Right or wrong,/ we tend to think of ourselves as a Christian nation./ Now the Texas bridge is open to traffic again,/ the Haitians have been sent away on planes to other places,/ the makeshift huts and garbage cleaned up,/ as if it never happened./ We must ask ourselves if this is how the Lord Jesus would have addressed the human crisis./ We pray to the Lord.
Monday is the Feast of St. Francis./ Pope Francis has said,/ "Small yet strong in the love of God,/ like St. Francis of Assisi,/ all of us,/ as Christians,/ are called to watch over and protect the fragile world in which we live,/ and all its peoples./ May we understand./ We pray to the Lord.
The Italian Jewish Holocaust survivor, Primo Levi, wrote,/ "Monsters exist,/ but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous./ More dangerous are the common men,/ the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking why."/ May we learn this truth./ We pray to the Lord.
In this time of Covid resurgence, / we pray for doctors,/ nurses,/ technicians and all who care for the sick./ At the same time we witness ugly fights and even violence over vaccines and masks./ We pray for resisters,/ deniers,/ objectors and argue-rs./ May we learn the Lord's mandate to love one another./ We pray to the Lord.
God reveals himself through Water and Word,/ Bread and Wine./ We pray for the Church to be nurtured into the place where God's presence is experienced and shared./ We pray to the Lord.
The Irish Priest-Poet,/ Gerard Manley Hopkins,/ compares Mary to the air we breathe./ In October,/ the month of the Rosary,/ may we present Mary as the atmosphere around Christ/ which draws a hurting,/ tired world to him and his promise of life./ We pray to the Lord.
Shape our families and parish communities to be places where God is honored,/ where we encourage one another,/ where healing can be found,/ where joy is increased./ We pray to the Lord.
Pope Francis has written,"Contemplation is an opening of the heart and life to the force that truly transforms the world, that is, God's love." I'm afraid we are missing this in the Church these days — caught up as we are in the political fracturing that has seized us. Jesus announces to John (and us) this world-transforming love
18 John's disciples reported all these happenings to him. 19 Then he summoned two of them and sent them to the Lord with this message, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to look for someone else?" 20 When the men came to Jesus, they said, "John the Baptist has sent us to you with this message, 'Are you the one who is to come, or are we to look for someone else?'" 21 At that very time Jesus was healing many people of their diseases and ailments and evil spirits, and he restored sight to many who were blind. 22 Then he answered them, "Go and tell John what you have seen and heard. The blind are recovering their sight, cripples are walking again, lepers being healed, the deaf hearing, dead men are being brought to life again, and the good news is being given to those in need. 23 And happy is the person who never loses faith in me."
It's as if Jesus is saying, "The fullness of God's transformative, healing, restoring love have been let loose upon the world in my person. Believe it!"
The Irish Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote a poem (perhaps you read it in school) titled, God's Grandeur. The poet writes about this wild, divine love, and that despite our spoiling neglect, it comes back again and again.
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared,
smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with
ah! bright wings.
And then there is Vincent Van Gogh's Country Road in Provence by Night. How majestic. Van Gogh painted it in May of 1890, just three months or so before his tragic death in July. Artists love to paint roads — a path through the woods, a road along a river or through a city, through the mountains or fields and here, a country road in the south of France.
Van Gogh loves to include cypress trees in his landscapes. This tree often grows in cemeteries. Did Vincent have his own approaching death in mind. It is generally believed he died by suicide. But notice this — the top of the tree pierces the upper margin. Was it poor planning or did he intend that the tree symbolically reveal that there are not two distinct and opposed worlds of earth and heaven. Does the cypress stitch together earth and heaven?
On the left of the centrally placed tree there are the planets (named after ancient gods) Venus and Mercury converging. Although they are very far apart from each other in space, every once in a while they seems to lay over each other in their orbits. They were converging when Van Gogh painted the picture. We'll have to wait until 2033 to see that orbital space layering again. On the right is a crescent moon — the new moon in its very earliest phase. It is an image of optimism and new beginnings.
There are two walking travelers in the bottom right of the painting and behind them there are some folks in a carriage. Vincent Van Gogh understood loneliness and longed for real companionship. But the best of it is the paint strokes themselves. Look carefully: the night sky spins — the clouds, the planets and moon, the ground we walk on, the grasses and trees are shot through with divine energies.
