If we walk in the light (Fr. Patrick Summerhayes / Henri Nouwen)

They say that in faith, the longest journey
you will ever take is
from your head to your heart.

--Fr. Patrick Summerhays,
 Homily, OLMC, Mill Valley,
December 11, 2022 

    Trusting in the unconditional love of God: that is the way to which Jesus calls us. The more firmly you grasp this, the more readily will you be able to perceive why there is so much suspicion, jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, hatred, violence, and discord in our world. Jesus himself interprets this by comparing God’s love to the light. He says: 

Though the light has come into the world people have preferred darkness to light because their deeds were evil. And indeed, everybody who does wrong hates the light and avoids it, to prevent his actions from being shown up; but whoever does the truth comes out into the light, so that what he is doing may plainly appear as done in God. 

    Jesus sees the evil in this world as a lack of trust in God’s love. He makes us see that we persistently fall back on ourselves, rely more on ourselves than on God, and are inclined more to love of self than love of God. So we remain in darkness. If we walk in the light, then we are enabled to acknowledge that everything good, beautiful, and true comes from God and is offered to us in love. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: Lauren Wright Pittman, Born Again, https://www.churchsp.org/nicodemus-in-art/
Nouwen quotation source

Speak in the light (Cameron Bellm)

   When Jesus tells us to speak in the light what we have heard in the darkness, he uses the same Greek word that John’s gospel uses to describe him: Phos. The light that shines in the darkness, the light that the darkness will not overcome. And that’s why it’s so startling when Jesus tells us in Matthew’s gospel that WE are the light of the world. Yes, that’s right, us. Phos. 

   We are deeply, fiercely, tenderly loved, all of us, not just my family but the entire human family, by the God who is light and who calls us to be light ourselves—to the world, yes, but also to each other. 

--Cameron Bellm 

Image source: https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/science-features/let-there-be-light
Quotation source

To rise from the ashes (Pope Francis / Dr. Tom Neal)

The Church is not a museum of saints,
but a hospital for sinners.

 --Pope Francis 

   While we never bend the moral law to accommodate human weakness, we do confess faith in a God who bends down (descéndit de cælis) to meet the fallen sinner on the ground in order to love her into life, to heal her and raise her up. We have no need for God to canonize or condemn us, but to have compassion on us so we can carry on each day with hope. 

    I need this God. 

    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

Image source: https://www.salt1065.com/stories/faith/2018/the-god-who-bends-down/
Source of both quotations

God's handiwork (Anne Lamott)

   Our visiting pastor talked about how, when people are called God's handiwork in Scripture, the ancient Greeks would have translated that as God's poems. This may have changed my life--that we are creativity, depth, condensed truth and light, made to throw off light and truth for others, as poems do. 

--Anne Lamott 

Image source 1: https://www.etsy.com/listing/765813832/feeric-vi-gourd-lamp-decorative-lamp?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_-home_and_living&utm_custom1=_k_EAIaIQobChMIwbe3_8zMggMVpkpHAR3tHwylEAkYASABEgKC8vD_BwE_k_&utm_content=go_17434234701_144283651144_602523314340_pla-303628061699_c__765813832_142951456&utm_custom2=17434234701&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwbe3_8zMggMVpkpHAR3tHwylEAkYASABEgKC8vD_BwE 
Image source 2: https://biblicalisraeltours.com/2016/08/the-potters-wheel/
Quotation source

Through faith (Lee Strobel / Henri Nouwen)

Only in a world where faith 

is difficult can faith exist.

--Lee Strobel 

   The word faith is often understood as accepting something you can’t understand. People often say: “Such and such can’t be explained, you simply have to believe it.” However, when Jesus talks about faith, he means first of all to trust unreservedly that you are loved, so that you can abandon every false way of obtaining love. That’s why Jesus tells Nicodemus that, through faith in the descending love of God, we will be set free from anxiety and violence and will find eternal life. It’s a question here of trusting in God’s love. The Greek word for faith is pistis, which means, literally, “trust.” Whenever Jesus says to people he has healed: “Your faith has saved you,” he is saying that they have found new life because they have surrendered in complete trust to the love of God revealed in him. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source:  Jesus meets with Nicodemus, The Chosen,  https://www.wsj.com/articles/fans-pour-fundingand-faithinto-a-hit-drama-about-jesus-11637989204
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

Sunday Gospel Reflection, March 10, 2024: Everyone who believes in him may have eternal life...

Everyone who believes in him may have eternal life…

Do we believe in the promise of salvation? 

    The last chapter of the Second Book of Chronicles contains an abbreviated history of the last four kings of Judah, a time during which the people turn toward the gods of other nations, adding infidelity to infidelity, violating their covenant with God. The Lord sends his messengers to them, for he has compassion on his people, but his dwelling place, the temple, is ultimately destroyed when the people are carried captive to Babylon. There, they pray Psalm 137, Let my tongue be silenced, if ever I forget you, fearing that they cannot sing a song of the Lord in a foreign land. Their memory of Jerusalem, Zion, is all they have while in exile. And yet the Lord is ultimately merciful, allowing Cyrus, King of Persia, to send the people home: Whoever belongs to any part of the Lord’s people, let him go up, and may his God be with him! Saved by the Lord, the people of Israel embrace the opportunity to rebuild the temple and worship once again in Jerusalem. 

    This episode is not unique in Jewish history; time and again, the people of Israel were unfaithful to covenant, and yet the Lord was ultimately merciful, each and every time. When, in John's Gospel, the Pharisee Nicodemus visits Jesus in the night, Jesus reminds him of the story of Moses who lifted up the bronze serpent in the desert so that all who looked upon it might be saved, healed from the bites of the seraph serpents. Their salvation involved an act of faith; Jesus, too, must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life; those who look upon him in faith and believe will live the truth and come to the light. 

    God is rich in mercy, Paul tells the Ephesians: by grace you have been saved. Ultimately, God is defined by mercy, compassion, care, and by the great love he has for us – so much so that, even in our sin, God showers us with the immeasurable riches of his grace. Unlike Nicodemus, who visits Jesus in the dead of night, not wanting to be seen, we must come toward the light of Christ and allow his grace to fill us with faith. For God sent his Son that the world might be saved through him. We have but to believe. 

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

Living through major change (Rose Marie Berger)

   There is a Shinto community in Japan that burns down its temple every 20 years. But the process of rebuilding begins years before the fire. The choosing of trees for wood, the training of apprentices in building techniques, the preparing a foundation for the new shrine. This community is always preparing for the end of this particular shrine and the building of the new one. In this way, the community has practiced resilience in the face of major change for more than 1,300 years. This is how members of a community live through major change well. 

--Rose Marie Berger

Image source 1: Christ Driving the Money-Changers from the Temple (ca. 1550-1575) , https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kaubitsejate_templist_v%C3%A4ljaajamine.jpg. For a discussion of this painting, see https://aleteia.org/2018/03/14/jesus-temple-tantrum-what-in-the-world-is-going-on-in-christ-cleansing-the-temple/ 

Image source 2: https://medium.com/knowledge-stew/the-japanese-shrine-that-is-rebuilt-every-20-years-4882ce9a1b0f
Quotation source