Pauca Verba is Latin for A Few Words.

Thursday, November 30, 2017

Intercessions ~ First Sunday of Advent


Dark-Eyed Junco

As the new month of December begins/ we pray for those who celebrate birthdays,/ anniversaries and other days of remembrance./ We ask the blessings of good health,/ safety and peace./ We pray to the Lord.

That we would be gracious and of good heart these December weeks of deep darkness./ We ask for world leaders who are decent,/ genuine and humble./ We pray to the Lord.

We pray for those who will receive no gift at Christmas./ For those who lack warmth,/ food or friendship./ We pray as well for the Jewish people who will soon celebrate their own feast of light at Hanukkah./ We pray to the Lord.

Thursday is Pearl Harbor Day./ We pray for peaceful days/ and for the boldness to imagine a world without un-ending wars./ We pray to the Lord.

Friday is the Feast of Mary's Conception./ We pray for the pre-born child in the womb,/ asking for every child to be welcomed and loved./ For the children of the world who know only misery and fear./ We pray to the Lord.

In the Advent time we pray for the sick,/ the poor and the elderly./ We remember our friends and family members,/ mindful of those who are struggling in any way./ That we would come to Christmas with less stress;/ without resentful or rancorous hearts./ We pray to the Lord.


Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Contemporary Violence





Here is a sculpted scene that might get the attention of people today, maybe especially these Black Friday through Cyber Monday shopper-days. Notice that this frenzied couple don't have even one foot firmly planted on the ground. Notice that the shopping cart is filled to overflowing, so much so that it takes two to move it. Maybe it's more the Shopping Cart of Life. 

The children are panicked and stressed. Dad is anguished as he points ahead to the more. Perhaps he is calling to his wife, "I want my children to have everything I never had." The boy holding onto his mother's leg seems to be craving her attention. Do you sense the mom would prefer to be freed of these children who are slowing her down? The man is so crazed and inattentive he might crush the two real birds that are right in front of him.  The stone is gray: a colorless scene, a window into the violence of the First World.

Thomas Merton wrote in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander: 

"There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs; activism and overwork. The rush and the pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful."


Truth be told, Merton likely wrote this from his own personal experience. While he was a Trappist monk and hermit, he received many guests into his hermitage, traveled to Alaska and the Far East for conferences and was in constant communication with scholars, theologians, activists, poets and religious personalities. This doesn't mean he was a hypocrite in writing what he wrote, but perhaps he understood better than most. No one is immune to this contemporary violence.  Even a monk can fall prey.

Sunday, November 26, 2017

Psalm 66 ~ God's All-Inclusive Embrace




Psalm 66 is a harvest time song-prayer. But we'll see that the psalmist has more on his mind than just the gathering in of wheat and barley. 

Verse 1: May God be merciful to us. God's mercy is right up front in the psalmist's mind. It is God's kindness. And in the next line we're told in a poetic way what God's mercy-kindness means: that God would be close to us, so close we can stand in the light of God's face. 

Verse 2: The psalmist asks that God's saving health would be shared over the whole world - all the nations - and not only among his own people. No strident populist nationalism here! We could memorize this verse and pray it often throughout the day, as an antidote to the voices of the haters and division makers on the loose. 

Verse 3: When we've got a good idea, we tend to repeat it. Here the psalmist invites everyone to the praise of God: not just the Catholics, not just the Americans and the white people, not just the straight, right-partied, law-abiding, wealthy, credentialed, famous people - but all the peoples. That's called inclusion.

Verses 4 and 5: God judges with equity. Maybe the Jewish People - the chosen  people - have as their mission to be a kind of symbol or microcosmic sign of what God feels for all people. It is as if God has put them under a spotlight, not because God has in mind something for them that God doesn't have for all, but quite the opposite. The spotlight would seem to say, "Look here, this is how I feel about you too."

Verse 6: The earth has brought forth her increase. The earth is soil and water, which we all have in common. No human person or nation stands on a cloud. And what blessings might the psalmist be asking for? Maybe we've been given the answer back in verse 4: that we would be glad and sing for joy. Don't we need that? Not the idiotic kind of "joy" promised by the products sold on TV, but God's own gladness and joy.

Of course, we must be mindful of those places on earth where there is famine and the horrors that leave people suffering want - where the earth brings forth NO increase. We might begin by dispelling from among us any spirit of greed, hoarding, gluttony and waste.