Perhaps the words of Jesus, the Hopkins poem and Van Gogh painting are telling us that we are all traveling in a world that, while sorely troubled, is still filled with infinity and eternity — a universe that seems to know it is filled with transformative love.
Catherine Randall has authored a book of Hopkins letters and poems titled, "A Heart Lost in Wonder." Don't you want that kind of heart for yourself? I do. Jesus knew. The young sickly poet-priest knew. The lonely and troubled artist knew. I don't want to miss any of it.
It's said that sunflowers keep circling around during the daylight hours to face the sun. It isn't really so much that as when young plants are growing, they tend to face east to maximize their exposure to the sun's energies. So a whole field of sunflowers, wonderfully faces east — the direction of the sun's rising.
Back on June 25, 2017 I did a reflection of Psalm 139 here — all twenty-four verses. Here I've pulled out only seven lines from the psalm — maybe the best parts we might use for a morning or evening prayer. The whole psalm is light-seeking.
1 O Lord, you search me and you know me.
2 You yourself know my resting and my rising;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You mark when I walk or lie down;
you know all my ways through and through.
13 For it was you who formed my inmost being,
knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I thank you who wonderfully made me;
how wonderful are your works which my soul knows well!
23 O search me, God, and and know my heart.
O test me, and know my thoughts.
24 See that my path is not wicked,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Verse 1:"Search me and know me." We're familiar with the expressions Keep a low profile or Keep your head down. We may have life-bits we'd prefer to keep secret, or have forgotten all about. But God knows us. God searches us out, looking to know us even in the places we keep protectively hidden or are lost to memory. This divine search to know is born of love.
Verse 2: Many Christians think God is only interested in our productive, do-ing, busy time. But here the psalmist tells us God is interested in our rest time, our dream state. God is like a parent who sits watching over a sleeping infant in a crib. It's that tender.
God knows our thoughts from afar, but not afar because God is beyond the beyond, but because our thoughts can be poor, anxious, distracted, silly, despondent or "half-baked." Then softly, God seems to call to us, "Come back, come back."
Verse 3: "You mark when I walk." Medicine Net suggests aiming for 10,000 steps a day, while the average American walks between 3000 and 4000 steps — considered "low activity." We're an unhealthy nation in not a few ways. Maybe the point is a poetic one — God is not an acquaintance or fleeting presence.
"You know all my ways." Our cultural ways? Our cults of personality? Cult is worship. Essentially our worship (putting first) personalities in politics, entertainment, sports, media. There are even personality cults in religion — the prelates or media persons who uphold my religious brand or flag. God doesn't miss a trick.
Verse 13: "You formed my inmost being." Christianity is a spiritual way. "You knit me together." And knitting can be a complex undertaking. It is an invitation to do our inner work. Don't even go there, some people say. It's a kind of threat to leave me untouched. "Let sleeping dogs lie." Innermost place can be the place where old resentments lie, where old trauma-wounds fester. I know a woman who recently broke up with a man when she discovered how untreated and potentially menacing his childhood trauma remains. "Ah, get over it," or "suck it up," doesn't work. God made the inmost being. The psalmist acknowledges this deeply, calling that inner self a wonderful work of God. It deserves respect and attention.
Verse 23: There's that word "search" again. But this time it's "search my heart." Why? So God might root out all the negativity that can take up so much space. Oh, this toxic bitterness and raging fear that's filling the news time and flowing into Christian hearts. Many people don't even see it or hear it in themselves. Or they justify it and think it's godly. God, search my heart and free me!
The psalmist says, "test me." But a teacher doesn't test students to find out what they DON'T know so much as to see what they DO know. I grew up always on the lookout for sin and sin's "near occasions." Kind of a negative take on religious/spiritual living. I want to invite God to test me to see where there's mercy, justice and kindness in my life and to grow me up in these things. Jesus will echo this, reminding us that thoughts originate in our hearts.
Verse 24:"See that my path is not wicked." That could mean something like, "See to it, God, that I stay on a right path." OR it could be a kind of announcement telling God to be sure to see what's already true. Your call.
But then the psalm's last line: "Lead me..." Here's a little video of Velma Willis and her wonderfully faith-filled congregation-friends singing the Gospel Hymn: "Lead me, Guide Me." Check this out! Can you feel it? Oh, blessed Lord Jesus, preserve us from bored prayer and worship. Bishop Anthony Bloom (+2003) says, "Don't pray until you feel something." These folks understand! Do I have any of this in me?
