Earth, be our teacher . . .

Treat the earth well.  We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
-- Native American Proverb

In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.
-- From The Great Law of The Iroquois Confederacy

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunset. Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I say the sacred hoop of my people was one of the many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy... But anywhere is the center of the world. -- Black Elk

Catherine ~ Woman of Vision, Woman of Courage . . .

April 29, the feast day of St Catherine of Siena, a lay Dominican,

 Doctor and Reformer of the Church

St. Catherine of Siena was the 25th child of a wool dyer in northern Italy.
She started having mystical experiences when she was only 6, seeing guardian angels as clearly as the people they protected. She became a Dominican tertiary when she was 16, and continued to have visions of Christ, Mary, and the saints.
St. Catherine was one of the most brilliant theological minds of her day, although she never had any formal education. . Her spiritual director was Blessed Raymond of Capua. St, Catherine's letters, and a treatise called "a dialogue" are considered among the most brilliant writings in the history of the Catholic Church.
She died when she was only 33, and her body was found incorrupt in 1430.

Sarcophagus of St. Catherine of Siena - Rome, Italy

Catherine’s Prayers:

• You, God, are a fire that always burns without consuming. You are a fire consuming in its heat every compartment of the soul’s self-absorbed love. You are a fire lifting all chill and giving all light. In Your light You show me Your truth. You’re the Light that outshines every Light. You, God, give the mind’s eye Your divine light so completely and excellently. You bring lucidity even to the light of faith. In that faith, I see my soul has life, and in that light, I receive You who are Light itself. 

• God is a bright ocean that distills and reveals hidden truths so that my soul has a better understanding of how to trust Love, and the water is a mirror in which You, Eternal Trinity, give me knowledge.

• I want you to be a tree of love, grafted into the Word who is love, Christ crucified – a tree with its roots in deep humility. If you are a tree of love, sweetly rooted, you’ll find the fruit of patience and strength at the tips of your branches, and crowned perseverance nesting within you. You’ll find peace and quiet and consolation in suffering when you see yourself conformed with Christ crucified. And so, by enduring with Christ crucified, you’ll come with joy from much war into much peace. Peace! Peace!

Emmaus ~ "Aha"-lleluia!

 

This Sunday’s Gospel is the account of the disciples walking to Emmaus.  After the experience of the crucifixion of Jesus, they headed out of town ASAP!  They were disappointed, disillusioned, disoriented, and disbelieving of the women’s message of Jesus’ resurrection. They expected Jesus to do great things and overtake the political and religious leaders – their hopes in Jesus were sealed away in the tomb with a two ton rock positioned at its entrance.  

As they were walking, they were extroverting, debating, and probably taking part in “global-whining” as to what they had recently experienced with shock and terror in Jerusalem. Along the road, Jesus meets them and they are described as having eyes cast down and hearts slow to believe. In other words, these disciples were probably experiencing their own unique form of post traumatic stress. But it is Jesus who gets them to attend to what they experienced, to recall and remember what was written in the Scriptures, and to stir up their juices of empowerment once again.  The rock was slowly being moved from their hearts, and  their eyes were gently opening to the Mystery that was walking with them.  Then, noticing that it was nearly evening, they asked Jesus to stay with them, and they would chip in for the supper at the near-by inn.  

It was then at table, in the blessing of the bread, and it’s being broken and shared once again, that they recognized him.  And what’s more, they noticed that their hearts were on fire!! I am told that someplace it is written that the Jews at that time believed that there was a “connection” between one’s eyes and one’s heart – So eyes cast down leads to sad and slow to believing hearts.  Yet, in the presence of the blessing and bread breaking – their eyes were opened and their hearts were set on fire! Jesus – “aha” “aha-lleluia” – He is alive – just as the women said! So they set out at once to return to Jerusalem, and “the rest is history” as the saying goes.  

So what is the Good News for us?  “There are times when we too have our hopes and expectations disappointed. We may feel that God has not treated us fairly or has abandoned us, and we are left in a state of bewilderment and confusion. Our challenge then is to accept, perhaps with difficulty, that God has not abandoned us, but is leading us to a new understanding of what our life is about. To a greater or less extent an experience of disorientation is inevitable until we get our bearings again.” (Source Unknown)

Sister Helen ~ bread baker sharing her bread!