Verse 7: May the ends of the earth stand in awe of God. Sometimes a nation or a religion can get so turned in on itself, its divisions, bickering and shallow distractions, it loses its true spiritual sense of the things that matter most - like taking care of people. Imagine if a nation which calls itself God-fearing, or a religion which thinks itself to be God-Loving, found itself utterly speechless by the all-embracing kindness of God who has gone to such trouble to be with us. Awe: to have our breath taken away!

Thursday, November 23, 2017

Intercessions ~ Feast of Christ the King


"For I was thirsty and you gave me to drink." Matthew 25:35

On the Feast of Christ the King/ we ask for a moral and political revolution/ based on the teachings of Jesus and his demand that we care for the least of our brothers and sisters./ We pray to the Lord.

We pray for Pope Francis/ who later this month travels to the Asian nation of Myanmar/ a country suffering painful, internal divisions./ May the pope's trip be a safe one/ and his message promote reconciliation,/ healing and peace./ We pray to the Lord.

Thursday is the Feast of the Apostle Andrew/ who in the Gospels often introduced people to Jesus./ We ask that our Church would be marked by a generous hospitality:/ that no one would feel alienated for lack of welcome./ We pray to the Lord.

We pray for people with knotted hearts:/ white supremists,/ unrepentant prisoners,/ bigots,/ terrorists and anti-semites./ We pray for the many who confuse partisan loyalty/ with the highest good./ We pray to the Lord.

We pray for our stressed planet:/ that plant and animal species are rapidly becoming extinct,/ that the planet is undeniably warming,/ that a global nuclear war would put most of the world's population at risk,/ that an acre of forest disappears every second./ Give us reverential hearts and minds./ We pray to the Lord.

For those who gather around us at Mass this last Sunday of the liturgical year./ May these many weeks of Word and Sacrament,/ now bear in us the fruit of love,/ compassion and justice./ We pray to the Lord.






Tuesday, November 21, 2017

The Death of Moses - And God's Idea Of Religion



This is Marc Chagall's etching with watercolor titled: The Death of Moses.  In Deuteronomy 32:51 God tells Moses that even after leading the Chosen People through the Sinai desert for forty years, Moses would not enter the promised land with them.

"Because you did not make my holiness clear to the Israelites." Yikes! It is said that the largest Christian denomination is Roman Catholics, and the second largest is fallen away Catholics. Have the priests failed to make God's holiness clear to the people?

We're told more in Deuteronomy chapter 34. God is called Yahweh.


Then leaving the Plains of Moab, Moses went up Mount Nebo...and Yahweh showed Moses the whole country: Gilead as far as Dan, the whole of Naphtali, the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, the whole country of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the Negeb and the region of the Valley of Jericho, city of palm trees...And Yahweh said to Moses, "This is the country which I promised on oath to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying: I shall give it to your descendents. I have allowed you to see it  for yourself, but you will not cross into it." There in the country of Moab, Moses servant of Yahweh died as God decreed...He buried him in the valley in the country of Moab...Since then, there has never been such a prophet in Israel as Moses, the man whom Yahweh knew face to face.

Apparently resigned to it all, in Chagall's etching, Moses appears to be getting ready for a good nights sleep. He has put down his wonder-working staff; his unveiled face still emitting rays of light.  Moses waves to God who seems to be pushing away the clouds, opening a path of light for his servant, who looks to God face to face.

But we notice too that it seems God personally buried Moses in the valley. I'd suggest God buried Moses in a secret place because God knows how idolatrous human beings are. God knew that if Moses' grave were known, we'd forget everything he taught us; we'd build a great shrine with a decorated tomb, summoning people from all around the world to make expensive pilgrimages to it, to buy souvenirs, to stay in the five star hotels, dining in the fine restaurants that spring up around shrines. No, God left Moses' body hidden in the wilderness. 

The God of the Jews and Christians isn't a shrine-god or real estate god.

"It is mercy I desire, not sacrifice." Hosea 6:6; Matthew 9:13

"My sacrifice O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, O God, will not despise." Psalm 51:17

True religion happens in the wilderness: the wilderness of my inner life. In the wilderness (desert) there is nothing to hold onto, no one to impress, nothing that will save me. I'm utterly vulnerable in the wilderness; face to face with my own unvarnished self. In the inner wilderness I have no cloak of prestige to wear, no masks, no facade. I stand alone before God, who sees me and loves me just as I am.

The only thing we find in the desert is sand. Moses' burial in the desert-sand teaches me: when I crouch down and write the story of my past, with all the wounds, the mistakes, the sins, the twists and turns that may have taken me faraway, when I leave and glance back over my shoulder, I notice the wind has blown it all away. God is like that. 