Every week we are confronted with images or news of people in our country who are angry,/ even rage-ful,/ who prepare for violence,/ who live in a bubble-world of lies,/ suspicion and doubt,/ who out of fear react badly./ We pray for them and ask for the restoration of peace and security./ We pray to the Lord.
There are many new Afghani refugees among us./ May we not only welcome them but help them to feel a deep sense of belonging,/ eager for the contributions they will make./ We pray for the many thousands of Haitian refugees who recently arrived at the southern border after repeated earthquakes and the assassination of their president./ For those who resent newcomers./ We pray to the Lord.
There are increasingly dire predictions of catastrophe on the horizon as we fail to protect our planet in a time of climate crisis./ We pray boldly for lands devastated by flood,/ drought, fire, tornado and hurricane./ May we bring our own creativity to the restoration of forests and the oceans,/ rivers and seas./ We pray to the Lord.
Pope Francis has said,/ "Many powerful people don't want peace because they live off war. Some powerful people make their living with the production of arms. It's the industry of death."/ May we understand./ We pray to the Lord.
There are Catholics who are slanderous,/ rude and accusatory of the Pope./ Some are even bitterly disappointed he survived a recent hospitalization./ Perhaps they are afraid of the Gospel-Christ he unfailingly proclaims./ We ask blessings for the Pope/ and for Jesus to repair his detractors./ We pray to the Lord.
Autumn has begun,/ a season of letting go and transition./ May we come to some new understanding of how we might travel more lightly for the sake of Christ and the piece of his mission entrusted to us./ We pray to the Lord.
Give courage,/ wisdom,/ health and renewal to our families./ Instruct our hearts in the way of the Gospel./ We pray to the Lord.
I would like to give the Virgin Mary Guadalupe a new title: Mother of God ~ All Courteous. Juan Diego was an Aztec native — of a people defeated by the Spanish Empire. A crushed man. A no-body. When on his way to Saturday morning Mass the lady appeared to him and said, "Listen my most abandoned son, dignified Juanito. Where are you going?" Notice the lady addressed him by his diminutive name — endearing, intimate, dignified.
When speaking of his encounters with the apparition he said, "I heard her thought and word, which were exceedingly re-creative, very ennobling, alluring, producing love." Years ago, a Benedictine nun said to me, "We are returning to the level of beasts in this country." Attentive to the news these days, I would say, I fear we are devolving.
The Guadalupe in her courtesy echoes Christ who celebrates faith outside of Judaism, who shares meals with people, who heals the ones thought of as "other," who celebrates as heroic the actions of people called "other," who invites in and blesses the littlest, who never insults...
The idolatrous gun-lust and daily death, this politicization of masks and vaccines while children are dying in the nation called "Pro-life" — the politicization of seemingly everything really — the faces of so many people made ugly by emotion more powerful than intelligence — forgetting how to nourish each other with compassion, respect and kindness — I think I have found my new invocation before the image of the Guadalupe (whose left leg is bent, as if advancing towards us in our trouble) — Mother of God, All-Courteous, Restore Us.
Here we see two paintings by the 19th century artist Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890). There is so much in print and online about this artist that is worth pursuing. He signed his paintings simply "Vincent." Some suggest that's because he was concerned people would not know how to pronounce his last name. I don't think it was that at all, but rather his desire to be simply one with us — whoever, wherever we are. No airs about him.
But he was a complex man with a turbulent mind largely due to poor diet, insomnia, working with toxic materials (paints and thinners) and consuming large amounts of absinthe, which could bring on hallucinations. Some say he was treated for epilepsy, but he didn't have seizures. More likely he was clinically depressed.
On May 8, 1889 — a year before his death, likely by suicide, Van Gogh began treatment at the asylum Sant Paul de Mausole in Saint Remy. For some time he painted only within the walls of the asylum, then after a while he was allowed to paint beyond the walls with supervision. In this first painting we are with him looking out his first floor window.
The field is still green with some flowers growing in the foreground nearest his window. He wrote: "But what a beautiful land and what beautiful blue and what a sun. And yet I've only seen the garden and what I can make out through the window." That doesn't sound depressed to me. In another letter he shared that painting nature was good for him; it calmed his mind.
