Marie Anne Mayeski Preaches for the Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Pray for inner quieting . . .

 

Dear God,

Speak gently in my silence.

When the loud outer noises of my surroundings

and the loud inner noises of my fears

keep pulling me away from you,

help me to trust that you are still there

even when I am unable to hear you.

 

Give me ears to listen to your small, soft voice saying:

"Come to me, you who are overburdened,

and I will give you rest . . .

for I am gentle and humble of heart."

Let that loving voice be my guide. Amen. 

- Henri Nouwen

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Nouwen

 

 

Three is Key . . .

 

 

 

The 3 Hurdles

A disciple arrives at Socrates’ house very agitated and starts speaking to him and saying:

-Master!  I want to tell you how a friend of yours was talking about you not in a very nice way . . .

Socrates interrupted him by saying:

-Wait!  Have you passed what you are going to tell me through the test of 3 Hurdles?

-The 3 Hurdles???

-Yes, replied Socrates, the first is TRUTH.

-Have you examined carefully if what you want to tell me is true in all its points?

-No . . . I heard the neighbors saying . . .

-But at least you must have passed it by the second hurdle, which is KINDNESS.  What you want to tell me is at least good?

-No, not really, on the contrary . . .

-Ah!  interrupted Socrates – then let’s go to the last hurdle.  Is it NECESSARY that you tell me this?

-To be honest, no . . . it’s not necessary.

It's the spirit that matters . . .

"The spirit we have,

not the work we do,

is what makes us

important to the people

around us."

(Author Unknown)

 

 

Make a difference . . .

 

 

The purpose of life is not to be happy.

It is to be useful, to be honorable,

to be compassionate,

and to have it make some difference

that you have lived and lived well.

(Attributed to Emerson)

 

 

The Long and Short of It!

“The longest journey

of any person

is the journey inward.”

Dag Hammarskjöld

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dag_Hammarskj%C3%B6ld

 

 

Step aside!

 

 

I have all I need

within me to know

and experience God.

All I have to do

is step out of my way!

(Author Unknown)

Bloom peace,speak peace, be peace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

in the garden
of my heart,
the flowers
of peace
bloom beautifully

Thich Nhat Hanh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Nhất_Hạnh

 

 

 

Summer Stories for Our Souls . . .

A friend of mine took his small son with him to town one day to run some errands. When lunch time arrived, the two of them went to a familiar diner for a sandwich. The father sat down on one of the stools at the counter and lifted the boy up to the seat beside him. They ordered lunch, and when the waiter brought the food, the father said, "Son, we'll just have a silent prayer." Dad got through praying first and waited for the boy to finish his prayer, but he just sat with his head bowed for an unusually long time. When he finally looked up, his father asked him, "What in the world were you praying about all that time?" With the innocence and honesty of a child, he replied, "How do I know? It was a silent prayer."  (Author Unknown)


A little girl was sitting on her grandfather’s lap as he read her a bedtime story. From time to time, she would take her eyes off the book and reach up to touch his wrinkled cheek. She was alternately stroking her own cheek, then his again.
Finally, she spoke up, “Grandpa, did God make you?”  “Yes, sweetheart,” he answered, “God made me a long time ago.”
“Oh,” she paused, “Grandpa, did God make me too?”  “Yes, indeed honey,” he said, “God made you just a little while ago.”
Feeling their respective faces again, she observed,
“Ya know Grandpa, I think God is getting better at it.”
(Author Unknown)


The Chicken and the Pig were passing a church on a country road, where they saw a sign reading “Charity meals for the poor, please contribute.” Says the Chicken to the Pig “Sounds like a worthy cause, let’s contribute a ham-and-egg breakfast.” Responds the Pig, thoughtfully, “Madam, for you that would be contribution, for me a total commitment.” (Author Unknown)


With Christmas coming, Grandma was out shopping for gifts for her grandchildren.  While she was at the toy store going through her list and carefully selecting gifts, she noticed a small homerless girl outside wistfully looking into the store.  Grandma’s heart went out to this little girl.  She invited her into the store and asked her to pick out a gift for herself.  As they walked out of the store, the little girl held Grandma’s hand and looked into her kind eyes and asked, “Are you God?”

