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."