I wonder if that's (at least partly) why our culture feels so sick these days — we are so distanced from nature. All this soul-deadening fighting (much of it online or before TV cameras, in interviews and from podiums), the negative and fanciful thinking, threats, yelling and splintering off into camps and tribes. We're increasingly acting like primitives, made more dangerous with the gun fetish and the politicization of everything. We need to get outside — let lost outside — where there's no blacktop or cement and without a GPS. I knew a couple who lived four houses up the street from the thingdom-come pharmacy. The wife told me she'd never even consider walking there, but would only drive. God knew best — when creating us we were placed in a garden.
Van Gogh's painting is called Post-Impressionism. But for all the conversation about what that actually means here is a paragraph from the book Van Gogh Up Close which pretty much describes how the artist viewed himself.
"...painting for Van Gogh was always deeply personal. He did not seek to represent the world strictly as it appeared and expressed distaste for portrait photographs that were made by a machine (cameras)...he purposefully exaggerated the color of flowers, gave heavy dark outlines to plant stems, and distorted the sense of space and proportion in the landscape around him...He did not wish to scientifically depict colors, light and forms but wanted to imbue them with meaning and suggest the feelings that a clump of irises, two crabs or the dense undergrowth of a wood created in him." Van Gogh and Close-up Techniques in 19th Century French Painting by Jennifer A. Thompson. Page 93.
Two years before his death in 1888 he wrote to his brother Theo, "I'm beginning more and more to look for a simple technique that perhaps isn't' Impressionist. I'd like to paint in such a way that if it comes to it, everyone who has eyes would understand it."
Even though he's looking out a first floor window, Vincent seems to be high up above the field. Is he giving us an imagined bird's eye view? And does that view or angle change as the picture moves upward? Do you get the feeling the wind is blowing through the wheat field?
Notice the enclosing wall. Does it invite interiority? It takes a sharp right turn — a new direction. It's a dynamic wall — as if Vincent doesn't see it as a barrier. To the left beyond the wall there is a small orchard of perhaps olive trees. Notice the lone Cypress tree on top of the hill. The Cypress is usually found growing in cemeteries, but Van Gogh (who frequently includes the Cypress in his paintings) might see it as candle-like. This tree seems to stitch together two realms — the earthly and the heavenly being made one.
Van Gogh grew up in a religious home, his father being a pastor to a Dutch Reformed Church. Vincent even had dreams of becoming a pastor himself, but he found the theological preparation to take the entrance exams to be overly academic. When he became a lay preacher to a poor mining town, he was dismissed for being too zealous, taking the Gospel mandate to live without possessions "too far."
Look at that sun in the upper left corner! Brilliant and over-sized suns often find their way into Van Gogh paintings. He would never depict God as an old man bursting through the clouds with an angel escort. For Vincent, divine-presence is suggested by the brightness of the sun. I suspect he also included a great sun in so many paintings as a reassurance — suffering his own inner darkness so deeply.
Van Gogh stayed in this asylum for about a year. Here we see the same view outside his window some months later, on a rainy October day. The wheat field has been mowed and a jagged furrow has been dug in the foreground, echoing the distant, diagonal wall. Notice how the pelting rain is green, blue and white. Again we see the foothills to the Alps in the distance. Vincent would have known this lovely verse, "I lift up my eyes unto the hills: from where shall come my help? My help shall come from the Lord who made heaven and earth. May he never allow you to stumble! Let him sleep not, your guard. No, he sleeps not nor slumbers, Israel's' guard. Psalm 121:1-4.
I am also thinking of St. Paul's writing to the Philippians in his letter 4:11 —
"For I have learned to be content and self-sufficient through Christ, satisfied to the point where I am not disturbed or disquieted, regardless of my circumstances."
Tuesday is the Feast of St. Matthew,/ Apostle and Evangelist./ As Matthew's Gospel gives us Jesus' Sermon on the Mount/ may we know Christ's teaching,/ searching within ourselves for some new way of acting upon it./ We pray to the Lord.
Wednesday is the First Day of Autumn./ With the setting of buds and the planting of bulbs,/ may we see it as a season of beginnings ~ perhaps the beginning of a new way of prayer,/ the start of some new work for the benefit of others,/ some new way of thinking or relating./ We pray to the Lord.
