at the very heart of Jesus’ life and work, revealing what he is about. He comes into the world as the second person of the Blessed Trinity, a representative from the community that is God—and thus his basic purpose is to draw the world into community around him. 

   Jesus says to Simon and Andrew, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” This tells us something about how God acts. He is direct and in-your-face; he does the choosing. “Come after me,” Jesus says. He is not offering a doctrine, a theology, or a set of beliefs. He is offering himself. It’s as if he’s saying, “Walk in my path; walk in imitation of me.” 

   Finally, Jesus explains, “I will make you fishers of men.” This is one of the best one-liners in Scripture. Notice the first part of the phrase: “I will make you...” This is counter to the culture’s prevailing view that we’re self-made, that we invent and define our own reality. Jesus puts this lie to bed. We learn from him that it’s God who acts, and if we give ourselves to his creative power, he will make us into something far better than we ever could. 

   And what he makes us is always a reflection of himself: a fisher of men. God wants to draw all things and all people into a community around him, in him. He is a fisher of people—and so wants us to be. 

--Bishop Robert Barron,

Gospel Reflections, 

November 30, 2021 & July 6, 2022 

Image source: Timothy Schmaltz, Fisher of Men, https://www.sculpturebytps.com/portfolio_page/fisher-of-men/

Sunday Gospel Reflection, January 22, 2023: They left their nets and followed him...

They left their nets and followed him…

How profound is our trust in the Lord? 

    Over the centuries, fear has always been part of human decision-making, and fear undermines our ability to trust. At the time of the writing of the Book of Isaiah, the people walked in darkness until King Hezekiah tries to rebuild a kingdom, the land west of the Jordan, destroyed by alliances with the Assyrians and others. Isaiah reminds Hezekiah that the people of Israel must trust in God, not in political alliances. When they do trust, they will know abundant joy and great rejoicing, for they have seen a great light, the light of God’s faithfulness to God’s people. As Psalm 27 says, The Lord is their light and their salvation, and so they do see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living. They trust, and where there is trust, there is no room for fear. 

    Jesus quotes this very passage from Isaiah in Luke’s Gospel, but this time Jesus himself is the fulfillment of the prophecy, the great light that has shone. In the Incarnation, Jesus is doing God’s will, and he will call others to join him: Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men, he says to Simon and Andrew. There is no reason for these men to follow Jesus, yet there is something about the power of Jesus’ invitation, its very radicality, that resonates with them, and so they leave their nets and follow him. Theirs is an extraordinary measure of trust in the Lord. 

    It is dangerous to remain comfortable in our Christianity if we fail to see Christ’s call to more. Paul reminds the Corinthians that it is important that there be no divisions among them, but that they be united in the same mind and in the same purpose. Jesus Christ calls us to deeper faith, and to a more profound response to his love in our world, a love for all, in union. But we can only say yes to this call if we trust, trust in him and in his love at work in us, trust in our baptismal promise, trust that, as we follow, we will one day grasp the depth of his love for us with abundant joy and great rejoicing! 

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

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Behold the Lamb of God!

Behold the Lamb of God, 

behold him who takes away 

the sins of the world. 

Blessed are those called 

to the supper of the Lamb. 

   The bishop or priest celebrating Mass raises the consecrated host and chalice so that we can gaze upon the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. Alongside John the Baptist’s words of witness to his disciples we add those of John the Evangelist in beholding the Lamb who was slain but forever alive in Heaven (see Revelation 19:9). The Lord is calling us to sup with him, not only in this celebration of the Eucharist, but forever in eternity.

   Contemplating the Lamb hearkens back to the Old Testament, back to salvation history in its phase when it consisted more of foretelling and not so much on fulfilling (which would happen in the New). The unblemished lamb was immolated, a pure and perfect offering. In comparison we are all the “black sheep” of the family with no merit for which to take credit. As we gaze upon that pristine white consecrated host we’re reminded of all the perfection and purity that sacramentally lays behind it: Our Lord, offered for us. 

   We don’t just consider a sacrifice being offered, but a sacrifice offered for us. A sacrifice of someone innocent, innocent in the sense of being harmless as well as not being guilty of any wrongdoing. Yet, like a lamb led to the slaughter, a sacrifice that offered himself with docility and without any struggle, surrendering himself to evil and death out of love for us. He is raised before us, immolated, and the only thing remaining to make the sacrifice complete is to eat of it.

