Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 3, 2023: Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself...

Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself…

Do we know what we are getting ourselves into when we follow Christ? 

    The prophet Jeremiah seems to have had certain expectations about what it would be like to be the mouthpiece of God, expectations that were not, in the end, fulfilled: You duped me, O Lord! Jeremiah cries out after a humiliating night in the stocks. Yet, although he believes he will speak in God’s name no more, Jeremiah cannot help himself: but then it becomes like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones. Jeremiah had no idea how difficult the road would be when he was called by the Lord; the role is more than he anticipated. But, like the psalmist in Psalm 63, Jeremiah still depends on the Lord; he is still drawn to the Lord: O God, you are my God whom I seek; for you my flesh pines and my soul thirsts. Nothing else sustains humankind; we can only depend on one being to give us life. The very fact that Jeremiah calls out to the Lord suggests that Jeremiah recognizes where his strength comes from. Ultimately, Jeremiah, like the psalmist, glorifies the Lord, blessing him while he lives. 

   Jesus’ disciples don’t seem to be ready for the truth Jesus shares with them in Matthew’s Gospel, namely, that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly and be killed and on the third day be raised. Peter, in particular, responds badly: God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you, he says to Jesus. But salvation comes on God’s terms, not our own; we tend to define salvation too narrowly, thereby threatening it. Thus, we must, as Jesus tells the disciples, take up our cross, and follow him. Our cross is not always well-defined; we don’t always know what it will demand of us. Yet we must, as Paul tells the Romans, offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, discerning God’s will and subjecting ourselves to it, participating in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, and thereby becoming a conduit of his grace, which requires ongoing transformation, the renewal of our minds. That is, we must remain open to God, and to God’s will, for, if not, there can be no transformation, no renewal of our minds. 

   In baptism, we take up our cross, though thereafter we might not always be pleased by the prospect. And yet, in fact, we sign on for whatever is necessary. Our cross will continue to be transformed with us, in an ongoing way, as we are transformed, daily. When we surrender to God’s will, as Jeremiah has, as Paul encourages the Romans to do, as Jesus insists he himself must do, it can be hard. The call we’ve accepted, the promises we’ve made, do not mean that all will go as we think it ought. If we have accepted the Lord, we will find ourselves in situations that are less than comfortable. Yet if we truly accept his will and follow, his name will burn in our hearts and in our bones until we call upon that name, and with exultant lips, praise God! 

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

One great act of fidelity (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

    Ronald Knox, a British theologian, says that we have never truly been faithful to Jesus. When we’re honest, we have to admit that we don’t love our enemies, don’t turn the other cheek, don’t bless those who curse us, don’t forgive those who kill our loved ones, don’t reach out enough to the poor, and don’t extend our compassion out equally to the bad as well as to the good. Rather, we cherry-pick the teachings of Jesus. 

     But, says Knox, we have been faithful in one great way, through the ritual of the Eucharist. Jesus asked us to keep celebrating that ritual until he returns and, 2000 years later, we are still celebrating it. The ritual of the Eucharist is one great act of fidelity, and the good news is that this ritual will ultimately be enough. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser OMI

Facebook, May 19, 2023

Image source: Unknown Italian artist, The Last Supper (13th c.), https://noma.org/collection/the-last-supper/

Embedded in the life of community (Henri Nouwen)

    Much that has been said about prayer might create the false impression that prayer is a private, individualistic, and nearly secret affair, so personal and so deeply hidden in our inner life that it can hardly be talked about, even less be shared. 

   The opposite is true. Just because prayer is so personal and arises from the center of our life, it is to be shared with others. Just because prayer is the most precious expression of being human, it needs the constant support and protection of the community to grow and flower. Just because prayer is our highest vocation, needing careful attention and faithful perseverance, we cannot allow it to be a private affair. 

   Just because prayer asks for a patient waiting in expectation, it should never become the most individualistic expression of the most individualistic emotion, but should always remain embedded in the life of the community of which we are part. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Mill Valley, Easter Vigil 2023, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=608882384610513&set=a.604943685004383
Quotation source

Peter's gaze (Pope Francis)

    [Pope Francis has] said that we have to “be prepared to integrate all our own views of the Church––however legitimate they may be––into the horizon of Peter’s gaze.” And we have to integrate every personal idea or opinion about the Church––however legitimate they may be––into Peter’s specific mission. 

   What is Peter’s gaze? Peter’s gaze is the “pastoral charity that embraces the whole world and wishes to be present… in those all-too-often forgotten places where the needs of the Church and of humanity are the greatest,” not on the seats of honor. And what is Peter’s mission? Peter’s mission is to be “at the service of the communion and unity of Christ’s flock.” To be at the service of communion and unity: that’s the mission of Peter. 