Pope Francis has returned to Rome following his pilgrimage to Hungary and Slovakia,/ his 34th journey abroad./ May his message help to heal those nations/still recovering from the wounds of the Second World War and subsequent decades of totalitarianism./ We ask blessings for the Jewish communities there/ which were devastated by murder and deportation./ We pray to the Lord.
God shows no partiality./ We ask boldly for leaders to be made courageous in creating a world that is just for all./ For the health and safety of those who are dear to us./ These days,/ often marked by menace,/ threat and discourtesy,/ we ask for the dignity of each person to be recognized and protected./ We pray to the Lord.
In an interview this week with a government lawyer,/ when asked to identify the top three most urgent global concerns,/ he said,/ "Climate Crisis, Climate Crisis, Climate Crisis."/ Bless those who advocate to protect water,/ air,/ plants and animals./ May we all have a care./ We pray to the Lord.
Marking the twentieth anniversary of September 11th,/ former President Bush said,/ "The days of unity following 9/11 seem distant."/ Others worried aloud if we'd be able to live in solidarity with one another/ should we ever be attacked again/ especially attacked from within./ We ask God to restore our nation to unity./ We pray to the Lord.
This past week I watched an intensive TV series titled: Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror. The episodes have been reviewed as "unflinching" (unafraid). Maybe you can remember the nightly news during the Vietnam War — camera crews in the forests and fields of war, the flag-draped caskets being unloaded from carrier planes back here at home. That was unflinching. But it stopped after Vietnam; it upset too many people. Now we have finished another war. A long war of twenty years. I've talked with people who have not known we were fighting this war in Afghanistan. I've wondered if they could find that country on a map.
When the many TV episodes were over it dawned on me that in the course of my lifetime I have seen countless pictures of priests blessing soldiers in formation, bombs, tanks, submarines, rockets, and every kind of gun, but I've never heard a prayer of reparation for the terribleness of war. When a war is over, we want to "move on" as if it never happened. We never see the shattered veterans. We just accept it as, "That's the way it is." Sinful, evil things happen during wars. A pacifist (the Catholic Church is not a pacifist church) would say, war itself is evil and sinful. Catholics might dicker with what's called "Just War" — but that's increasingly looked upon as a kind of playing with words.
The only prayer I've seen that comes near a prayer of reparation for war is the prayer posted in the ruins of the gothic cathedral at Coventry, England, which was bombed to bits the night of November 14/15, 1940.
When we were ramping up for war with Iraq, Pope John Paul II said, "War is not always inevitable, it is always a defeat for humanity." Pope Francis has said, "War is madness, it is the suicide of humanity." Franklyn Delano Roosevelt said, "War is, after all, young men dying and old men talking." What sad statements.
So here's my own prayer of reparation for wars. It is "unflinching," like the Netflix documentary. If you don't like the sound of that, of course, you can switch to another channel. No judgment or hard feelings. On the other hand, if you want to join me — please do. "Blessed are the peacemakers," Jesus said. I'd suggest integral to peacemaking is repentance. And Fyodor Dostoyevsky prayed: "Christ, you have come to disturb us." This prayer, asking for forgiveness, might disturb.
The waste,
leadership deception and spin,
machismo,
power grabs,
child horror; child death,
God, whose inner life is community, forgive.
The false victory claims,
false glory,
death of young soldiers on every side,
sorrowing,
mutilations and bleed outs,
Father of infinite imagination, forgive.
The ignorance,
sex abuse,
shaming,
weeping in smoke,
hopelessness and depression,
God, who begins creation with light, forgive.
The family disintegration,
dead mothers and fathers,
manipulations,
earth turned to dust,
intrusions and lawlessness,
Christ, who speaks of himself as life, forgive.
The hasty decisions of raw emotion,
miscalculations,
stupidity,
outrages,
false promises and contradictions,
Christ, who knows the lily and the sparrow, forgive.
The coverups,
theft,
profiteering,
emotional death,
forest flame and silent birds,
Christ, who has descended to our underworld, forgive.
The torture,
ruins,
starvation,
exhaustion,
posturing and the disappearance of animals,
Spirit, who rides on Christ's breath of peace, forgive.
Here is a short video this September 11 weekend titled: A Survival Story: The Survivor Tree. And while the video tells the story of the pear tree salvaged and restored, it might also bring to mind our own story of survival and pray, restoration. Perhaps the story of surviving domestic violence, a life threatening disease, military conflict, sex abuse, addiction, accident or assault, financial ruin, breakdown...