--Roman Catholic Spirituality

Image source 1: Domenichino (Domenico Zampieri), Behold the Lamb of God, fresco (17th c.), https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sant'andrea_della_valle,_affreschi_del_domenichino_08.JPG 

Image source 2:  https://www.facebook.com/mountcarmelmv

Quotation source 

What God had in mind (Fr. Greg Boyle & Pope Benedict XVI)

You are exactly what God
had in mind when he made you.

--Fr. Greg Boyle

   Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed. Each of us is loved. Each of us is necessary. There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him. The task of the shepherd, the task of the fisher of men, can often seem wearisome. But it is beautiful and wonderful, because it is truly a service to joy, to God’s joy which longs to break into the world. 

--Pope Benedict XVI 

Image source: The Creation Mosaic, National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C., https://www.nationalshrine.org/blog/the-beginning-and-end-the-transept-mosaics-of-the-upper-church/ 

Quotation source 1 

Quotation source 2

Our unique wounds (MLK Jr. & Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

Whatever your life's work is, do it well.

--Martin Luther King, Jr.

   I’m convinced that God calls each of us to a vocation and to a special work here on earth more on the basis of our wounds than on the basis of our gifts. Our gifts are real and important, but they only grace others when they are shaped into a special kind of compassion by the uniqueness of our own wounds. Our unique, special wounds can help make each of us a unique, special healer. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI 

Image source: Matthew, Mary Magdalene & Jesus, The Chosen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IUL9yq0We8

Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

Everyone is summoned to discipleship (Bishop Robert Barron)

     The life of a disciple is a matter of obeying commandments. Listening to commands is tied closely to love on the part of the one who commands, and since love is nothing but the willing of the good of the other, the obedience that Jesus speaks of is a surrender to the one who massively wants what is best for the surrenderer. 

     I am urging you all to see the radicality of Jesus’ call to discipleship, which cuts through so many of the social conventions of his time and ours. I am urging you to see that everyone—rich and poor, men and women, those on the inside and those on the outs—is summoned to discipleship, and that this summons is the most important consideration of all. It is the one thing necessary. 

 --Bishop Robert Barron, 

Gospel Reflection, 

July 21, 2020 

Image source: Ottavio Vannini, San Giovanni che indica il Cristo (17th c.), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calling_of_the_disciples#/media/File:Ottavio_vannini,_san_giovanni_che_indica_il_Cristo_a_Sant'Andrea.jpg

If God is the center (St. Vincent de Paul)

 

    If God is the center of your life, no words are necessary. Your mere presence will touch hearts.

--St. Vincent de Paul

Image source: https://www.osfhealthcare.org/blog/six-daily-tips-to-help-you-re-center-yourself-in-god/
Quotation source

Every Christian has a call (Charles Spurgeon)

     It has come to be a dreadfully common belief in the Christian Church that the only man who has a “call” is the man who devotes all his time to what is called “the ministry,” whereas all Christian service is ministry, and every Christian has a call to some kind of ministry or another. 

--Charles Spurgeon 

Image source: https://www.ajc.com/neighborhoods/hope-atlanta-distributes-meals-on-thursday-for-women-and-children/GPBC4DD4DRHFZDI3XDCZVYCV4Y/ 
Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, January 15, 2023: Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will...

Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will…

Are we accomplishing all that God calls us to?

    From time immemorial, God has dedicated each of his faithful ones for a purpose, forming us as his servant from the womb, as the prophet Isaiah says, that we might be the conduits for God’s action. The Second Servant Song makes it clear that it is not enough for the people of Israel to be servants: they are also to be a light to the nations, drawing all people to God at God’s own initiative, that God’s salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. Psalm 40 reminds us that God stoops toward us and hears us, reaching down into our existence to help us, deepening our awareness of him in our every experience of his work. God then looks for praise from those who recognize what God has been about: he put a new song into my mouth, the psalmist sings, a new means by which to witness to God’s action and give thanksgiving from the heart. And so the psalmist is ready to fulfill the purpose God has set forth for him as well: Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will. 

    In John’s Gospel, John the Baptist has been sent not to offer a baptism of repentance but of revelation: Behold the Lamb of God, John announces when he sees Jesus, witnessing to the revelation of the Incarnation. Jesus is the one John was sent to proclaim, Jesus, the Lamb of sacrifice, revealed by God as the one sent to bring salvation by taking our sins to death with him. Jesus is the ultimate servant, the ultimate light to the nations, calling all to his Father. Yet not all were immediately clear on the concept. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians must point out the ways in which they are falling short of accomplishing all God has called them to. Even Paul’s greeting is replete with charged meaning, somewhat hidden from us but doubtless clear to the Corinthian community: Grace to you, Paul says – may God be present in your midst – and peace, for God’s presence brings peace. It is this grace and this peace that will bring the unity in holiness to which they as a community are called, unity in Christ, men and women called to be holy. We too are called by God to be holy; each one of us is formed for a purpose known only to God. How are you going to live up to yours? 