--Pope Francis,
qtd. by New Camaldoli Heritage

Image source:  Charles Poërson, St. Peter Preaching in Jerusalem (1642), 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St._Peter_Preaching_in_Jerusalem_LACMA_M.81.73.jpg
Quotation source

He recognizes who Jesus is (Elyse Raby)

   [Peter] has a unique insight, and proclaims that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. On the basis of this faith, his act of correctly naming Jesus, Jesus makes him the rock and foundation of his church, and invests him with authority and power in the kingdom of heaven—symbolized by the keys and by binding and loosing. Peter is a flawed human being, but he grasps who Jesus really is—the one sent by the living God. And for Jesus, that is a good-enough foundation for the church. 

   I want to be clear about this point—Peter is declared the rock and foundation of the church not because of who he is, or because of any particular skills he has, or degrees he’s earned, and certainly not because he is a male. He is made the rock because he recognizes who Jesus truly is. That is the foundation of his authority. 

   This gospel, therefore, gives us room to recognize and celebrate other disciples, past and present, who are authorities in faith for us. They may not be in positions of authority—they may not be ordained, or employed as parish leaders—but they are individuals whose lives accurately attest to Jesus as the Christ, son of the living God. 

   This is the kind of lived authority, the kind of witness and testimony, that opens the doors to the kingdom of heaven. This is the authority that makes Christianity credible. It is the kind of authority that we so desperately need from our church leaders who are in positions of authority. But it is also the authority that we all can claim if we shape our lives and hearts like Jesus’ life and heart. It is an authority not based on our status as ordained or lay, our academic degrees, or our gender. It is an authority, in line with Peter’s, that is based on intimate, lived familiarity with the Gospel. 

   But like Peter, we all can doubt our faith and begin to sink. We can misunderstand Jesus. If we think only as humans do, and not as God does, we can also become stumbling blocks to Jesus’ transformation of the world. 

   Any exercise of human authority requires humble and constant attention to the Authority —God’s own self—the one who invites us to walk on water, to know Jesus as the Christ, to take up his cross, and to live lives that testify to our faith. 

--Elyse Raby 

Image source: The Commission to Peter, from the Pericopes of Henry II (11th c.), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_16:19#/media/File:Meister_des_Perikopenbuches_Heinrichs_II._001.jpg
Quotation source

If you came to seek God (St. John Chrysostom)

   If you came to the Church to look for holy people, then you have chosen poorly. But if you came here to seek God, you have made the right choice. 

--St. John Chrysostom      

Image source:  Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Mill Valley, Palm Sunday 2022,  https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=5183326688395378&set=a.5183331415061572 
Quotation source

Whenever we go to church (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

    On the night before he died, Jesus sat down with his disciples and what he found there was what we too find whenever we go to church: a sincere bunch of people struggling not to let the jealousies, irritations, self-preoccupations, and wounds of life drive them apart. We come to church and to the Eucharist to ask God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves: love each other. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser, Facebook, July 9, 2021 

Image source: Aloysius O’Kelly, Mass in a Connemara Cabin (1884), https://medium.com/@JimSlaven/art-and-the-revolution-2088f49b76bc

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 27, 2023: I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven...

I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven…

What gives us access to God’s kingdom? 

   In the time of King David, to be the keeper of the king’s keys was to control access to the priest-king David himself. Speaking through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord informs Shebna, master of the palace, that he will be thrust from office, and the key of the House of David will be placed on Eliakim’s shoulder, so that what Eliakim opens, no one shall shut; when he shuts, no one shall open. Clearly, the keeper of the keys held great power, yet it was power that came from God, not from man. Psalm 138 recognizes that any power human beings have always derives from God’s action. With humility, the psalmist acknowledges that he is subservient to the Lord: Your kindness, O Lord, endures forever; forsake not the work of your hands. 

   When, in Matthew’s Gospel, Peter recognizes Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus will similarly bestow upon Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven, a statement from which the Church derives its understanding of papal primacy. Prior to Jesus’ coming, the scribes and the Pharisees were supposed to help people have access to God, but their authority would be taken from them when they refuse to recognize Jesus as the Christ. Peter is thus given the power to open the doors to the kingdom, just as the Church is to open the kingdom of heaven to all – giving people access to God is her primary mission – so that one day they might know perfect union with God. 

   We cannot know what perfect union will look like, for inscrutable are God’s judgments and unsearchable his ways, as Paul tells the Romans. But thanks to the revelation of Jesus Christ, we have some sense of the depth of God’s love for us and of God’s profound presence in our lives. We are constantly seeking God; we cannot anticipate how God will next act in our lives, for who has known the mind of the Lord? However, we do find him in Eucharist, where we practice being one with him and with one another, opening ourselves to the kingdom of heaven as we enter into his love. 