I want to accept this desert-y spiritual place and not run to some other kind of religion that distracts, 'saves' or is more comfortable and easier. Oh God, thank you for burying Moses in a secret place of sand and wind.

Sunday, November 19, 2017

A Monk's Gift



Here is a photograph of the back road leading up to the Monastery of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky, founded by French monks in 1848. One of the monks, who in Trappist fashion chooses to remain anonymous, has created this Litany of the Person, which we might care to use as a point of meditation. The litany's last line: This is who you are, stands in stark contrast with the many other messages we're exposed to, messages which propose to tell us who we are. Here's my silly first-world commercial identity.

You are:
driving the fastest, hottest vehicle
with the whitest teeth
an amazing figure
and great sex appeal
the most shiny hair
and fabulous skin
vitamined into ageless
sleeping soundly on the perfect mattress
and the shape-retaining pillow.
You are:
approved of by everyone
laughing constantly
everyone's idea of fun
media savvy
clothes to die for
and filthy rich.
You are:
on the way to the top
with a six (seven?) figure salary.
This is who you are.


Now to hear from the hidden monk whose insights as to who we are flow from knowing God in intimacy.


A Litany of the Person
image of God
born of God's breath
vessel of divine love
after his likeness
dwelling of God
capacity for the infinite
eternally known
chosen of God
home of infinite Majesty
abiding in the Son
called from eternity
life in the Lord
temple of the Holy Spirit
branch of Christ
receptacle of the Most High
wellspring of Living Water
heir of the kingdom
the glory of God
abode of the Trinity

God sings this litany
eternally in His Word.

This is who you are.

Thursday, November 16, 2017

Intercessions ~ Thirty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time


Autumn Grapes

Today is World Day of the Poor./ We ask a new heart for the world/ that no one would be without the things basic to human life/ and which the comfortable nations may take for granted./ That justice would increase on the earth./ We pray to the Lord.

The nation celebrates Thanksgiving Day this week./ We pray for the safety of holiday travelers,/ for those with whom we will share the day/ and for anyone who is alone/ or who feels little or no gratitude./ We pray to the Lord.

Tuesday is the Feast of the Presentation of Mary/ when as a young girl she climbed and danced on the steps of the temple./ We ask for hearts that delight in God/ and find joy in serving Him./ We pray to the Lord.

We pray for those who distort Christianity/ turning it into a religion of proofs,/ suspicion,/ harsh judgments and hatred for anyone perceived to be "other."/ May we possess the clean heart of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount./ We pray to the Lord.

Our country is being sensualized/ with long secreted cases of sex abuse now being revealed./ We pray for each human person to be recognized and honored as God's dear child,/ and that we may be freed from the sins of exploitation./ We pray to the Lord.

We pray gifts of healing and comfort for the sick,/ the wounded,/ and those who are terrified and traumatized./ For the conversion of prisoners/ and those who plan violence and death./ We pray to the Lord.

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Breezes and Winds, Bless the Lord!



In the Book of Daniel chapter 3, there is (in Catholic bibles anyway) the account of the Three Youths in the Fiery Furnace. Daniel's friends are bound with chains and thrown into the fiery pit for having refused to fall down and worship Nebuchadnezzar's golden-god.

When the king shows up to be sure they're gone forever, he sees the youths very much alive. More wondrous still, a fourth figure is seen with them, perhaps an angel companion leading them in a canticle, praising the God of creation and beauty. 

The litany-like song invites every animate and inanimate thing to praise and extol God. "Bless" is the praise-word they use.

angels and powers
sun and moon and stars of the sky
fire and heat
winter and summer
drops of dew and flakes of snow
frost and cold
ice and sleet
shining light and enfolding dark
snow clouds and thunderbolts, all bless the Lord...


Have a look for yourself and be lifted up anytime, but especially on Sunday morning. But there was a windy day this autumn week that caused me to pull out my camera-phone to catch the twenty-three second scene in the little video above. This is the tall clump of zebra grass outside the chapel door. The variegated yellow-green leaves were bright, and the soft coppery fans on the long stems bent this way and then that way - and the sound of the wind and the stream nearby. It was all right there in front of me!


Glorify the Lord. O mountains and hills
and all that grows upon the earth,
O bless the Lord.

Glorify the Lord O springs of water, seas and streams,
breezes and winds,
O bless the Lord.

We can add aspects of our own lives to the canticle - inviting it all to the praise God as well:

Households and businesses,
factories and farms.
solar panels and wind turbines,
Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, all bless the Lord.