Grandma, somewhat embarrassed and somewhat touched, said, “No, my dear, I am not God.”  “Then who are you?” continued the little girl.  Grandma thought for a moment and said, “I am a child of God.” 

The little girl, fully satisfied and smiling, said, “I knew there was a connection.”
(Author Unknown)

 

Carolyn Osiek, RSCJ Preaches for the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary

A Woman of the Song!!

First Beginning:
Author Wayne Dyer writes that one of the secrets to inner peace is this teaching: “Don’t die with your song still inside you.”

Second Beginning is a story:

 

The Song

When a woman in a certain African tribe knows she is pregnant, she goes out into the wilderness with a few friends and together they pray and meditate until they hear the song of the child. They recognize that every soul has its own vibration that expresses its unique flavor and purpose. When the women attune to the song, they sing it out loud. Then they return to the tribe and teach it to everyone else. When the child is born, the community gathers and sings the child's song to him or her.

Later, when the child enters education, the village gathers and chants the child's song. When the child passes through the initiation to adulthood, the people again come together and sing. At the time of marriage, the person hears his or her song. Finally, when the soul is about to pass from this world, the family and friends gather at the person's bed, just as they did at their birth, and they sing the person to the next life. (Internet)

Today, our Gospel of Luke so fittingly presents to us the Women of the Song. Their meeting is a prototype of a liturgy of Word and Bread. There is meeting, greeting, blessing, and sharing of the nourishment of their wisdom, wonder, and awe of what God has done for them.

Mary goes with haste and enters the house of Zachariah and greets Elizabeth. Elizabeth, no longer barren, is filled with a child who dances with joy at the recognition of the Word enfleshed within Mary. Elizabeth is bursting with a sense of the holy and sings a song of blessing upon Mary.

Her loud cry of blessing is translated with the same words used to describe the loud cry of the Hebrews before the Ark of God’s presence when it was brought into their midst.  Mary is now the living Ark of God and the promise to God’s people has begun to be fulfilled in her.

In response to Elizabeth’s greeting, Mary proclaims a song of liberation for all people; one in which ideals are reversed and the household of God will be peopled by the poor, the hungry, and the ones with no power. 

Hers is the first proclamation of justice in the New Testament.  Her song is revolutionary – She speaks of a political revolution in which God has shown strength and brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly. 

She speaks of a social revolution in which God has filled the hungry with good things; and she sings of an economic revolution, in which God has sent the rich away empty, and the poor are filled with good things as well.

These women, who stand pregnant in an embrace of joy, laughter, and praise for God’s marvels, will give birth to children of the Magnificat. These children in turn will one day stand together and sing their new song that would be revolutionary as well.  John will sing his song of justice and repentance, daring the people to prepare the way for the Messiah.  His voice will ring out like "thunder in the desert."

Jesus, son of Mary, will hear his song in the desert as well. He will claim his purpose to be Mission, Messiah, and Beloved. He will be Bread for the hungry, Shepherd for the marginalized, and Liberator for the oppressed. His song of the Beatitudes will break through to the hearts of the “least, the last, and the lost.”

Mary was very much like the majority of women in the world today; she was a peasant from a village of about 1600 people. She was poor, exploited by the rich; she had to pay taxes to Caesar, to Herod, and to the Temple.  She was persecuted. She was like many people in our world today, especially women in Asia, Africa, and Latin America who live in tiny villages and work 10 or more hours a day doing domestic chores – fetching water, gathering wood for fires, and preparing meals.

Oftentimes, Mary is presented as meek and mild, passive and submissive.  The problem with this view is that it is impossible to reconcile it with the ten stories we have of Mary in the New Testament: the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Presentation, the flight into Egypt, losing Jesus in the Temple, going to bring Jesus home from his public ministry, the wedding feast at Cana, being at the foot of the cross, and Pentecost. No doubt, mindful of her song within, she pondered and treasured each experience of these joyful and sorrowful mysteries.