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

Don't give up (Michael Franti & Spearhead)

Don't give up when your heart is weary 
Don't give up when your eyes are teary
Don't give up when your voice is trembling
When your life needs mendin'

Don't give up when the hurt is near you
Don't give up when the world seems to be broken
I'm still hopin' with my heart open, ay-ay
For a brighter day

Don't give up when your pride is bruised and
Don't give up when you fear you're losin'
Don't give up in your darkest hour
'Cause you got that power

Don't give up when you feel divided
Don't give up, I'll be by your side unbroken
I'm still hopin' with my heart open, ay-ay
For a brighter day 

And if you stay with me I will stay with you
For a brighter day

Don't give up, you just keep on fightin'
Even when your eyes are cryin'
Don't give up, you just keep on fightin'
(Don't give up) even when your eyes are cryin'… 

To hear Michael Franti & Spearhead perform Brighter Day, click on the video below:

Image source: https://juniaproject.com/power-dynamics-jesus-canaanite-woman-matthew-15/
Video source

Everyone embraced by what we hold dear (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

   As a church, giving witness to Christ today requires that we build communities that are wide enough to hold our differences. What we need is not a new technique, but a new sanctity. We don’t need some updating of the Gospel to make it more acceptable to the world, we need a more courageous radiating of its wide compassion. We also don’t need some new secret that catches people’s curiosity, but a way of following Christ that can hold more of the tensions of our world in proper balance, so that everyone, irrespective of temperament and ideology, will find themselves better understood and embraced by what we hold most dear. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI, Facebook 

Image source 1: Worship at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Mill Valley, https://www.facebook.com/mountcarmelmv/photos/a.5858947637499943/5858946197500087 

Image source 2: https://patrickwtjohnson.com/2017/08/14/jesus-racism-and-the-canaanite-woman/

Those who are foreigners (Pope Francis)

   How sad and painful it is to see closed doors: the closed doors of our selfishness, of our indifference towards those who are suffering, towards those who are foreigners, different, the migrant, the poor. Let's open those doors, please! In our words, deeds and daily activities, let's try to be like Jesus: an open door that never shuts in anyone’s face, a door that allows everyone to enter and experience the beauty of the Lord’s love and forgiveness. 

--Pope Francis, Homily, April 30, 2023 

Image source: Mary Button, Jesus at the Border: Stations of the Cross, https://www.aijcast.com/news/2019/2/27/mary-buttons-jesus-at-the-border-stations-of-the-cross (with Mary Button’s work available for purchase at: https://www.marybutton.com/shop-1).

The annoying other (Bishop Robert Barron)

  A long tradition stresses the perseverance of the Canaanite woman we meet in today’s Gospel. Augustine says that we pray in order to expand our will to accept what God is going to give us. Another reading shows how the woman exemplifies the proper attitude toward God, a combination of humility and boldness, of deference and defiance. We are creatures and God is God; nevertheless, God invites us into intimacy with him. 

   But I want to emphasize the reading conditioned by the "other." The Old Testament speaks insistently of the "stranger, the widow, and the orphan." The ethical life, in a biblical framework, is about the press of these people upon us. They press upon us even when we would greatly prefer them just to go away. 

   We the Church are the Body of Christ. And so people come to us demanding food, sustenance, friendship, love, shelter, or liberation. Often we are tempted to do what Jesus does initially and what the disciples do: tell them to back off. We are overloaded, busy, and preoccupied. We can’t be bothered. 

   But the whole of the Christian life consists in remembering the suffering and need of the annoying other. 

--Bishop Robert Barron,

Gospel Reflection, August 3, 2022 

Image source: Peter Gorban, Exorcising the Canaanite Woman’s Daughter, https://www.erarta.com/en/museum/collection/works/detail/G081009103/

May faith be the torch (Sr. Margaret Mary Alacoque)

   May faith be the torch which illuminates, animates, and sustains you.

--Sr. Margaret Mary Alacoque 

Image source: https://www.eileenbhahn.com/hold-the-torch-light-the-way/
Quotation source

Her humble tenacity (Gayle Somers)

   Now, Jesus can bear it no longer! What He must have suspected about the woman from their first exchange becomes crystal clear. This Canaanite woman, this pagan outsider, has exhibited the kind of faith that even the Jerusalem elites failed to muster. Her humble tenacity puts us in mind of Jesus on the Cross, when He also endured the silence of God and His seeming indifference (“My God, why have You abandoned Me?”). He endured to the end in faith, not despairing of His Father’s goodness, no matter how it looked (“Into Your hands I commend My Spirit”). In this, both Jesus and the Canaanite woman are living examples of what the name, Israel, means: “he who strives with God” (see Gn 32:28). True believers are not put off by what can look like God’s adversarial detachment. True believers hang on for dear life, knowing the goodness of the One upon whom they have cast all their hope. 