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

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Matthew calls them Magi (Shane Liesegang SJ)

Matthew calls them Magi 

Everyone else skips them 

But nobody ever calls them kings 

Or wise men 

We did that 

The later ones 

Who wanted to worship, to follow, 

Who couldn’t imagine foreign wisdom 

Or authority 

That wasn’t a monarch 

Or a man 

How we labor to squeeze God into our box 

But I like to imagine a wise woman 

Decked in filigree and shine 

Who saw a star and knew in her deepest gut 

That something 

Big was happening 

She sailed over sand seas, 

Rough waters, peril on one horizon and hope on the other 

Trusting in the truth of that hope 

To carry her ashore 

Where sat a small unremarkable shelter 

And that itch, the one she couldn’t describe, 

Was finally scratched 

She pushed through a crowd 

Thick with animals and onlookers 

Sure of her destination 

Pulling a gold chain from across her face, 

To delight the babe who laughed as children do 

Anointing him with oil, marking his destiny, 

And setting incense alight so that the stale smell of beasts might be, for the moment, forgotten 

Then, after cradling him and watching his unfocused eyes search her smile, 

She set him down with a brush of lips to forehead 

And came to his mother, 

Exhausted, rejoicing 

These two queens of the universe, 

Embracing in the knowledge 

That in this particular 

Now, 

Now that hope and truth had flesh, 

They could breathe and wonder and fear 

Together

And she stroked the sleeping face 

The labor done, the work beginning 

Looking to the star, she figured she might stay 

--Shane Liesegang, SJ,
The Mágos, a poem 

Image source: Edward Burne-Jones, The Adoration of the Magi, tapestry, https://sparkill.org/2022/01/01/feast-of-the-epiphany-of-our-lord/ 

Poem source

Open to the truth (Pope Benedict XVI)

   The light of Christ is so clear and strong that it makes the language of the cosmos and of the scriptures intelligible, so that all those who, like the magi, are open to the truth can recognize it and join in contemplating the savior of the world. 

--Pope Benedict XVI        

Image source: Nickolas H., The Magi, https://network.crcna.org/topic/specialized-communities/prison-ministry/remembering-magi-through-prison-art 

Quotation source

To let the light of truth lead us (Fr. Billy Swan)

   The Feast of the Epiphany is a call to conversion. It is a call to stop manipulating reality with perception and to begin conforming perception and ourselves to what is real and what is true. It is about our desire to love the truth, seek the whole truth, and let the light of truth lead us to wherever it takes us. 

--Fr. Billy Swan, The Epiphany: 

 Pulled from Fear to Truth 

Image source: Gerrit Claesz Bleker, Adoration of the Magi (17th c.) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gerrit_Claesz._Bleker_-_Adoration_of_the_Magi_-_WGA02260.jpg

Called to new vision (Barbara E. Quinn)

    When the light of the Epiphany star sears our souls, it also casts a beam of light across and beyond any horizon we have imagined before, calling us to a new vision. Yes, our days are punctuated by normal, everyday common doins’ but when we make space for God’s grace to inhabit us and soak us through to the depths of our hearts, we are amazed and drawn out of our everydayness to see and do the unimaginable. 

    God’s light will show us amazing possibilities for our world… if we let the Light and Spirit of this small and vulnerable babe penetrate our hearts, allowing us to see beyond the darkness of our too small worlds, the shrunken horizons of our own making. It is not impossible if we are faithful to our everyday calls like the shepherds and ever ready to travel towards new and wider horizons like the wise Magi sojourners. [Nothing is] impossible if we trust that God teaches us to see to the inside of our daily realities where the power of God is at work, always beckoning us deeper and forward. In the words of William Blake: 

 To see a World in a Grain of Sand 

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, 

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 

Eternity in an hour. 

 

                   (From “Auguries of Innocence”) 

 

     Let this be our Epiphany prayer. 

--Barbara E. Quinn, RSCJ       

Image source:  Dandelion cross section showing curved stigma with pollen, magnified 25x.  Photograph by Dr. Robert Markus, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2017/oct/08/nikon-small-world-photomicrography-competition-2017-pictures  

Quotation source & complete article

The Magi are filled with awe (St. Peter Chrysologus)

    The Magi are filled with awe by what they see; heaven on earth and earth in heaven; man in God and God in man; they see enclosed in a tiny body the one whom the entire world cannot contain. 

