Pondering

Yesterday's ice disappearing.
Instead of just wishing for a happy new year, we can make it a happy new year.  Mary shows us how.  After the shepherds leave, Luke tells us, "Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart."  We can take five or twenty minutes away from the news, that upsets us anyway, and join Mary in treasuring and pondering.

Merry 6th Day of Christmas

For several weeks much of our cove has had a thin layer of ice.  This morning the wind blew water from the rest of the Lake against it and pushed it all the way into the cove where it melted.  Looked like the spring thaw.
In the beautiful poem that begins John's Gospel the author is not content to talk about a child in Bethlehem, he pushes back further for the origins of Jesus (1:1.)
 "In the beginning was the Word;
  and the Word was with God;
  and the Word was God."
Jews would recognize the first three words as  the first three words in their Bible, and the wider Greek-speaking world would also understand them to mean that the Word existed before and beyond human time and history.  In the second line "with" has the sense of being turned toward God in a dynamic relationship, a personal relationship.  The third line means something like "What God was, the Word also was."
Such words take us in awe into eternity

Let It Be

Roots of two big trees that were brought down across a road in our neighborhood by the ice storm we had December 15-6.
When angel Gabriel told Mary that she was to have a child by the Holy Spirit, she replied, "Let it be done to me as you say (Luke 1:38.)  Mary taught her son to accept God's will and say, "Let it be."  She taught it so well that in the Garden of Olives the night before he was crucified Jesus was finally able to say, "Father, let it be."  I pray to Mary to teach me as well.  "In my hour of darkness, she is standing right in front of me, whispering words of wisdom, 'Let it be.'" (the Beatles)

Peace

The reality of God-With-Us is the source of our Christmas peace.  Our faith in Christ's constant presence and power in us and among us fills us with a deep peace that remains even in the midst of grief and pain, loneliness and worry.  The angels long ago sang to the shepherds, "Peace to God's people on earth."

Joyful Christmas

LOVE became human so that we might become LOVE.

God-With-Us

Many places in our area lost power for 4,5,6 days last week.  You might be able to see in the rising sun on the solstice the ice frozen on the tree limbs and the the trees that are broken.  On Tuesday I gave up and moved into the parish house.
In his Gospel (2:23) Matthew tells us that Mary's son will be called Emmanuel, which means God-With-Us.  At the very end of his Gospel Jesus promises, "I will be with you always. (28:20)"  Matthew bookends his Gospel with this name.  That can help us understand that we are saved, not only by the dying and rising of Jesus, but by his entire life, beginning with his Incarnation and Birth.

Rejoice and Sing for Joy

This weekend we are celebrating Pope Francis' fiftieth anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. How appropriate that on a weekend when the liturgy is full of joy we should be celebrating a man who is the epitome of joy.  The best way to honor him is to imitate his joyful way of drawing others to Jesus.

Contrast

Full  moon in the morning.

John the Baptist's message was dark and heavy.  He expected the Messiah to be the instrument of God's wrath and vengeance.  Jesus is mercy and forgiveness.  It makes John wonder.  He sends some followers to ask Jesus, "Are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another?"  

Jesus says, "Go back and tell John what I am doing; the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised to life, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor."  These are the signs of the one predicted by Isaiah the prophet.

By these same signs the people of our time will recognize us as followers of Jesus.

Change Your Mind

December Dawn

"Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand," shouts John the Baptist as he appears on the scene in Matthew's Gospel this weekend (3:2.)  Our English word "repent" translates Matthew's Greek word which is literally translated "Change your mind."  With both church and nation so seriously divided we might try letting go of our own stubborn opinions and opening our minds to understand better where others are coming from.

Happy St. Nicholas Day

St. Nicholas was bishop of Myra (present day Turkey) in the 4th century.  Considering that we know nothing else historically about him, his popularity is amazing.  Patron of children, bankers, pawnbrokers, sailors, perfumers, brides, prostitutes, travelers, fishermen, dock workers, brewers, poets, and prisoners.  Also of Russia, Greece, and Sicily.  Also of hundreds of churches and thousands of men named Nick.  St. Nicholas, pray that we may imitate your generosity.

Harmony of Paradise

"We've got to get ourselves back to the garden."  The description of wild and domestic animals and human beings living together in harmony (Isaiah 11:6-9) is the prophet's dream of returning to Paradise, in its origins a Persian word meaning garden.  We cannot get ourselves back to the garden, but with God's help we can work for harmony with friends and family and the whole human race.