 --Gayle Somers 

Image source: Jesus Exorcising the Canaanite Woman’s Daughter, Très riches heures du Duc de Berry (15th c.), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorcism_of_the_Syrophoenician_woman%27s_daughter#/media/File:Folio_164r_-_The_Canaanite_Woman.jpg 

Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 20, 2023: Even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters...

Even the dogs eat the scraps
that fall from the table of their masters…

Are there limits to who may believe in Christ? 

    This week’s gospel is among the most challenging in Scripture. In it, Matthew recounts the story of Jesus’ visit with his disciples to the Gentile towns of Tyre and Sidon. There, Jesus is approached by a Canaanite woman seeking healing for her daughter who is tormented by a demon. Jesus’ response makes us profoundly uncomfortable: It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs, he tells her. Does he mean it as a racial insult, or is he merely echoing what would have been the common sentiments of his time? Or is he perhaps testing his disciples in order to provide them with a profound and important lesson? 

   What should amaze us in this story is the woman’s response: Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters. On her knees before the Lord, a position of homage, the woman is determined to find help, and her faith is stronger than their prejudice. She believes past any limitations; as a Gentile, she ostensibly has no claim on Jesus, and assumes a position of profound humility before him, a position that allows her to maintain her human dignity. There is no demand for equality; she would be content with mere scraps of assistance. She understands the equity of God’s rule; even the dogs eat scraps from God’s table, for God loves all he has made. Jesus will ultimately acknowledge her: O woman, great is your faith! 

   The Canaanite woman in Matthew’s Gospel is one of the most profound figures in scripture, a perfect illustration of Isaiah’s admonition that the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, ministering to him and loving his name, will be accepted in the presence of God. God’s house is indeed a house of prayer for all peoples. We may assume we know God’s mind; we set parameters believing they are God’s boundaries, when in fact they are only our own. Psalm 67 clearly echoes the Lord’s desire that his way be known upon earth, among all nations, Gentile or Jew, servant or free. 

   The fidelity of God’s people is crucial to bringing about salvation. Paul writes to the Romans because of reports that they are scoffing at the Jews for not believing in Jesus. To accept Jesus is to do the will of God, Paul reminds them, for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable, and therefore they must remember their own disobedience and the mercy God showed them. Paul hopes that the conversion of the Gentiles – like that of the Canaanite woman in Matthew’s Gospel – will ultimately be the mechanism by which God brings the Jewish people, Paul’s own race, to belief in Christ. In the end, the second coming will arrive when all are united; this is the kingdom in its fullness. Salvation comes when all – you, I, all – participate in God’s justice; Christians are to allow their boundaries to be stretched and expanded, receiving all nations and serving as an inspiration to all nations, that they might find Christ. 

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

We slowly come to hear the still, small voice (Henri Nouwen)

    I am not saying there is an easy solution to our ambivalent relationship with God. Solitude is not a solution. It is a direction. The direction is pointed to by the prophet Elijah, who did not find Yahweh in the mighty wind, the earthquake, the fire, but in the still, small voice; this direction, too, is indicated by Jesus, who chose solitude as the place to be with his Father. Every time we enter into solitude we withdraw from our windy, earthquaking, fiery lives and open ourselves to the great encounter. 

   The first thing we often discover in solitude is our own restlessness, our drivenness, and compulsiveness, our urge to act quickly, to make an impact, and to have influence; and often we find it very hard to withstand the temptation to return as quickly as possible to the world of “relevance.” But when we persevere with the help of a gentle discipline, we slowly come to hear the still, small voice and to feel the gentle breeze, and so come to know the Lord of our heart, soul, and mind, the Lord who makes us see who we really are. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/bible-study/reasons-god-appeared-to-elijah-in-a-gentle-whisper.html 

Quotation source

One soul, one heart, one life (St. Francis de Sales / Bishop Robert Barron)

  The sacred Virgin and her Son had but one soul,
but one heart, and but one life,
so that the Blessed Mother, although living,
yet did not live herself but rather her Son lived in her!
...There was no longer a union but rather
a unity of heart, soul, and life 
between this Mother and this Son. 

--St. Francis de Sales 

   The dogma of the Assumption of Mary describes the full salvation of this prime disciple of Jesus. 

   In the Apostles’ Creed, we speak of our hope for "the resurrection of the body." Mary, assumed body and soul into heaven, has experienced precisely this resurrection and hence becomes a sign of hope for the rest of the human race. 

