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.