Non-Essentials

In one of the commentaries on Romans 15:4-9, which is the 2nd reading for Second Sunday of Advent, the author mentions that he was shocked when he went to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome and found no kneelers there.  He thought thought that they were required in Catholic churches.  On a day of abstinence he ate in a monastery in Germany and was pleased that the pea soup had ham in it.  He suggested reading Romans 14 and 15 with  those examples in mind. Good advice for us divided Catholics today.

Pharisee?

Even before the adult Jesus shows up, Matthew introduces us to a group that throughout his Gospel  will be opposed to Jesus.  The Pharisees were a Jewish group active in Palestine 200 years before Christ to 100 years after him.  They put the observance of religious laws and rules over all other moral obligations.  They were like serious religious people who have gotten their priorities confused.  As we meet them throughout Matthew's Gospel this year, instead of condemning their way of being religious, we might make sure that we don't mirror the Pharisees. 

Advent Right Now

"I'll wager at the very end a body realizes the Lord has already shown Himself.  That things as they are, just what they've always seen, was seeing Him.  As for me, I could leave the world with today in my eyes."
(A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote)

A Grateful Universe

Love Who love us, thank You!

Best Way to Thank

Celebrating a Thanksgiving Mass with some school children, I asked, "If I gave you a bag of candy, what do you think would be the best way for you to thank me?" 
One child said, "By just saying 'Thank you.'" 
"That's a good way," I said, "But what might be a better way?" 
A very tiny boy from the kindergarten almost whispered, "By sharing."

The Gospel of Mercy

Looking back on Luke's Gospel which we have been reading in weekend liturgies this year we can appreciate why it is often called "The Gospel of Mercy."  Only Luke has Jesus on the cross praying, "Father, forgive them; they don't understand what they are doing." and to the criminal beside him promising, "This day you will be with me in Paradise." Only in Luke do we hear the parables of the father's mercy for his prodigal son and the Good Samaritan's mercy on an injured enemy.  Only in Luke do we hear of Jesus' compassionate mercy on the tax collector Zacchaeus.
Jesus expects all of us together to be "The Gospel of Mercy" for our time.

God's Love Draws Us

I am deeply grateful to Robert Ellsberg for the following very brief summary of the teaching of John Duns Scotus in  the 13th century about how we are saved:

"Duns Scotus defined God as infinite love.  Disagreeing with those who taught that the incarnation   was required to render repayment for original sin, he believed it was willed through eternity as an   expression of God's love, and hence God's desire for consummated union with creation.  Our   redemption by the cross was likewise an expression of God's love and compassion rather than an   appeasement of God's anger or a form of compensation for God's injured majesty.

"He believed that knowledge of God's love should evoke a loving response on the part of humanity.     He wrote, 'I am of the opinion that God wished to redeem us in this fashion principally in order to     draw us to his love.'  Through our own loving self-gift, he argued, we join with Christ in becoming   'co-lovers' of the Holy Trinity. 

"For Scotus, created things point to their Creator through their individuality and uniqueness."

(This summary appears as the November 8 selection from Ellsberg's Blessed Among Us in the   excellent monthly booklet for daily prayer, Give Us This Day, published by Liturgical Press.)

Suffering with us

"Our redemption by the cross was likewise an expression of God's love and compassion rather than an appeasement of God's anger or a form of compensation for God's injured majesty." (from Ellsberg's summary of Scotus)
I have often preached that it is Love that we see hanging on the cross, arms spread to embrace the entire human race, thinking of others and caring for them.  "Father, forgive them;" "Today you will be with me in paradise."
Com(with) passion(suffer) means that Jesus "suffers with" every human being who suffers  in the Roman Colosseum or the Nazi death camps or on the United States border.

Consummated Union

Duns Scotus "taught that the Incarnation was not required as payment for sin; it was willed through eternity as an expression of God's love, and hence God's desire for consummated union with creation." (from Ellsberg's summary) 
Scotus' 13th century teaching seems only recently to have got our attention.  I am convinced that from all eternity God in his infinite love willed to become one of us, as a bridegroom marries his bride.   
The prophet Isaiah wrote "As a young man marries a wife, your Builder will marry you.  As a groom delights in his bride, the Lord will honor you." (62:5)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Infinite Love

God is infinite love, unending, love that never runs out.  This is what God is.  God's love for us in unending because it doesn't depend on whether we are good or bad.  Who do we think we are that we could change God!!  No matter how much evil we do we cannot make God less loving.  No matter how much good we do we cannot make God more loving.  Perfection cannot get any better.
(I'm just beginning to meditate on a summary of Blessed John Duns Scotus' thinking from Robert   Elsberg's book Blessed Among Us used in my daily prayer booklet, Give Us This Day.)  