   When we speak of the Assumption of the Blessed Mother’s body, we are not envisioning a journey through space, as though Mary moved up into the sky. The "heavens" are a rich and consistent biblical symbol for the transcendent, for a manner of existence that lies beyond our familiar dimensions of space and time. 

   The Assumption of Mary means that the Blessed Mother was "translated," in the totality of her being, from this dimensional system to the higher one for which we use the term "heaven." Mary, who exists now in this other world, is not so much somewhere else as somehow else, and this helps to explain why we can speak of her, especially in her heavenly state, interceding, helping us, and praying for us. 

--Bishop Robert Barron,

Gospel Reflection, August 15, 2022

HAPPY FEAST OF
THE ASSUMPTION OF MARY

FROM OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL,
MILL VALLEY! 

Image source: https://www.amormeus.org/en/blog/vigil-feast-of-the-assumption/
Quotation source (St. Francis de Sales)

Walk on the Water (Ruby Amanfu)

 
Have you ever considered that our most difficult moments are invitations to be strong in faith? 

Oh, child, come on in

Jump in the water

Got no trouble with the mess you been

Walk on the water 

Oooh, oooh, walk on the water

Aaah, walk on the water

Oh, child

Walk on the water

Got no trouble

Walk on the water

Walk on the water 

To hear Ruby Amanfu sing Walk on the Water, click on the video below: 

Image source: The Chosen, Season 3, Episode 8, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJPQSvM190I
Video source

How can we hear the voice of God? (Dr. Emily R. John)

   How can we hear the voice of God and be centered in love and renewed in spirit? 

   I am talking about the Speech of God that is paradoxically found in the tiny whispering sound, the whispering that can only be heard when we are quiet. 

   The first moment of silence is to Pay Attention. Pay attention to what is happening around us, and, equally important, pay attention to the restful and rejuvenating quiet space within our hearts and souls. 

   We can focus on the most beautiful gift of our breathing and listen. In these quiet moments, we make ourselves available and totally open to the very ground of our being. Quieting the mind shows us that we are part of the Horizon of God’s love, that the very root of our being lies in God’s loving Being. Our imaginations help us create those God images. 

   In silence with the Being of God, we experience our divine identity as delightfully loved by God, unconditionally and eternally. The truth is that you are a chosen child of God, precious in God’s eyes, called the beloved from all eternity and held safe in an everlasting embrace. Hence, we are renewed and energized again to be sent off to recreate the world. The only way to be “woke” is first to pay attention and then be quiet. 

   Simply pull your thoughts away from the world at least once a day and pay attention to the quiet within. Have the eyes to find the gates of heaven everywhere. Silence helps us see those gates. There is a promise here. 

   That still point, that everyone has within, helps us see that every moment of our lives is reverent. Resting in the love of God not only changes us but also invites us to take on the injustices and systematic oppression in the world. It gives us the spirit and courage to Show Up. 

--Dr. Emily R. John 

Image source: William Brassey Hole, Elijah in the Desert of Horeb, https://cmbs.mennonitebrethren.ca/worship_resources/elijah-and-the-still-small-voice/
Quotation source

Wind and waves (Bishop Robert Barron)

   Winds and waves toss the barque. And here is the Church at its best, reaching out in confidence to Christ. The fruit of that confidence is participation in the Lord’s power: Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. Relying on our own power, we can do nothing. But relying on him, we can do anything. 

--Bishop Robert Barron
Gospel Reflection, August 2, 2022

Image source:  Gustave Brion, Jesus and Peter on the Waters / Jésus et Pierre sur les eaux (1863), detail, https://www.gallery19c.com/artworks/9413/

A still small voice (Brother Isaiah)

In the silence, I find sobriety
In quiet, there is a clarity
Yes, in stillness, I find simplicity
I find your heart, your love, your peace
There, I find your heart, your love, your peace
I find your heart, your love, your peace 

In the storm of my heart, in the night of my soul
There is a still small voice that calls me to surrender
As you whisper words of peace
And you call me to be still 

I hear you say it:  Child, let go,
Come, let me love you so 

Refrain 

I hear you say, Be still
Yes, I hear you say, Be still,
 In the midst of the storm within you
I hear you say,
Be still, child, I hear you say,
Be still I hear you say,
Be still and know that I am with you
I hear you say Be still
For the storms arise and you may lose sight
I hear you say, Be still I hear you say, Be still, child,
I hear you say, Be still I hear you say,
Be still and know that I AM GOD 

Refrain 

In the quiet of my heart 

There is a still small voice 

In the quiet of my heart, 

I find you there 

In the quiet of my soul, Lord, 

Yes, I know, Lord 

You will never leave me 

Love that remains there, 

In the quiet of my heart, Lord 

Your stillness I can see, Lord 

In the love that never leaves, Lord 

Yes, in the quiet, in the silence 

In the quiet, you’re my sobriety 

In the quiet, in the silence, in the stillness 

You’re my sobriety 

To hear Brother (now Father!) Isaiah perform Sobriety from his recent CD Shade, click on the video below:

Image source: https://nptsnyvallnews.com/gods-still-small-voice-amid-covid19/ 

Video source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 13, 2023: O you of little faith, why did you doubt?