Rockets and satellites,
electric cars and high speed rail,
air turned to water and movable houses, all bless the Lord.

Time zones, and telescopes,
microscopes and bio tech breakthroughs, 
CT Scans and GPS tracking, all bless the Lord.

Muslims and Jews,
Catholics and Orthodox,
Protestants and Mormons,
Hindus and Buddhists,
reconcilers and peacemakers, all bless the Lord.

We could spend the whole day, offering to God everything we have created out of our capacities and gifts. Bottom line: Enjoy God! Praise God in all things, everywhere and all times.












Sunday, November 12, 2017

You are to me, O Jesus Christ...




You are to me, O Jesus Christ...
Good teacher of the higher things
Source of prayer
Extended hand of restoration
Of whom we ask healing
Brother on the rough way

You are to me, O Jesus Christ...

Delight of those who find you
Who greets us each morning
Reassurance in anxiety
Gentle answer to the harshness
Healer of soul deformities

You are to me, O Jesus Christ...

Challenge to our inauthenticity
Mother in our failure
Tear-dryer in our sorrowing
Mighty word of inclusion
Exit out of mediocrity

You are to me, O Jesus Christ...
Safe port in the storm of human lies
Whose face calms agitation
Who censures the self-righteous
Convicting the heart-heresies
Good friend to the excluded


Father Stephen P. Morris




Thursday, November 9, 2017

Intercessions ~Thirty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time




Last Sunday/ twenty-six people died in the Sutherland Baptist Church/ including a pre-born child./ We pray for that small town,/ and for legislators who will stand before God,/ having done nothing to protect the people of this nation from the epidemic of gun violence./We pray to the Lord.

Monday is the feast of Frances Xavier Cabrini,/ the first United States citizen to be canonized a saint,/ and the patron of immigrants./ We pray for those who look to come to this country,/ especially those who are fleeing for their lives./ We pray to the Lord.

Endless war,/ media saturation and consumerism/ threaten to destroy our personal and national souls./ We pray to rediscover the inner life,/ which gives birth to compassion,/ respect and love./ We pray to the Lord. 

We ask for the enlightening of darkened hearts:/ for murderers,/ terrorists,/ corporate exploiters,/ parents who fail their children,/ those who tell destructive lies./ We pray to the Lord.

For ourselves,/ our families and friends,/ and for those who are with us at Mass today,/ asking for the blessings of faith and hope,/ strength,/ good health and safety./ We pray to the Lord.

For those who died this week as a result of violence,/ war or disease./ We pray especially for those who died because of human blindness/ and for those whose mourning is profound./ We pray to the Lord.


Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Behind every fallen leaf...




These fallen and frosted leaves are part of a much larger autumn scene: the birds flee, other animals burrow away, the ground seizes up, the plants don't grow and the trees are left bare. Maybe all of this loss causes us to be a bit more pensive this time of year. Loss is unavoidable. We understandably wish it were otherwise, but loss is part of living on this planet. Loss is like the ocean tide - it moves in and out of our lives. "Ebb and flow," we say.

Some losses are easily dealt with - we acknowledge them, maybe solve them, or simply move on past them. We lose a night's sleep, but have to function the next day. We lose keys, remotes, phones, wallets, and then we find them. We lose time with some distraction or pressing problem. We can lose our place in line or our place on a page. Loss is everywhere and everyday.

However, some losses are more serious, even life-threatening. The autumn trees (in our northern hemisphere anyway) now appear to be dead. But behind each of the fallen leaves there is the bud already in place and containing next April's leaf. Each miniature leaf will stay folded and safely tucked away against the winter blasts behind a hard shell. This closer autumn inspection might invite us to consider what's underneath or tucked away behind our own experience of  loss. 

I was recently talking with a friend who has just had a major cancer surgery and who today begins the chemo regimen that will take her through the holidays and into early March. After describing all of this she said, "But the blessings are falling like manna from the sky." She then spoke about the team of surgeons and doctors, the nurses, the people who are helping her to take care at home, the hospital pharmacists, house-keepers and technicians, her out-of-state adult children who call everyday, the presence of friends, the folks who promise prayers...


"But the blessings are falling like manna from the sky."