Emmaus ~ journey into light and fire!

Emmaus Journey by Irene Zimmerman

All was chaos when he died.
We fled our separate ways at first,
then gathered again in the upper room
to chatter blue-lipped prayers
around the table where he’d talked
of love and oneness.

On the third day Cleopas and I
left for the home we’d abandoned
in order to follow him.
We wanted no part of the babble
the women had brought from the tomb.
We vowed to get on with our grieving.

On the road we met a Stranger
whose voice grew vaguely familiar
as he spoke of signs and suffering.
By the time we reached our village,
every tree and bush was blazing,

And we pressed him to stay the night.
Yet not till we sat at the table
and watched the bread being broken
did we see the light.
 

 

 

(previously posted)

We lift our hearts . . .

Photo by sjh

Disturb us, O God,

when we are too well pleased with ourselves,

when our dreams have come true

because we have dreamed too little,

when we arrived safely

because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, O God,

when with the abundance of things we possess

we have lost our thirst

for the waters of life.

Disturb us, O God,

to dare more boldly,

to venture on wider seas

where storms will show your mastery;

where losing sight of land,

we shall find the stars.

We ask you to push back

the horizons of our hopes;

and to push into the future

in strength, courage, hope and love.

~ attributed to Sir Francis Drake

Photo by jf

Mary J. Novak Preaches for thee Third Sunday of Easter

A Seeker's Prayer!

A Prayer from Anselm of Canterbury

O my God teach my heart where and how to seek you, where and how to find  you…

You are my God and you are my All and I have never seen you.

You have made me and remade me, you have bestowed on me all the good things I possess, still I do not know you…I have not yet done that for which I was made….

Teach me to seek you…I cannot seek you unless you teach me or find you unless you show yourself to me. Let me seek you in my desire, let me desire you in my seeking.

Let me find you by loving you, let me love you when I find you – Amen.

The Believing Thomas . . .

Caravaggio

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredulity_of_Saint_Thomas_%28Caravaggio%29

This Sunday, in some places, is called, “Thomas Sunday.” Our Gospel for our liturgies includes John 20:19-31. It is the story of a week after the Resurrection event, when the disciples are crowded together again in the upper room - this time with Thomas present. He was absent from their first experience of Jesus’ appearance to them in the upper room.  So here they are again for another time of gathering to process what they have experienced and how to move forward beyond Jerusalem!

So often Thomas is associated with doubting, especially in relation to faith.  Although we hear in the other resurrection Gospels that other disciples doubted as well.  Let us not forget Mr. and Mrs. Cleopas who skipped town after the crucifixion and were “found out” on the road to Emmaus when the Stranger caught up with them.  However, the finger is often pointed at Thomas and we might hear the expression, “Doubting Thomas” in some gatherings.

As I reflected on this Gospel, I thought that Thomas is like many of us who sometimes just need to take leave of all the tensions, trauma, and “too muching” of highly intense events. We then struggle to get back to balance and our inner center. He just witnessed the betrayal, arrest, crucifixion, death, and burial of Jesus, whom he loyally followed for three years. Don’t we all have our own individual and unique ways of holding our pain and the ache of our grief?

Perhaps the disciples searched for Thomas, and upon finding him invited Thomas to gather with them once again as they shared their experience of the Risen Jesus. He may have felt hurt, or jealous, or  still be in pain upon hearing that Jesus appeared in the flesh to them and he was absent.  He knew what he saw and experienced as the Roman soldiers pierced the side of Jesus and nailed him to the cross. It was too much for his person to hold!  He needed space far away to let the pain of it all weave through his weary spirit.

But this time, he was in need of some facts – pie charts, bar graphs, graphics, and possibly a spread sheet with more data!  So often in our own journey of faith, have we not murmured  . . . “OK, God, show me a sign and then I’ll believe it . . .” Thomas is all of us who in our faithing have to be invited by our God again and again to trust and to risk being loved unconditionally. 