Political Holiness

"Whatever I had read as a child about the saints had thrilled me.  I could see the nobility of giving one's life for the sick, the maimed, the leper...But there was another question in my mind.  Why was so much done in remedying the evil instead of avoiding it in the first place?...Where were  the saints to try to change the social order, not just to minister to the slaves, but to do away with slavery?"  --- Dorothy Day who died in November, 1980.
To me she was like the woman who lived by the river and kept fishing drowning people out of the water.  She soon decided to go upstream to stop those who were throwing the people into the river.

All Things in God

The day of my spiritual awakening 

was the day I saw-and knew I saw;

All things in God and God in all things. 

The card I used seven years ago as an invitation to my 50th anniversary of ordination had this quote from  Mechthild of Magdeburg, a 13th century mystic, whose feast is today.

Zacchaeus

Zacchaeus is warmed by the unearned, gracious love that he feels coming to him from Jesus.  Such love makes him lovely.  That's how it works.  It's not because we are good that God loves us; it's because God is good, so good that God loves everyone of us, good or bad.  Love makes us lovable.

ALL Saints

Today's feast celebrates all those who are with God in heaven who have not been canonized.  "Canon" in this verb refers to the "list" of those saints recognized by the church process.  Today we celebrate all those who didn't make the "list."  We pray for them and they for us.

Eve of All Hallows

Before Christianity came to Ireland the Celts celebrated their dead at this time of year.  Their belief in another world woven into and through this world where their dead still existed prepared them perfectly for the Christian belief in life after death.  Even though there was already a feast of All Martyrs in Rome in May, the Church eventually designated the Irish date as the time to feel the closeness of those who had gone before us into the other world.

Imagine God

What kind of God does this Pharisee imagine would would want to listen to his kind of prayer? (Luke 18:9-14)   The Pharisee brags to God that he has done more than the Law requires and that he hasn't committed the kinds of sin that lesser men commit.  The parable challenges us to look honestly at how we imagine God when we go to pray.

Silly!

Some color starting to show this morning.
St. Teresa of Avila was a very down to earth woman and a great mystic and teacher of prayer.  Here's a helpful prayer of hers: "From silly devotions and from sour-faced saints, good Lord, deliver us." 

Stranger and Outcast

Some brave blossoms have started to show up on a miniature tangerine tree that I have been nursing back to health all summer.  They have a sweet scent like orange blossoms
Meditating yesterday on the healing of the ten lepers (Luke 17:11-19,) I was struck this time, not just by only one returning to thank Jesus, but that Luke bothers to point out that he was a Samaritan.  He was not only one of the marginal because he was a leper but he was a foreigner. 
Sunday's first reading is taken from the story of the foreigner Naaman being healed of leprosy by the prophet Elisha who lives in Samaria (2 Kings 5:1-19.)   The passage highlights concern for the foreigner in the Gospel reading.

Never too old

I thought this plant was getting too old to bloom.  The leaves had gotten small and there had not been a flower for most of the summer.  Then last week this and a few days later another bloom.  I guess we are never too old to bloom.

Her Little Way

The autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux has had a big influence on me since I read it in first year college in the seminary.  Today is her feast day.  Her "little way" to holiness was to do the simplest everyday things out of love for Jesus.  Here's a charming passage that has stayed with me through the years: "I told Jesus...to use me like a little ball of no value which He could throw on the ground, push with His foot, pierce, leave in a corner, or press to His heart if it pleased him; in a word, I wanted to amuse little Jesus, to give him pleasure;  I wanted to give myself up to his childish whims."

Complacent

It's so easy to walk by without noticing this tiny stream surrounded by its wild and beautiful variety.  In this Sunday's parable the rich man who doesn't notice the poor man lying at his door is not condemned for being mean to the poor man.  He is condemned for his complacency.  A grim parable!  If I don't even notice the poor man lying at my door, how will I ever notice my complacency.

Hallowed Be Thy Name

I spent some time yesterday morning reflecting on what this verse of the Lord's Prayer and Psalm 96 might have in common.  Out of reverence for God's proper name, "Yahweh," the Old Testament sometimes substitutes "name."  We are praying ''May You be held holy."   Psalm 96 encourages us, "Sing to the Lord, bless his name."  I am praying something like "You are an awesome God."
The Psalm overflows with joyful praise to God, so much so that it is given the honor of being the psalm used to reflect on the readings in the Christmas Mass.  My favorite line is "All the trees of the forest shall sing for joy."  It has always made me think of Christmas trees. 

Healing Beauty

The memorial in New York City of the destruction of the twin towers of World Trade Center is a thing of beauty.  Two enormous pools replace the craters where the towers once stood.  Water streams down the inside walls of the pools and across the "floor" into a large square hole in the center.  I was deeply moved by harmony and beauty replacing brokenness.  Around the outside of each pool are the names of 3,000 who were killed that day.  You are invited to touch the names.