O you of little faith, why did you doubt?

What reassures us? 

   When, in the First Book of Kings, the prophet Elijah hides in a cave on Mt. Horeb (Sinai), he is fleeing from the office God conferred on him. But God sends Elijah to stand outside his cave, for the Lord will be passing by. By calling him out, God is restoring Elijah to his prophetic office, calling him back to the service he had abandoned. Like the psalmist in Psalm 85, Elijah can be reassured by the promises of the Lord: The Lord himself will give his benefits. When kindness and truth meet and justice and peace kiss, the people can be reassured that God will take care of them; God has not abandoned them. 

   Peter also needs reassurance in Matthew’s Gospel, for he doubts his own eyes. On a boat tossed about by the waves and wind, Peter and the other disciples see Jesus walking on the sea, but Peter’s challenge is full of doubt: Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water, Peter says. If? It is easier for Peter to believe in the tangible, the concrete – the strength of the wind, the crashing waves – than to have faith in the Lord. Still, he does find a shred of hope and, when he begins to sink, calls out for salvation: Lord, save me! Peter is reassured when Jesus stretches out his hand and catches Peter. 

   What reassures us? How do we know we are on the right path, following the proper guides? The Gentile Christians in Rome have their doubts; they see that Jews have not been converting to Christianity, and wonder if they have chosen correctly. In his Letter to the Romans, Paul laments his own people, his kindred according to the flesh, but reassures the Roman Christians that the only thing that matters is that they remain open to the work of God within them; the Christ, who is over all is the one in whom they must put their confidence. 

   In whom or in what do we place our confidence? What reassures us that we are on the right path? When Jesus steps into that boat, calm ensues; the storm is gone. God is revealed in the calm, not in our agitation, our storms, our battles. God is to be found in the small whispering sound. It is in that calm, that reassuring presence, that we must place our trust, open to the work of God within us, that we might fulfill the role to which we too have been called. 

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

Who can stand? (William Blake / Lorena McKinnett)

We can believe and trust in his love no matter
who is in charge of our world,
so long as Jesus rules our hearts,
and through that rule, love is ultimately victorious.

--Fr. Patrick Michaels, August 6, 2022

As Fr. Pat reminded us in his homily on the Feast of the Transfiguration, the celebration of this moment in Jesus' life shares a date with one of the most horrifying acts of human history, the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945.  This poem by William Blake reminds us of the choices behind that action; it was laid over a vocal piece by Lorena McKennitt in 1985.

O for a voice like thunder, and a tongue
To drown the throat of war! - When the senses
Are shaken, and the soul is driven to madness,
Who can stand? When the souls of the oppressed
Fight in the troubled air that rages, who can stand?
When the whirlwind of fury comes from the
Throne of God, when the frowns of his countenance
Drive the nations together, who can stand?
When Sin claps his broad wings over the battle,
And sails rejoicing in the flood of Death;
When souls are torn to everlasting fire,
And fiends of Hell rejoice upon the slain,
O who can stand? O who hath caused this?
O who can answer at the throne of God?
The Kings and Nobles of the Land have done it!
Hear it not, Heaven, thy Ministers have done it!

To hear Lorena McKinnett's piece Lullaby (from her album Elemental), voiced behind the words of this poem by William Blake, click on the video below:

Image source: Terrane McKillup, Transfiguration, https://globalworship.tumblr.com/post/138903662785/more-transfiguration-art

Video & poem source

Dazzling (Vivian Cabrera)

   The Gospel [this past weekend] tells the story of the Transfiguration, a literal encounter with God. This was so powerful, so marvelous, so wonderful and so… terrifying, that it was only shared with a precious few. Jesus takes his disciples Peter, John, and James up to the mountain to pray and reveals himself to be the Son of God. His face changes in appearance and his clothes become dazzling white. Elijah and Moses appear alongside him, speaking of what was yet to come. Peter then says, “Master, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah.” But he did not know what he was saying, Luke’s Gospel tells us. Luke continues: "While he was still speaking, a cloud came and cast a shadow over them, and they became frightened when they entered the cloud.” 

