Both One

Full sun this morning found a bit of autumn glory.
By telling us that loving God and loving our neighbor is the greatest commandment (Mark 12:28-34), Jesus makes the point that we cannot love God if we do not love other people.  The author of the First Letter of John is even more to the point: Anyone who says, "I love God" and hates his brother, is a liar, since whoever does not love the brother whom he can see cannot love God whom he has not seen.  Indeed this is the commandment that we have received from him, that whoever loves God must also love his brother." (4:20-21)

The Least Loved

Someone told me once that I loved God only as much as the person I love the least.  I really hope that is not so, but it's enough to scare me into asking myself who I love the least, or even who do I not love at all. 

Absolutely Gratuitous

Wednesday night's full moon-Hunter's Moon, Blackberry Moon? Harvest Moon?

Thanks to a friend I found out today that Thomas Keating died.  He was a Trappist monk who has been very influential in the centering prayer movement.  In this quote he helps us understand:
"The gift of God is absolutely gratuitous.  It's not something you earn.  It's something that's there.  It's something you just have to accept.  This is the gift that has been given.  There's no place to go to get it.  There is no place you can go to avoid it.  It just is.  It's part of our very existence.  And so the purpose of all the great religions is to bring us into this relationship with reality that is so intimate that no words can describe it."

Why stay?

Again this morning the sun's rays managed to find a little fall color.
Gordon Zahn wrote to Dorothy Day, considering leaving the Church because the bishops as a group would not condemn the Vietnam War.  Day answered that she didn't remain Catholic because of the bishops.  "It is the saints," she wrote, "who keep appearing throughout history who keep things going."  We cherish a Church that has inspired such outstanding examples of holiness.

An Encouraging Surprise

This morning's bright sun managed to highlight a little autumn color.
As I finished my two hours volunteering this cold, beautiful afternoon to help get out the vote, the people working the next shift who relieved me turned out to be a boy and girl, high school juniors, not yet old enough to vote, who want to make things better. 

Harsh and Dreadful

"Love is a hash and dreadful thing to ask of us, 

  but it is the only answer."

       -Dorothy Day

Clericalism

Frost on the ground this morning did not deter this lone fisherman.
Pope Francis points to clericalism as the root cause of sex abuse.  Bishops, priests, and deacons expect special treatment because of their office.  They use their position to take advantage of others.  We see signs of it already in this weekend's Gospel when James and John ask Jesus to treat them special (Mark 10:35-45.)  It has continued to corrupt church leaders down through the centuries.  Lay members of the Church cooperate by something as simple as letting father go first in line for food at a party and by something as huge as parents scolding their children for telling them that "Father" mistreated them.   

Teresa of Avila

"You need not go to  heaven to see God,
  nor need you speak loud as if God were far away,
  nor need you cry for wings like a dove to fly to him;
  only be in silence
  and you will come upon God within yourself."

St. Teresa of Avila, a mystic who lived in 16th century Spain, is one of the great teachers of prayer in the history of the church.
 

Grace

Through the years I have become more and more aware of how much I need God's love to love God.  God within us enabling us to love God.  As I began to address God as "Love," my prayer more than a year ago became, "You are Love with Whom I love You."  Those are the last words that I pray to the Trinity as I begin Centering Prayer in the morning.  They became the theme of the hymn, You Are Love.

Vatican 2 Anniversary

The feast of Pope John XXIII is set on this date because it is the date on which he convened the Second Vatican Council, one of the most important events in the history of the Church.  This Council officially started the Church on the road into the modern world.   Perhaps its biggest gift was to help us to see that the Church is not just the Pope and the bishops, but all of its members.

Sophia

The Book of Wisdom is the most recent book in the Old Testament, probably written in the century just before Christ in Alexandria, Egypt.  It was written originally in  Greek, not Hebrew, and as such is one of the books that Catholics have and Protestants don't.
Wisdom is personified in this book and in a few others almost to the point of sounding like God.  In the New Jerusalem translation that I often use, Wisdom is capitalized as are other names for God.  In 7:7-11 Solomon praises Wisdom extravagantly, "I loved her more than health or beauty, preferred her to the light, since her radiance never sleeps."  Further on (25-26) he says, "She is the breath of the power of God, pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty....She is a reflection of the eternal light, untarnished mirror of God's active power, and image of his goodness." 
The Greek word for Wisdom is "Sophia." Though the Jewish author of the book did not see her as divine, some modern writers are using "Sophia" as a name for God the way John in the beginning of his Gospel uses "Word" to refer to what we call the Second Person of the Trinity.

Wind of Change

Here's the third and final stanza of the hymn, You Are Love.  This stanza sings to Pneuma, the Greek word used in the New Testament for "Spirit."  Pneuma includes the meanings Breath, Air, and Wind.

You are Love with Whom we love You, our Three-in-One Divine
Breath of many different voices enriching humankind
Freshest Air for Whom we're gasping, just what's needed to revive
Our halfhearted efforts to bring this time alive
Wind of change Who bring a gentle hope to fashion all our days
You are Love like wildfire spreading till all the world's ablaze.

Love Made Flesh

A very confused forsythia with autumn leaves and spring blooms.

Here's the second stanza of the hymn, You Are Love:

You are Love enabling us to love, our Three-in-One Divine
You are Love made flesh at Nazareth in Mary maiden fine
You have come to live among us and to share our joy and grief
A heart ever open to leper, beggar, thief
You are Love Who lifted us to Love by hanging on a tree
Risen Love throughout the universe Whose passing set us free.

Source of All

Here's the first stanza of the hymn You are Love:

You are Love who draw us into You, our Three-in-One divine
You are Love who power the universe evolving over time
You are Beauty ever ancient, You are Beauty ever new
A bush burning brightly, sheer silence soft and true
Source of all the splendor round us, each bird and stream and hill
You are present, past, and future, old Love, yet coming still.

(The tune is from Gustave Holst's The Planets, Jupiter Bringer of Joy.  It is the same tune used in Oregon Catholic Press' Easter hymn, Three Days.)

By any other name...

Words get stale, laden with the dust of casual usage.   Might "God" and "Lord" have suffered that fate.  Moses asked God in the burning bush, "What's your name?" God answered "I AM."  The Jews used that name for many years, but about 400 years before Jesus they stopped saying it out loud, lest they lose the sense of awe that should surround it.  Some Catholic theologians have suggested that we start using another name for God.  I have written a hymn in which I do not use "God" or "Lord" to address the Holy One.  I use "Love." 
You are Love Who power the universe, evolving over time.

Perspective

Last night I went to an extensive and accurate presentation of the abuse crisis. From those present a passionate mix of heartbreak, anger, and gratitude. When I got home around 10 PM I went out on the front deck and looked at the crystal clear sky sparkling with stars.  Even the Milky Way was visible.  I felt small and all the concerns I had just heard seemed small in the presence of eternity.
Since I have no pictures of stars I hope a mid-summer morning view from my side deck also captures a similar awe.