Certainly, the faith, trust, courage, and strength of Mary’s witness is most especially captured in her song of praise, the Magnificat – of which we just heard in the Gospel.

Truly, the NT does not present a meek, fragile woman, lacking creativity and initiative.  It reveals a strong, upright woman who put her free will at the disposal of God’s dream for her. This is what the feast of the Assumption celebrates; that because God will never be outdone in fidelity and generosity, God remained utterly faithful to Mary through death, as she was unreservedly faithful to God in life.

So today, as we gather around this table to continue to sing Mary’s song for all generations . . .  we ask, how can this feast speak to us?

I have chosen to respond to this question with a selection from Soul Sisters by Edwina Gateley,
Who reflects upon this Gospel . . . and so she writes:
“Blessed Mary! Blessed are you!
Bearer of hope for the world.
Co-creator . . .....graced by divine mystery . . .
Ah, Mary! How your soul sang with fullness and gratitude. . .
Affirmed, loved and comforted,
You stayed with Elizabeth,
Absorbing the experience and the wisdom
of the older woman,
deepening in your own resolve
to nurture, hold and mother God.

Your journey has blessed ours, Mary.
Your Yes dares us
to believe in the impossible,
to embrace the unknown,
and to expect the breaking through of mystery
onto our bleak and level horizons.
The words you heard, Mary,
we will forever remember.
We will not be afraid, for the life that you birthed
will not be extinguished in our souls.”
http://www.edwinagateley.com/

My Second Ending:
And may we all be blessed to have lived long enough to hear our song within, and to sing it to our world so as to have made a difference with our lives . . .

The Gift and Challenge in a day . . .

 

Gracious God,
thank you for the gift of today.
Refresh me . . . Invite me . . .
to discover Your Presence in each person
that I meet, and every event encountered.

Teach me when to speak and when to listen,
when to ponder and when to share.
In moments of challenge and decision attune my
heart to the whisperings of Your Wisdom.

As I undertake ordinary and unnoticed tasks,
gift me with simple Joy.
When my day goes well, may I rejoice!
When it grows difficult
surprise me with new possibilities.

When life is overwhelming
call me to Sabbath moments
to restore Your Peace and Harmony.
May my living today
reveal your goodness.
Amen.

(Author Unknown)

 

 

 

Always a choice . . .

An Old Cherokee Tale of Two Wolves

One evening an old Cherokee Indian told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, ‘My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.’

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: ‘Which wolf wins?’

The old Cherokee simply replied, ‘The one you feed.’

Amen, Amen!

Come, Holy Spirit ~
Replace the tension within me with a holy relaxation,
Replace the turbulence within me with a sacred calm,
Replace the anxiety within me with a quiet confidence,
Replace the fear within me with a strong faith,
Replace the bitterness within me with the sweetness of grace,
Replace the darkness within me with a gentle light,
Replace the coldness within me with a loving warmth,
Replace the night within me with Your day,
Replace the winter within me with Your spring,

Straighten my crookedness, fill my emptiness,
Dull the edge of my pride, sharpen the edge of my humility,
Light the fires of my love, quench within me the flames of envy,
Let me see myself as You see me,                                                                 that I may see You as You have promised ~
And be fortunate according to Your word, “Blessed are the pure of heart,
for they shall see God.”                          
(Anonymous)

Gentle grasping . . .

We cannot grasp the water,
Water is to be cupped with held fingers –
Gently, preciously.

We cannot grasp the water,
Water is to be held with open palms –
Gently, preciously.

The same is true for both
the heart of the water
and the heart of the person.

(Author Unknown)

Having vision . . .

If you see what needs to be repaired
and how to repair it,
then you have found a piece of the world
that God has left for you to complete.

But if you only see what is wrong
and how ugly it is,
then it is yourself that needs repair.
Rabbi Tzvi Freeman