   Here I want to note a key difference between the disciples and me. While they stayed and faced this unknowing, even though they were afraid, I don’t know if I could have done the same. I want to believe I could have but my lived experiences tell me otherwise. It always feels like something terrible is going to happen right before God reveals himself to us. And why do we feel the urge to want to run away? What can I do to make me stay? The answer lies in what the Gospel says: This is my Son, listen to him. 

   Our hearts can tell us what our minds can’t comprehend. They urge us to stay.  [Today], let us sit in the certainty of what our hearts tell us, these hearts that were created by God, for God. Let us cry out what the psalmist says: "Hear, O Lord, the sound of my call; have pity on me and answer me. Of you my heart speaks, you my glance seeks." It’s up to us to stay and wait… long enough to let the Lord show up and speak. 

--Vivian Cabrera 

Image source: Ivanka Demchuk (Ukraine), Transfiguration, icon, available for purchase at:  
https://www.etsy.com/listing/564592023/transfiguration-original-print-on?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_ps-a-art_and_collectibles-prints-digital_prints&utm_custom1=_k_Cj0KCQjwrMKmBhCJARIsAHuEAPTgq8r5ua81vSB7oKJYmB-ajHAbdFaTVmvigZffXYTQKuPBxQ1Lx7gaAjVNEALw_wcB_k_&utm_content=go_12565614185_119519592917_507187203534_pla-328046931108_c__564592023_127427842&utm_custom2=12565614185&gclid=Cj0KCQjwrMKmBhCJARIsAHuEAPTgq8r5ua81vSB7oKJYmB-ajHAbdFaTVmvigZffXYTQKuPBxQ1Lx7gaAjVNEALw_wcB
Quotation source

Immersed in the presence of God (Sr. Joan Chittister)

   People of vision work at the spiritual life expecting no gifts from it and seeking no mystical signs to mark their spiritual growth. They simply do what must be done: they immerse themselves in the presence of God until everything becomes for them the presence of God. 

--Sr. Joan Chittister 

Image source: https://www.lushome.com/25-beautiful-spiral-staircase-designs-bringing-art-architecture/148365
Quotation source

We are absorbed into his light and become luminous (Fr. Billy Swan)

    Jesus was always divine, but people could not always see his divinity. On the top of Mount Tabor, it became clear to Peter, James, and John who Jesus truly was: “God from God” and “Light from Light,” as the Nicene Creed tells us. This light shone out from his humanity and concrete existence. God’s light shone through him and not apart from him. This point is crucial as we understand our lives in Christ. God’s grace and light shine through our humanity and make it radiant in transfiguration. Our faith in Christ is not an obstruction to living a fully human life; it is the source of living a fully human life. 

   [W]hen we encounter God in prayer and participate in the liturgy, we are absorbed into his light and become luminous with it. Like Moses, this illumination happens whether we are aware of it or not. St. John Chrysostom was convinced that “it is easier for the sun not to give heat and not to shine than for the Christian not to send forth light” (Homily on the Acts of the Apostles, 20.4). 

   On the Feast of the Transfiguration, we join in praise of the God who is light and who allowed that light to shine from the humanity of Christ on Mount Tabor. We give thanks for the gift of that light that we have received at Baptism and that we joyfully bear to all. As we navigate experiences of darkness and suffering, may we come to believe that God still loves us in the night as his grace purifies us, changes us, and unites us more deeply to himself. 

--Fr. Billy Swan 

Image source: https://discerningdeacons.org/bringing-our-messiness/ 

Quotation source & complete (& brilliant, no pun intended) article

His divinity shines forth (Bishop Robert Barron)

   What is the Transfiguration itself? [In the words of St. Paul], it is the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of Jesus Christ. In and through his humble humanity, his divinity shines forth. The proximity of his divinity in no way compromises the integrity of his humanity, but rather makes it shine in greater beauty. This is the New Testament version of the burning bush. 

--Bishop Robert Barron,

Gospel Reflection,
February 18, 2023

Image source: A. D. Thomas, Transfiguration, https://globalworship.tumblr.com/post/110604805435/transfiguration-global-art

In the presence of the holy (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

   Rudolf Otto, in his book, The Idea of the Holy, submits that in the presence of the holy, we will always have a double reaction: fear and attraction. Like Peter at the Transfiguration, we will want to build a tent and stay there forever; but, like him too before the miraculous catch of fish, we will also want to say, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man. In the presence of the holy, we want to burst forth in praise even as we want to confess our sins.

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser,

Facebook, January 17, 2022

Image source: Mayis Mkhitaryan, Transfiguration, https://globalworship.tumblr.com/post/110604805435/transfiguration-global-art

Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 6, 2023: He was transfigured before them...