Jesus came in the way that Thomas most needed.  He instructed Thomas to put his hand in his side and fingers in the place of the nails if that is what Thomas needed.  We don’t know if he did.  But he did as with laser speed move to a deeper place of belief and exclaimed, “MY LORD and MY GOD!!"  This was Thomas’ own moment of inner rising!

So let us pray this day that the hand of God touch into the wounds of our world.  Are we not weary with the violence, wars, injustices, deaths, and the virus that humanity struggles with so as to cope, hope, and endure?

Let us also pray that we let God’s fingers probe our minds, hearts, and spirits to release us from anything that keeps us in doubt or resistant to receiving God’s grace, mercy, and unconditional love. Peace be to all of us!!

Previously posted

Joanna Williams Preaches for the Second Sunday in Easter

A Sorrowful and Joyful Mystery . . .

I never suspected

            Resurrection

                        and to be so painful

                        to leave me weeping

With Joy

            to have met you, alive and smiling, outside an empty tomb

With Regret

            not because I’ve lost you

            but because I’ve lost you in how I had you –

                        in understandable, touchable, kissable, clingable flesh

                        not as fully Lord, but as graspably human.

I want to cling, despite your protest

            cling to your body

            cling to your, and my, clingable humanity

            cling to what we had, our past.

But I know that…if I cling

            you cannot ascend and

            I will be left clinging to your former self

            …unable to receive your present spirit.

Original Source Unknown

by Ron Rolheiser, OMI

http://ronrolheiser.com/en/#.XpXYnjnsZPY

Mary Magdala’s Easter Prayer

Discipled . . .

Poem: “Tell Them” By Edwina Gateley

Breaking through the powers of darkness

bursting from the stifling tomb

he slipped into the graveyard garden

to smell the blossomed air.

Tell them, Mary, Jesus said,

that I have journeyed far

into the darkest deeps I’ve been

in nights without a star.

Tell them, Mary, Jesus said,

that fear will flee my light

that though the ground will tremble

and despair will stalk the earth

I hold them firmly by the hand

through terror to new birth.

Tell them, Mary, Jesus said,

the globe and all that’s made

is clasped to God’s great bosom

they must not be afraid

for though they fall and die, he said,

and the black earth wrap them tight

they will know the warmth

of God’s healing hands

in the early morning light.

Tell them, Mary, Jesus said,

smelling the blossomed air,

tell my people to rise with me

                                       to heal the Earth’s despair.

Source Unknown

https://www.edwinagateley.com/

Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ Preaches for Easter

Joan S. Dawber, SC Preaches for Good Friday

And it was night . . .

Crucifix at Jesuit Retreat Center Oshkosh, WI

Crucifixion

Stripped of godliness,
hands hammered open,,
arms yanked wide,
the crossbeamed Christ
pours himself out
till rivers run red with
wine enough to satisfy
century-cries of thirst.

Irene Zimmerman, OSF
Woman Un-Bent

Seeing Is Believing!

 

Seeing God

We cannot see you
and yet in so many ways we have seen you,

We cannot touch you
but we have experienced and felt you.

You have been in the full moon
and the early morning mist,
the bright blue sky
and the cool night air
after a scorching day.

You are the rock
that anchors us in uncertain times,

You are the hope
that keeps us going on a road with few signposts,

You are the presence
when we feel disoriented and estranged.

You are the compassion
that knits us even to strangers,

You are the justice
that tugs at our complacency,

You are the joy
that unexpectedly overwhelms us,

You are the love
that banishes all fear.

We praise you for revealing yourself to us
in all these ways -
and for Christ, your full revelation.

~ Suellen Shay

(Permission requested)Thresholds: A Book of Prayers, 2011

Holy Week reflection on being embraced by Love!

Servant Freed!

I stand in the darkened fissure of the stable,
lit only by the glowing face of
the boy-child.   
Parent eyes glistening with holy wonder,
while heavened stars point to
mangered Messiah.                                                                                 
I listen, I wonder, I breathe, for I am only servant.

I stand in the darkened temple portico
observing those of the Law encircling
the teacher-child.                                                                    
His face radiates with purpose and passion about God’s call!
I listen, I wonder, I breathe, for I am only servant.

