Openness, connectedness, and discernment... (Joan Halifax)

  Compassionate action emerges from the sense of openness, connectedness, and discernment you have created.

--Joan Halifax

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God's deepening life in me (St. Ignatius Loyola)

   Our only desire and our one choice should be this:  I want and I choose what better leads to God’s deepening life in me. 

--St. Ignatius Loyola, 

Principle and Foundation 

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Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 12, 2017: Before man are life and death, good and evil...

 Before man are life and death, good and evil…  

How do you know what to choose? 

   Thanks to the gift of free will, humankind has for all of time been required to make choices.  As the Book of Sirach tells us, Before man are life and death, good and evil, whichever he chooses shall be given him.  But Sirach also gives us a clue as to how to make good choices:  ideally, we must strive to see as God sees, which is the very definition of wisdom:  Immense is the wisdom of the Lord.  We must also trust in God, and listen to where our heart tells us to go – a response that is possible through prayer, because prayer puts us at our core, where God dwells in us.  More specifically, Psalm 119 encourages us to pray for discernment, that we may observe God’s law and keep it with all our heart.  If we are committed to the Lord’s way, to the Lord’s laws, then we will be blessed.

   In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus goes one step further, reminding his disciples that the letter of the law is insufficient:  they must look to the spirit of the law, recognizing, for example, that anger itself is a form of murder, for we can kill a relationship as surely with anger as with a weapon.  For Jesus, divisiveness is never justified:  all that we do must be done in consideration of how our actions affect others, and how our deeds might be life-giving to others, rather than tearing them down.  After all, discernment is a process:  if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.  And discernment should always lead to love.

   The Corinthians have had a hard time grasping this concept. Thanks to Jesus’ death and resurrection, we now have access to the depths of God through the Spirit:  we speak God’s wisdom, Paul says, mysterious, hidden but now revealed to us through the Spirit.  We need heart wisdom to understand that Jesus is the fullest expression of God’s love, a unifying love, connecting and binding us to one another.  It is that love that must govern our choices.  So, if we have come to understand what God has prepared for those who love him, then we know that it is to the heart of God that we must open our own hearts, and to the wisdom of God that we must entrust our choices, and our lives.

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

Image source:  Wordle

Eyes of love (Birdtalker)

   I don’t want to have feet of stone 

I don’t want to have feet of stone 

I want to follow this river of life where 

it will have me go 

I don’t want to have feet of stone 

I don’t want to have a dagger tongue 

I don’t want to have a dagger tongue 

I don’t want my words to be a weapon 

but a healing bond 

I don’t want to have a dagger tongue 

                        

I don’t want to have a heavy mind 

I don’t want to have a heavy mind 

I don’t want to hold these thoughts 

that are chains of iron 

I don’t want to have a heavy mind 

                        

I want to have eyes of love 

I want to have eyes of love 

Count the bigger man’s life precious as my own 

Offer my back for my brother’s load 

I want to have eyes of love 

I want to have eyes of love 

To hear this song performed by Birdtalker, click on the video below:

Fun fact:  Birdtalker is named in homage to St. Francis of Assisi.

You can read more about the band here.

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The call to compassionate ministry (H. Nouwen)

   As disciples of Jesus, we are sent to where there is poverty, loneliness, suffering of any kind.  We are given the courage to be with suffering people.  We can trust that, by entering into places of pain, we will find the joy of Jesus.  A new world grows out of compassion.

   The call to compassionate ministry is a great call.  But we must not be fearful. We must not say, I can’t do that.  When we are aware that we are the beloved, and when we have friends around us with whom we live in community, we can do anything.  We’re not afraid anymore.  We’re not afraid to knock on the door while somebody is dying.  We’re not afraid to open a discussion with a person who underneath all the glitter is much in need of ministry.  We’re free.

--Henri Nouwen, A Spirituality of Living

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Compassion becomes real (Pema Chodron)

   Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded.  It is a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others.  Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity. 

--Pema Chodron, 

The Places that Scare You 

Image source:  Eric Kilby, Embrace

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 5, 2017: Then your light shall break forth like the dawn...

 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn… 

What does your light reveal? 

   We are charged with revealing God’s love to the world… but how?  From the time of Isaiah, God gave his people a good sense of what they needed to do so that their light could break forth like the dawn: simply put, they were to feed the hungry and help the oppressed.  God loves all of creation, and we are called to do likewise, creating connection with people in need, thereby proclaiming our oneness with God through our just actions on God’s behalf. Hence Psalm 112 can proclaim that The just man is a light in darkness to the upright; such a man can trust in the Lord as he invests lavishly in those around him.  In so doing, he reveals God’s love, God’s glory, to all the world.

   In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus similarly exhorts his disciples to let their light shine before others, revealing the miracle of God’s love each time they do a kind deed, each time they are generous, each time they serve those around them.  In such a way, real justice is served, justice by the grace of God, and so God’s glory is revealed.  Salt enhances all it touches; similarly, we must bring God’s compassion to our daily life and actions.  Paul explains to the Corinthians the origin of such compassion:  Paul himself knows nothing except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.  In other words, Paul is an open vessel; the only thing that can be revealed through him is the power of God at work in him, that love and compassion of God that allows him to nourish the faith of those he meets. 

   We don’t always get it right; we often fail at compassion and love.  But even then, God remains at work in us, working to heal us as we try once again to heal the brokenness of our world.  Only through acts of love can we reveal the mystery of God; only through acts of kindness and compassion can our light shine before others, breaking forth like the dawn.

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

Image source:  Wordle