He was transfigured before them…

Do we dare to look? 

   This weekend we contemplate the radiance of Jesus as he appeared to the apostles at the Transfiguration – Jesus, the full splendor of God’s glory, God’s Light to the World. Do we see him? Do we dare to look at him? 

   The Book of Daniel gives us the prophet’s vision of God: His clothing was bright as snow, and the hair on his head as white as wool. And God’s presence is marked by fire: His throne was flames of fire, with wheels of burning fire. A surging stream of fire flowed out from where he sat. As his Son appears before him, he receives dominion, glory, and kingship – the fire that is God’s light is also the light of the Son of man… Notice that more than one throne is set up: this Son of man also seems to be the Son of God, whose radiance, like that of his Father, will dazzle the world, eternally. The radiance of God is contrasted with the storm brewing in Psalm 97: Clouds and darkness are round about him… and God’s implicit light is sufficient to make mountains melt before the Lord. It is the glory of God, God’s justice, that is made manifest here, causing the earth to rejoice, the islands, to be glad. God’s radiance, his glory and might and majesty, surround us. Do we see them? Do we dare to look at them? 

   In Matthew’s Gospel, we learn that Peter, John and James saw Jesus’ glory, the concrete evidence of which is manifested visibly: his face changed in appearance, and his clothes became dazzling white. Transfigured, Jesus is not simply changed physically, though. Rather, the divine brilliance that he always possesses shines through, breaks through the shell of his humanity to dazzle his spectators. Do they dare to look? Do they understand what they see? Probably not: Jesus’ brilliance is blinding. Yet, briefly, that brilliance is perceptible to them, and it astounds them, moves them. The author of the Letters of Peter seems to grasp the greater message of the Transfiguration when he says, We have been eyewitnesses to his majesty… The voice that comes down from heaven confirms Jesus’ identity as Light: God’s Word is a lamp shining in a dark place, necessary to them, until day dawns and the morning star rises in [their] hearts. 

   This is where God’s Word, Jesus, must dwell for us: in our hearts, so that we, too, can be eyewitnesses of his majesty. Yet where do we find his glory? How often do we perceive that glory, really? Do we have to be dazzled by a bright light in order to know God is present? Or can we perhaps train our eyes to open, so that we can see, can dare to look for God, every single day? 

   We might start in our own church: stare, for a moment, at the candles on the altar -- allow them to remind you of the Light that is Jesus in our lives, in Eucharist. Or, as we leave the church and appreciate the blue sky, the birds in flight through it, the sunlight on our faces… they, too, are glimpses of God’s glory… less shocking, maybe, than the dazzlement of the Transfiguration, but still, glorious in their simplicity. Look, too, for Christ’s light in the eyes of someone you love, or, better still, in the shock of eyes meeting yours in Eucharist, or in the street… That moment of connection can be a sign of God’s presence through the Spirit, the flame that we acknowledge at Pentecost, made real, concrete, in the eyes of another, transfigured. 

   The truth is, we never really know when God will choose to reveal a glimpse of God’s divine glory, or of the peace that is possible in our world… But if we open our eyes, we might see it – if we dare, if we have the courage, if we are attentive to the many manifestations of the Lord of all the earth in our daily life. 

   And then?  We give witness, as we go out as the Body of Christ, to bring his Light into our world!

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

If I fall, will You catch me? (Elyssa Smith)

If I fall, will You catch me?
If I get lost, will You find me?
I feel afraid of leaving what's safe, but I can't stay here
If I fall, will You catch me? 

If I walk through that doorway 

And the look on their faces say I'm crazy 

I'm learning that risks feel like 

Mistakes, but isn't that called faith? 

And if I fall, will You catch me? 

If I fall, will You catch me? 

Sometimes the valley looks too low 

Sometimes the mountain looks too high 

There must be more than what I'm seeing 

How can I know if I don't try? 

And if I fall, will You catch me? 

If I get lost, will You find me? 

I feel afraid of leaving what's safe, but I can't stay here 

And if I fall, will You catch me? 

Will You catch me? 

Will You catch me? 

And what if the doors all close and lock 

And I find out I chased a mirage? 

Wondering if I even heard You at all 

And what if the cost is high to pay 

And I'd rather you take the cup away? 

I second guess if the choice I made was worth it 

But what if Heaven is cheering me on? 

David's pleading, "Sing your song" 

Mary's shouting, "Waste it all, He's worth it!" 

And You will catch me 

You will catch me 

And You will catch me 

You will catch me 

Oh, say You'll catch me 

I know You'll catch me 

You will catch me 

To hear Elyssa Smith singing Catch Me, click on the video below: 

Image source: https://www.the-river.org/estuaries/learning-to-trust/
Video source