Are you familiar with this encouraging, hope-restoring verse — "For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, 'Fear not, I am the one who helps you.'"Isaiah 41:13
Then, (perhaps by extension) I'd like to share with you a second prayer found inside the front cover of every issue of Forward Day by Day. The first prayer was included at the bottom of the September 5th post.While the prayer is called a resolve, (we're not good at keeping resolutions) the first line is perhaps more realistic, "I will try." We can all do that. "Try this" a good parent or teacher says to a youngster.
Then the first line continues with a list of negatives. For most people "impurity" refers to sexual things. It's a lusty world to be sure, but gospel "impurity" refers more to a heart that's just not clean. "Blessed are the clean of heart," Jesus says (Matthew 5:8). A dirty heart might be darkened with power-quest, resentment, bad will, working hard to protect my bubble-world.
Magnanimity might suggest simply being generous with money. Yes, but I'd suggest it might more broadly also mean cutting people some slack, giving someone the benefit of the doubt, stretching my ideas about welcoming others, not having to have it all. Party loyalists could do with some of that last one these days.
Notice finally that the prayer knows we can't do this by ourselves and so the Holy Spirit (Christ's Spirit) is invoked — God's shared life and energies — God's up-lifter. I work in a cemetery where I recently came across a headstone with these Gospel words inscribed: "Apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5).
A Morning Resolve
I will try this day to live a simple, sincere and serene life, repelling promptly every thought of discontent, anxiety, discouragement, impurity, and self-seeking; cultivating cheerfulness, magnanimity, charity, and the habit of holy silence; exercising economy in expenditure, generosity in giving, carefulness in conversation, diligence in appointed service, fidelity to every trust, and a childlike faith in God.
In particular I will try to be faithful in those habits of prayer, work, study, physical exercise, eating, and sleep, which I believe the Holy Spirit has shown me to be right.
And as I cannot in my own strength do this, nor even with a hope of success attempt it. I look to thee, O Lord God my Father, in Jesus my Savior, and ask for the gift of the Holy Spirit.
As the school year begins/ may students feel a sense of welcome,/ belonging and being known./ In these angry days, / may children find their classrooms to be places of joy,/ peace and success./ We pray to the Lord.
For those who profess Christianity in our nation,/ who are as likely as others to be hypnotized by lies,/ power,/ shopping,/ money,/ superficiality and indifference./ May we know Christ in his Gospel Word/ inviting us to live transformed lives./ We pray to the Lord.
While we pray for the many whose lives are disrupted and set back by a great hurricane last week,/ we pray for the whole of creation,/ where climate changes are making life very difficult/ even some places becoming uninhabitable./ May we love our planet and protect it for the generations who will follow./ We pray to the Lord.
At a school board meeting this week,/ one parent yelled,/ "It's my constitutional right to be as mean as I want to you guys."/ On live television a weather reporter was physically accosted./ May balance and calm be restored;/ courtesy,/ trust and helpfulness be learned again./ We pray to the Lord.
May the pro-life heart,/ be just that,/ in beauty and truth,/ as far reaching in love as human life asks of it,/ in all its vulnerability/ need,/ pain,/ misery and sorrow./ We pray to the Lord.
Awful things happen in wars:/ death,/ loss,/ waste,/ insecurity and pain./ We ask for God to grow-us-up,/ and to give us the will and skills to stop preparing for and creating sinful wars./ We pray to the Lord.
As we pray for the healing of those who are physically sick,/ we pray too for those who are soul-sick,/ emotionally or psychosocially sick,/ whose passions,/ plans and desires are troubled./ For the healing of those who should lead and guide who are not well people,/ who do not know how to care./ We pray to the Lord.
The Raising of the Widow's Son at Nain ~ Wilhelm Kotarbinski ~ 1848~1921
11 Soon afterward he went to a city called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. 12 As he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a large crowd from the city was with her. 13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, "Do not weep." 14 And he came and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, "Young man, I say to you arise." 15 And the dead man sat up, and began to speak. And he gave him to his mother. 16 Fear seized them all; and they glorified God, saying, "A great prophet has arisen among us!" and "God has visited his people!" 17 And this report concerning him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.