Evening

"In the evening of life we will be judged by love."

              --St. John of the Cross

Sister Helen Prejean uses this quote near the end of her memoir, River of Fire.

Joy

"Joy is the echo of God's life within us."

            Joseph Marmion

Again too much

"Is it not by his high superfluousness that we know our God....

 beauty over the moon and secret rainbows

 on the domes of deep seashells...."

-Robinson Jeffers

The other new boy on the block.  It resembles cattails.  It is not in a moist area, but perhaps the rains in June provided the moisture.

Too Much!!

"Is it not by his high superfluousness that we know our God....

 Not even weeds  to multiply without blossom...."

--Robinson Jeffers

 I don't recall ever seeing this flower.  I looked it up.  I think it's ironweed.  I'm guessing that the weed never grew enough in past summers to produce flowers.  Lots of rain at the beginning and lots of heat later has made bushes and trees, as well as weeds, grow like crazy.  The tallest Queen Ann's Lace I've ever seen.  And now coming along goldenrod taller than me and very lacy and lovely.

Travel Light

The usual city gate in the time of Jesus had a wide and high central gate for camels and animals carrying large loads.  On either side there was a smaller gate for individuals with little luggage.  When Jesus encourages us to choose the smaller gate to enter the kingdom he is telling us that, if we want our will be be like God's, we need to be traveling light through this world. 

'Nobodies"

Children at the time of Jesus were not treated as the precious things they are now.  They had no social status or legal standing.  When Jesus says "Unless you become like a child, you cannot enter the kingdom," he is saying that we have to see ourselves as "nobodies."

Cross the Bridge

On June 27 Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas, led some migrants who had been denied entry into the United States across the Good Neighbor International Bridge from Mexico into El Paso where  they were met by border officials.  The bishop reports that a tense exchange followed , but in the end these migrants were all allowed to enter the country.
(the picture is some happy children in Hawaii, not miserable children at our southern border)

Too Busy?

When St. Luke near the beginning of his Gospel (1:39) describes the newly pregnant Mary hurrying to visit her cousin Elizabeth, the Greek verb he uses means something like "hurrying deep in thought."  Perhaps some of us can ask Mary to teach us how to make sure that our action flows from contemplation.

Sit Still

Mary "sat down at the Lord's feet and listened to him speaking." (Luke 10:39)  Sitting is a popular position for contemplation.  Listening to the Divine is what contemplation is about.
St. Francis of Assisi said, "Where there is rest and meditation there is neither anxiety nor restlessness."

Rublev's Trinity

This icon painted in the 15th century by Andrei Rublev is sometimes called The Hospitality of Abraham (Genesis 18:1-10.)  It uses the story of three "angels" welcomed by Abraham as a symbol of the Trinity.  Some art critics think that the rectangle on the front of the table below the cup once held a mirror, so that the viewer was included in the Trinity.  I begin my centering prayer by placing myself with the Holy Spirit (on the right,) Jesus (center,) and Father, Love, "in whom I live and move and have my being."  Hospitality is a good word for unearned love.

Take It Easy

The passage about Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42) comes immediately after the parable of the Good Samaritan which portrays action as essential to living the love commandment.  So Jesus is not criticizing Martha for her activity, but for being over-anxious about it.  Hospitality is best when done with calm attention to the guest.

Cosmic Harmony

"Cosmic" seemed to me a modern word with echoes of endless space.  But in Colossians 1:15-20 St. Paul quotes what seems to be an early Christian hymn that has the notion of a cosmic Christ in whom "all things hold together," every created thing that has ever evolved and will evolve.  We are caught up in this cosmic harmony.

Neighbor

The lawyer asks Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?"  Jesus answers with the parable of the Good Samaritan which turns the question around and tells the lawyer, "You be the neighbor, you be the person who helps whoever comes your way in need." (Luke 10:25-37)

Participate!

Thomas Jefferson said,"We in America do not have government by the majority--we have government by the majority who participate....All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."

Lush Welcome

This spring's rains have made the bushes and trees grow more than usual.  It  feels like they are reaching out to embrace me.  This entrance to my neighborhood is especially welcoming.
I am coming along very well after a winter having trouble with my breathing.  I am often not thinking very deeply though and have little to post here.

The Alpha and the Omega

I made my yearly retreat last week with six other priests in my support group.  We used Richard Rohr's The Universal Christ to help us reflect and share.  A reflection I had: Once the Father raises Jesus from the dead, our humanity enters into divinity and becomes universal as the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One.  I imagined Jesus at the moment of the Resurrection, no longer with the limits he had while on earth with us, spreading back to the Big Bang and forward to our distant future, "the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End."