Flowing

On a hot summer night with no wind, cool air flows down the mountain behind my house and into my back windows.  I can feel it flowing up the hallway into my room in the front of the house.  It is so gentle and so refreshing that I've begun to think of Love, whom we sometimes call God, flowing over me and around me and within me and out of me to others.  Love Who loves us flows over our entire sick earth, over our suffering country and over all of our people threatened by the virus.  Love Who loves us flows over and around and through everyone of us, flowing out to everyone we meet.  The love we receive from others is Love flowing out of them into us.  The flowing is so effortless that all we have to do is keep the windows open.

Madly in Love

Like a teenager, God has been madly in love with us since the very beginning.  Love never considers the consequences.  Tender.  Wasteful. This lavish love touches me especially in two passages in the prophet Hosea.  Through the prophet God compares us to a spouse: "I will betroth you to myself forever, betroth you with integrity and justice, with faithful love and tenderness. I will betroth you to myself with loyalty, and you will come to know your God." (2:21-22)  Chapter 11 begins:  "When Israel was a child I loved him."  God is a parent leaning down and taking a child's arms to teach them to walk, "leading them with human ties, with leading-strings of love.  I was like someone who lifts an infant close against his cheek; stooping down to him I gave him his food." (3-4)
This is the first instance in the Old Testament of the theme of God's love as cause of his choosing Iraael.  Jesus will show us over and over that God's love is not earned.  It is simply that God is Love that flows over all that God has made, transforming us into lovers.

100, 60,30?

What is called the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:1-9) is really about the seed and the soil.  The main message of Jesus is that God's rule, God's reign has come.  Very likely most of us have received this message of Jesus, so this parable pushes us to ask ourselves how generous is our response to God's power in our lives.  100 fold would be an extraordinary, but not impossible, harvest.  There may be a few of us who respond wholeheartedly to the power of God's love.  Most of us, however, will find ourselves a little or a lot less than that.  We must not underestimate ourselves or God's grace.  Honestly, how much of our heart are we giving over to the power of God's love?  60? 30?  God's love can improve the soil of our hearts.  All we have to do is let God do it.
I am starting to have problems with my breathing again, like I had two years ago.  Please pray for me.  It doesn't look like I will be celebrating Mass this summer in church or outside.

Hope

Hope is only hope when things seem hopeless.  Our nation is the oldest enduring republic in the history of the world, with a set of political institutions and traditions that have stood the test of time.  We have lost a lot of the world's respect recently.  Through the prophet Ezekiel God offers us hope (36:24-28): "I will give you my own spirit to lead you in my ways faithful to what I command.  Then you will live in the land the land I gave your ancestors.  You will be my people and I will be your God."
We have talked so much about the separation of church and state that we may not remember that, while our country was not founded on a particular denomination, it was founded on a kind of natural religion that almost all the great faiths of the world have in common: belief in God, an after-life, divine reward and punishment, responsibility to others.  Roger Williams, the strong proponent of the separation of church and state insisted that natural religion was a necessary condition for any free republic to maintain order and to be effective.  Our Declaration of Independence says that "all men are created."  We needn't be bashful about it.

United States

We seem determined to be the un-united States, even turning a pandemic into a matter of partisan politics.  To wear of not to wear a mask!!  George Washington warned our infant nation that disagreement and argument between political parties was the biggest danger to unity that we faced.  We have got ourselves to the point where we need to rededicate ourselves to working for unity.  As we surrender to our God who is Love, we beg that every last one of us may be filled with Love so strong that we will once again be the United States.

Peace to the Nations

The Old Testament passage chosen for most Sundays throws light on  the Gospel.  Matthew 11:25-30 asks us to imitate a gentle Jesus. The first reading from the Prophet Zechariah 9:9-10 stresses peace. A king riding on a donkey comes for peace.  Perhaps worth mentioning is that there is only one animal in the picture.  In Hebrew poetry a second line often repeats a first line in different words.  It was common for rulers to ride around their kingdom on donkeys.  This peace-bringing king does not ride a warhorse.  In fact he banishes them along with bows and chariots used in war. 
Peace is a dream of the human race.  I'm reading a book in which one character is a boy who graduates from high school just at the time when the United States is considering entering the Second World War.  He considers himself a pacifist.  Dorothy Day is one of his heroes.  His family and friends think he is an unrealistic dreamer.  His is a very hard stance to maintain in the face of Hitler's evil.  And so it goes.
We need a gentle leader who can bring us to take seriously the possibility of "No More War."

An Easy Yoke

"Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  

Yes , my yoke is easy and my burden light."

Matthew 11:29-30

The Pharisees referred to the Law as a yoke, literally a wooden frame placed over the necks of two oxen to draw a plow.  The quality of ease and lightness that Jesus offers does not consist of a lower level of ethical demand.  Obeying the Law is made easy by our relationship with Jesus and the sense of being grasped by the love of one who is gentle and humble of heart.  Jesus' interpretation of the Law also gives priority to engagement of the heart and promotion of relationships over purely ritual and external prescriptions. 

As we grow in our intimacy with Jesus he is able to share his goodness with us.