I have always loved this story. Perhaps it's because six of its sentences begin with the word "And" which makes it sound as if an excited child is telling it. I also love that the personal attention of Jesus is the boy's mother.
This gospel account is told right after the story (August 29 here) of the healing of the Centurion's servant. That story was about a non-Jewish man's faith. This story is about a woman. Both accounts want us to know that Jesus acts with authority.
In Luke's Gospel Jesus is always looking outward. Remember the Sermon on the Plain? In the previous account, the outward vision of Jesus is so far reaching he heals someone faraway and who he's never even met. Faith is not bound or limited by any religion, no matter how true that religion thinks itself to be. Jesus often comments on the faith he encounters outside of Judaism. Not a few people today don't understand that about Jesus. There are even Catholics who, whether they'd admit it or not, think themselves to be more Catholic than the Catholics who don't see things their way. "We will meet the atheists in the doing of good deeds," Pope Francis said. Some people started to hate Francis when he said that. But that's what happens when we forget the Gospel. When the religion loses the Christic-center.
Verses 11-13: Here Jesus cures a widow's son. Her crying is what sets Jesus compassion in motion. The story might remind us of that other raising of a widow's son Jesus references in Luke 4:26. Notice Jesus is not asked to do anything, unlike the Jews sending a representative to Jesus on behalf of the centurion. Jesus seems to know this woman is in trouble. Maybe he had joined the funeral procession to the cemetery (highly recommended) where someone told him of the woman's plight. Her only source of support had died.
Let's not underestimate it: at once we are being told that it is compassion which is lifegiving and transformative. Jesus says "Don't cry." Her tears are not only for the dead son but for her own dire prospects. Will she be forced to beg? Will she be forced into the desperation of prostitution?
Verse 14: Jesus touches the stretcher. He is at once in physical solidarity with these folks who have made themselves ritually impure by their however necessary touching of the dead. They are now outside the community until their purification. And Jesus puts himself inside that marginal community. Wilhelm Kotarbinski's painting above shows us that solidarity.
Notice there is no drama, no ritual or even a prayer. Jesus' words, "Young man arise," are sufficient. I've always thought it strange that by contrast there are people who "storm heaven" with their prayers when there is trouble. It doesn't strike me as the gospel way.
Verse 15: Jesus gave him back to his mother. Jesus is restorative. Do we trust that?
Verse 16: The people respond with fear and praise. I wonder if awe and wonder might not be a better indicator of their response.
"A great prophet has arisen among us," the crowd says. Jesus is a prophet. A great prophet like Elijah. That's no small thing. Remember on the Easter night road to Emmaus the two disciples say to Jesus (unbeknownst to them) "Concerning Jesus of Nazareth who was a prophet mighty in deeds and word before God and all the people." Luke 24:19 Let's not complain or argue about people who don't speak about Jesus exactly as we would have it.
"A great prophet has arisen among us." The people are not conscious of Jesus' future resurrection, but St. Luke is, and here he is giving us an echo or foreshadowing of that Easter event. "Arisen!"
Verse 17: The telling of the story "spread throughout the whole of Judaea." So the centurion in the previous story represents ROME. And this story of the widow's son represents JUDAEA. Both pieces will figure in the account of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. And how wonderful is this — more than two thousand years later, we're hearing the story still.
Bottom line as they say — where Jesus is, there is God mercy, God's kindness, God's restorative compassion. We're familiar with the word orthodox or orthodoxy — right teaching. But there is another word that belongs right alongside it: orthopraxis — right do-ing or right acting. I heard that word only once in the four years of seminary. Seems like a spiritual imbalance to me. Compassion isn't simply feeling sorry for someone: "Oh, what a shame." Compassion is feeling so deeply it puts oneself in the middle of it. Compassion can be raw and unflinching.
When I was a boy the priest wore a maniple (a stylized handkerchief) over his left arm. The accompanying vesting prayer reminded the priest to weep at the altar. What might it mean that the maniple was dropped in the late 1960's yet the stole remained — the vestment that goes around the priest's neck and down the front. But the stole is a symbol of authority. We got rid of the vestment of weeping and kept the vestment of authority. Hmmm!
I'd suggest we all symbolically wear the maniple. There's an Episcopal church in San Francisco where the little Sunday School children make maniples for themselves — aware of the need to bring the deepest (even tear-like) feeling for the world to Mass. Have you, have I, ever wept at Mass — not for our own troubles but for what we know of the world in its profound pain and suffering.