--St. Peter Chrysologus 

Image source: Pseudo-Jacopino di Francesco, The Nativity and the Adoration of the Magi, ca. 1325-1330, https://learn.ncartmuseum.org/artwork/the-nativity-and-the-adoration-of-the-magi/ 

Quotation source

Break open the very best of yourself (Bishop Robert Barron)

    Friends, the story of the Magi told in today’s Gospel is a summary of the principal dynamics of the spiritual life. Watching the night sky with scrupulous attention for signs of God’s purpose, the Magi evoke the importance of alertness in the spiritual order. We must keep our eyes open to see what God is up to. 

   

    Once they saw the star, they moved, despite the length of the journey. Sometimes people know what God wants them to do, but they don’t act, either out of fear, laziness, or the influence of bad habits. The Magi teach us to move. 

    When they spoke to Herod of the birth of a new King, he tried to use them to destroy the baby. When you walk the path that God has laid out for you, expect opposition. 

    The wise men came to Bethlehem and gave the child their precious gifts. When you come to Christ, break open the very best of yourself and make it a gift for him. 

    Finally, they returned to their home country by another route. As Fulton Sheen commented so magnificently: of course they did; for no one comes to Christ and goes back the same way he came! 

--Bishop Robert Barron,
Gospel Reflection,

January 5, 2020

Image source: Adoration of the Magi, panel from a Roman sarcophagus, 4th c. AD. From the cemetery of St. Agnes in Rome. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adoration_magi_Pio_Christiano_Inv31459.jpg

Sunday Gospel Reflection, January 8, 2023: Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come...

Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come…

How have God’s blessings illuminated your life? 

    Toward the end of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, the people of Israel are at last returning from exile in Babylon, and Isaiah reveals God’s promise of many blessings to come: Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come, the glory of the Lord shines upon you. Where other nations may remain in the darkness of ignorance of God, the people of Israel may now look forward to prosperity and to a restoration of their relationship with God. It is by that light, concrete evidence that the love of God has been restored to them, that Israel itself can become a light to other nations, the people's joy causing them to be radiant and to shine as a beacon drawing all to the Lord. The king himself plays an important role in God’s activity. Psalm 72 is the people’s prayer for their king, that he may be blessed with God’s judgment and justice, so that he might govern God’s people equitably, and himself be blessing to all in return. 

    Light is again a powerful image of blessing in the story of the kings who come to pay the Christ child homage, in Matthew’s Gospel. Following the star they saw at its rising, the arrival of foreign kings reminds the Jewish community of Matthew’s time that Christ, the ultimate Incarnation of the blessing promised in Isaiah and now fulfilled in the birth of the Messiah, came to bring salvation for all people. The light of that star is a revelation – an epiphany – of God’s universal call to holiness, a fact echoed in Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians: it has now been revealed that the Gentiles are coheirs, copartners in the promise, Paul writes. The blessing that is the Light of Christ, revealed in the light of that star shining over Bethlehem, shines for all peoples. Thus is darkness dispelled, that all may be radiant witnesses, shining beacons to the joy that comes of the manifold blessings of God! 

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

Holy Mother (Eric Clapton / Luciano Pavarotti)

Holy Mother, where are you? 

Tonight, I feel broken in two

I've seen the stars fall from the sky

Holy Mother, can't keep from crying

Oh, I need your help this time

Get me through this lonely night

Tell me, please, which way to turn

To find myself again

Holy Mother, hear my prayer

Somehow I know you're still there

Send me, please, some peace of mind

Take away this pain

I can't wait (I can't wait)

I can't wait (I can't wait)

I can't wait any longer (can't wait any longer)

I can't wait I can't wait (I can't wait)

I can't wait for you

Holy Mother, hear my cry

I've cursed your name a thousand times

I've felt the anger running through my soul

All I need is a hand to hold

Oh, I feel the end has come

No longer my legs will run

You know I would rather be

In your arms tonight

When my hands no longer play

My voice is still, I fade away

Holy Mother, then I'll be

Lying in, safe within your arms 

To hear Eric Clapton, Luciano Pavarotti & the East London Gospel Choir sing Holy Mother, click on the video below: 

Image source: Kelly Lattimore, Mama (icon, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/24/arts/design/george-floyd-painting-catholic-university.html
Video source