I stand in the Cana garden among the six stoneware water jars.                      
His mother moving his mission,
“Do whatever he tells you.”
Waters of purification touched                                                 
with words of transformation
become intoxicating wedding wine.               
Speak these words over me . . .
fill me to the brim with courage
as I listen, as I wonder,
as I breathe, for I am only servant.

I stand along the steep grassy edges
of the partial rocky hillside,                                                               
His face emits energy with each spoken,
“Blessed are you!”                                   
I listen, I wonder, I breathe, for I am only servant.

I stand in the upper room, corner-concealed,
yet his eyes beckon me to move    
within his touch.
His carpentered hands accept each foot
as with the artistry
of fitting roughhewn wood.
With tender, soothing, healing - intimate knowing,
he bends to wash my feet.

Upon this embrace -
God-light, God-love streams
into my very soul-                     
I listen and hear
within me:                                                                                                                                               
Untie her.                                                               
What do you want me to do for you?                                          
Pick up your mat.                                                               
I do not condemn you.                                                           
You are worth more than many sparrows.                        
You are no longer servant – you are friend.   
I wonder, I breathe . . .
 sjh

Spy Wednesday . . .

This is the day that stories speak of Judas Iscariot as moving to the “dark side” to conspire with the religious leaders to betray Jesus and hand him over to be arrested. I often think of the writings of Megan McKenna and a particular story she tells within a story. It goes like this: Megan was driving the back roads of Ireland’s countryside listening to the radio. There had been a short-story writing contest and the stories submitted were to be limited to thirty words.  As she was listening to the stories being read over the radio – the following entry was read:

“Welcome home, son!
Hello, father.
It is so good to see you.  It’s been a long time.
Yes, father, a very long time.  It was hard.
Hard as nails.  Hard as wood.
I know.  What was the hardest?
The kiss, father, the kiss. (long pause)
Yes.  Come in and let me hold you.”

Megan continues with her story – “I nearly drove off the road.  Within seconds I was crying and had to pull over.  It hit me hard.  I was overwhelmed by the realization that sin is evil and terrible, and some sin is more evil and more terrible . . .” (From LENT by Megan McKenna)

 

Poem: The Cold Within by James Patrick Kinney

Six humans trapped by happenstance
In Dark and bitter cold
Each one possessed a stick of wood,
Or so the story’s told.

Their dying fire in need of logs,
The first woman held hers back.
For on the faces around the fire,
She noticed one was black.

The next man looking cross the way,
Saw one not of his church,
And couldn’t bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.

The third one sat in tattered clothes,
He gave his coat a hitch.
Why should his log be put to use,
To warm the idle rich?

The rich man just sat back and thought
Of the wealth he had in store.
And how to keep what he had earned
From the lazy, shiftless poor.

The black man’s face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from sight,
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.

The last man of this forlorn group
Did naught except for gain
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game.

The logs held tight in death’s still hands
Was proof of human sin.
They didn’t die from the cold without,
They died from – THE COLD WITHIN.

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

The Stage is Set . . .

Entry
( Matthew 21:1-11)

The stage is set
and everything washed clean
in a rain of sunshine.
Hands reach out
to calm a skittish colt,
bewildered by its burden.
The Son of David
rides a rainbowed road
that rocks with hosannas
(Irene Zimmerman, OSF)

Drinking deeply of the cup of our life. . .

Henri Nouwen in his book, “Can You Drink This Cup?” suggests three movements, or gestures as to how we might drink from this cup. 

·        The first movement is to HOLD the cup; to welcome it and all its contents into your life.

·        The second movement is to LIFT the cup; to claim all that it holds – the joys, sorrows, surprises, and challenges of our lives. 

·        And the third movement is to DRINK WITH GRATITUDE.  To sip gently as if its contents were a precious liquid.

So what is the Good News for us this week and the days to come?


Let us be aware of the many cups that are presented to us this week and in the days ahead.

Can we hold any cup that is presented us and welcome it?

Can we lift the cup that is presented us and claim its gifts, challenges, and mysteries?

And can we drink deeply with gratitude, courage, strength, and hope of the cups presented us through the happenings of our lives this week and in the days ahead?