Joyful Fear

Some forsythia blooming today very close  to the warm earth.
Easter is too explosive to let it go.  We continue this coming Sunday with Luke's account of Jesus' appearing to the disciples on the evening of the Resurrection (24:35-48.)  What struck me most in meditating on this passage was Luke's skill in capturing the enormous mix of feelings that the disciples felt on first seeing the Risen Lord.  They were alarmed, frightened, agitated, doubting, joyful, unbelieving, dumbfounded.  We are right there with them happy and amazed and wondering   how Jesus can still be a complete human being with body and soul, yet so transformed by the Resurrection that he can appear out of thin air?  that he can live within us?  that he can transform all creation from beginning to end?

Loving is Believing

 

"Seeing is believing," is a common saying.  A young brilliant hero of one of the shows that I watch claims not to believe in anything he cannot see.  At the end of a recent episode he says, "I don't believe in love," as he lovingly messes the hair of a little boy whose mother he likes!
In John's Gospel passage about "Doubting Thomas," Jesus says, "Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed."  The only disciple in the last chapters of John's Gospel who fits that description is "the disciple whom Jesus loved."  It is likely that this mysterious figure is the writer reaponsible for this fourth Gospel.  Jesus is blessing him and his community and all the future communities of believers. 
The love of Jesus creates our faith.

Being Not Doing

I've been keeping this blog for eight years.  I started April 9, 2007, at the urging of a friend.  It's easy to go down the column on the right and click on the date to read some of my early entries, several without pictures.
My earliest inspiration to spend a lot of my retirement time here in contemplation will continue to be my goal in this extra time that God has given me.
Patricia Hempl asked a 60 year old nun who had been a contemplative since she was 19,
"Can you say what the core of contemplative life is?'
Without hesitation the nun said, "Leisure."
When I told a monk working in the monastery garden that friends didn't agree with my plans for retirement, he said, "People have a hard time understanding that being is more valuable than doing."

Holy

(No blossoms yet this year.  This is from March 27, 2012!)
Because of my open heart surgery, I was not able to wash feet at the Holy Thursday Mass, but I did concelebrate with the pastor.  Just before Mass started they said they were short the 12 people  to have their feet washed.  I volunteered.
When I returned to the chair after having my foot washed I could not bend over far enough to put my sock on.  A woman in the front pew noticed.  She came up, knelt down before me, and put on my sock and shoe.  I was moved to tears by her thoughtfulness.  Only later did it occur to me that she was doing what the pastor was doing and what Jesus had done.  This may not have occurred to her.  She saw a need and took care.

Joyful Triumph

God's purpose is to make us good, to wipe away all of our failures.  By loving the dead Jesus into a brand new kind of life God accomplishes this purpose without any help from us.  This "new" Jesus now lives within us and shares his own goodness with us.  God's love is greater than our failures.  Easter is the joyful triumph of God's amazing love.

Visiting Heaven

I just spent a long  time listening to Messiaen's Visions de l'Amen,  a new favorite, and Victoria's Responsories for Tenebrae,  an old favorite and feel like I've been in heaven.  That feeling was helped by Georgia O'Keeffe's Black Cross and the sliver of gold and orange behind it.
On my walk today a friend called from a distant city and said that yesterday at Mass a man came up to her to thank her.  He said that several years ago on her way back from communion she had shared her communion with him and he has been going to communion ever since.  My friend told me that she had noticed that he didn't go to communion, so she shared hers and said, "This is a banquet.  Everybody eats."

Model

"If I, your master and teacher, have washed your feet,
 you ought to wash one another's feet."