Before we draw to a close here — like this weeping gospel mother — who else is crying in our world today? There are many. They live on the margins. Some people want to keep them out of sight, out of mind. It is a serious spiritual weakness.
Eugene Delacroix ~ Christ on the Sea of Galilee ~1798-1863
How familiar we are with this gospel scene (Mt 8:23-27; Mk 4:35-41; Lk 8:22-25). Delacroix has captured the fury and frenzy well, hasn't he? There is a fellow under the forward mast which is collapsing onto him. One disciple seems be calling out to Jesus who is "asleep with his head on a pillow". Three disciples are trying desperately to control the back mast while one poor disciple is stretched to the max trying to catch the edge of the wildly flapping sail. Jaw like waves threaten to take the little boat under. The surrounding mountains spell gloom. But all is not lost. Is Delacroix suggesting a hint of hope with those patches of sky breaking through the clouds — perhaps the first sign of Jesus awakening to take things in hand. It is an apt gospel scene for life on this planet — maybe particularly for the times in which we find ourselves today.
"Signs of the times."Here are some protestors at a recent school board meeting. Their faces are all over "twitter" (how ironic, twitter is a word used to describe the pretty sounds of birds). They are furiously angry and menacing like Delacroix's sea, distorted like the faces surrounding Jesus in a Hieronymous Bosch painting. If only we could see ourselves; hear ourselves in truth. But notice by contrast bright Veronica (bottom left) who holds the face of Jesus on her cloth.
And here is the prayer offered on the last page of every issue of Forward Day by Day — Daily Devotions for Disciples. The prayer invites transformation of soul — which is the purpose of living the Christian spiritual life.I pray it often — with good intent and hope. The nation is roiling with individualism and an exhausting politicization of seemingly everything. Maybe we can pray this prayer together, forming something of a restorative cyber-community. Help to keep the little boat from sinking.
Forward Movement Prayer
O God: Give me strength to live another day; Let me not turn coward before its difficulties or prove recreant to its duties; Let me not lose faith in other people; Keep me sweet and sound of heart, in spite of ingratitude, treachery, or meanness; Preserve me from minding little stings or giving them; Help me to keep my heart clean, and to live so honestly and fearlessly that no outward failure can dishearten me or take away the joy of conscious integrity; Open wide the eyes of my soul that I may see good in all things; grant me this day some new vision of thy truth; Inspire me with the spirit of joy and gladness and make me the cup of strength to suffering souls; in the name of the strong Deliverer, our only Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Phillips Brooks
Phillips Brooks is the 19th century Anglican clergyman (1835-1893) who wrote the lyrics to the gentling carol, O Little Town of Bethlehem.
At the start of September,/ may those who celebrate birthdays,/ anniversaries and other days of remembrance,/ be blessed with good health,/ safety and peace./ We pray to the Lord.
It is the weekend commemorating the September 11th terrorist attack upon our country twenty years ago/ in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington./ We ask healing for hearts that do deadly and destructive terrorist acts,/ healing for those who still mourn,/ and for those suffering the emotional and physical effects of that saddest of days./ We pray to the Lord.
As the world is increasingly marked by hopelessness,/ cynicism,/ indifference and division/ may it be transformed by the faith of true believers/ who find their joy in God./ We pray to the Lord.
Monday is Labor Day./ We pray for those who have no job,/ or whose work is dirty,/ exhausting,/ dangerous or poorly paid./ For the children who are forced to work,/ For the people who are enslaved./ For those whose work is underappreciated/ or whose work serves and sustains us./ We pray to the Lord.
Somehow recently,/ we have been given permission to doubt everything,/ suspect everyone,/ behave badly./ May the Wednesday Feast of Mary's Nativity,/ inspire us to begin again./ We pray to the Lord.
This month the Jewish world keeps the feasts of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur,/ called the Ten Days of Awe./ At the same time there are new manifestations of anti-Semitism in parts of the world./ May we know the heart of Jesus,/ who taught in the synagogue and loved the Jerusalem Temple./ We pray to the Lord.
Give us strength and new resolve in all we have to do/ where energy or will is flagging,/ where we are anguished,/ confounded or not sure of ourselves./ May we be teachable./ We pray for the many people whose lives are disrupted by the hurricane of this past week./ We pray to the Lord.