Gathering Manna in the Wilderness ~ German Bible ~1483

Sunday, November 5, 2017

Saint Sergius of Moscow and the Monk Within Each of Us

St. Sergius of Radonezh by Mikhail Nesterov ~ 1890's

I was introduced to this painting of St. Sergius while visiting the State Museum at St. Petersburg in 1996. Here we see the holy saint at the top of a rise in late autumn. Look deeply and notice his monastery in the distance in the upper left hand corner. Perhaps the hills remind us of that hill country the pregnant Mary traveled to visit her elder cousin Elizabeth: God overcoming all the obstacles history placed to keep God from finding us in Christ. Here is a bio-paragraph about St. Sergius from the Anglican book of Lesser Feasts and Fasts.

At the age of twenty, Sergius and his brother began a life of seclusion in a nearby forest, from which developed the Monastery of the Holy Trinity, a center of revival of Russian Christianity. There Sergius remained for the rest of his life, refusing higher advancement.  
Sergius was simple and gentle in nature, mystical in temperament, and eager to ensure that his monks should serve the needs of their neighbors. He was able to inspire intense devotion to the faith. He died in 1392, and pilgrims still visit his shrine at the monastery of Zagorsk, which he founded in 1340. His feast day on the Russian calendar is September 25. 

In the painting we see the road leading from the monastery to the hilltop - we are all pilgrims on a spiritual path to find God who has found us long before. Sergius' left hand is placed over his heart, "Blessed are the clean of heart," Jesus teaches. The saint carries his prayer beads as well, to keep his prayer awake and focused. In his right hand he carries his abbot's staff, rather like a shepherd's crook. In the foreground there is a little conifer tree, an evergreen: That my prayer, like Sergius' prayer, might be ever-green, even through the personal times I might call dry or like a winter.

Wearing the tree bark shoes of a poor man, Sergius has stopped along the way making eye contact with each of us. He invites us to pay attention to the monk who is within each of us: to simplicity, silence, detachment, and the inner still-place where God can be detected. One abbot says: "The monk, standing outside his monastery, can tell what time it is by listening to the night insects." 

When the monk is having his silent breakfast, he isn't thinking about how to solve the monastery's money problems, or how to get foolish brother so-and-so to see things his way, he's just enjoying his tea and oatmeal. If he doesn't come to that attentive stillness, he won't endure.

We might spend some time with the painting of Sergius - long enough for him to speak a word of encouragement to us before he walks on. And below is a prayer from Lesser Feasts and Fasts, beautifully summarizing the essential theme of the saint's life, which we might make our own.


O God, 
by whose grace your servant Sergius of Moscow,
 kindled with the flame of your love, 
became a burning and a shining light  in  your Church: 
Grant that we also may be aflame with the spirit of love and discipline,
 and walk before you as children of light;
 through Jesus Christ our Lord, 
who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
 one God, now and for ever. 
Amen.





Thursday, November 2, 2017

Intercessions ~ Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time


Desecrated Torah Scrolls ~ Kristallnacht 1938

Pope Francis has led us in prayer this week:/ May we see citizens; not votes./ May we see migrants; not quotas,/ workers; not economic markers,/ the poor; not statistics,/ May we see faces; not abstractions./ We pray to the Lord.

Thursday is the Feast of the Lateran Basilica/ the Pope's church as Bishop of Rome./ We ask for the Church to be freed of so much reflecting upon its own divisions and problems/ and to be built up as an agent of dialogue in a divided world,/ solidarity,/ inclusion,/ reconciliation and human development./ We pray to the Lord.

Wednesday is the memorial of Kristallnacht/ the night which set in motion the Nazi elimination of Jews from Germany:/ murdering and injuring scores,/ destroying Jewish schools,/ synagogues,/ homes and businesses./ We pray for a world freed of Jewish hatred,/ and for the healing of memories./ We pray to the Lord.

Saturday is Veteran's Day,/ originally called Armistice Day/ marking the end of the First World War./ We pray for a peaceful world./ For veterans who are damaged physically,/ emotionally or spiritually./ We pray blessings for veterans' groups which advocate peace in our world./ We pray to the Lord.

We pray for those who were injured in Tuesday's attack in New York City,/ and blessings for the police,/ investigators and rescuers./ We ask comfort for mourners,/ and new hearts for those who do evil,/ violent things./ We pray to the Lord.

With the turning back of clocks/ we begin to experience the winter's darkness./ May we discover something of the darkness within our own souls:/ the indifference to injustice,/ our settling for ignorance,/ and acceptance of the lies we are told./ We pray to the Lord.

*Sometimes I'm asked if I really believe God answers these weekly prayers for the Church and the world? I let God be God. All I care about is that God would see my heart awake before him, and that if nothing else changes on this planet, my heart does.