Jesus' breakfast club of friendship and love. . .

 

 

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050122.cfm

At one time when I was completing a retreat with 5 others, we gathered to share our retreat experience. The director/guide gave us a “talking stick” as our aid in sharing. The process that was used was that we were to be guided by her three questions, and the stick was given to the person in the group who was to speak in response to the question, share his/her retreat while the others listened and prayed for the speaker as the stick was passed around the circle. So the guide asked her first question: “How did you experience God on this retreat?” We all took our turns holding the stick while we responded - as it moved quite quickly around the circle.

She then asked the second question: “How did you experience God on this retreat?” Surprised, we again responded with each one holding the “talking stick” while sharing the details of our retreat, but this time passing it a little slower than the first time around. Besides, our responses were different, deeper and more intimate.

Then the third question was asked: (yes, you’re right!!) The question was: “How did you experience God on this retreat?”  This time the “talking stick” barely moved as it was passed around the circle. Our responses were very deep – poignant – intimate – sacred secrets were shared – gentle tears were glistening on our cheeks – This was the most powerful of the sharings.  I remember this as if it happened yesterday!

Today, we have Jesus having a tailgate gathering for the guys who coped with his loss and the trauma of Jerusalem by heading off to do with what they felt comfortable, secure, and successful in doing – fishing!!! You see, over the months, they have felt like “fish out of water”!  Now Jesus invites them to come back – break bread – eat – and remember – celebrate – and believe!

Peter is all set up to be forgiven – he desires to be reconciled. However, it has already been done – he’s already forgiven. So Jesus offers him the talking stick – Do you love me? First time around. Do you really love me? Second time around. Will you let me love you? Third time around – deeper-intimate-sacred sharing with gentle tears glistening on their cheeks!! Now go to offer the “talking stick” of healing, truthing, and faithing beyond your boat! Beyond these shores!

Let us pray this week to be open to the graces of these powerful post-resurrection stories. What questions is God asking you as you are offered the “talking stick”?  What are you aware of in your responses?  Are you willing to share at the deep level of the sacred? 

“Jesus’ unusual questions can lead us closer to his transforming spirit and can transform us, free us, and heal us. The questions may seem strange, dated, or even irrelevant at first, but returning to them, they come alive, melt our hearts, open our spirits, and enlighten our minds. They do not harangue; rather they invite. They do not challenge; rather, they summon. They do not condemn; rather, they welcome us to the truth. If we sit with his questions, and don’t rush to assert our own answers, we will receive the gift of wisdom.” (From: The Questions of Jesus by John Dear)

Catherine of Siena Feast Day!

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.

ARISE! by Doris Klein, CSA

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!

Kelly Meraw Preaches for the Third Sunday of Easter (05/01/2022)

Thomas ~ one of good guys!

 

Painting by Caravaggio

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, and deaths that humanity has inflicted upon itself and creation? 

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!!

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042422.cfm

Painting by Jusepe Martinez

 

Emmaus ~ journey into light and fire!

 

Emmaus Journey by Irene Zimmerman, OSF

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.
 

Earth Day ~ Everyday!

 
Let the rain come and wash away
the ancient grudges, the bitter hatreds
held and nurtured over generations.
Let the rain wash away the memory
of the hurt, the neglect.

Then let the sun come out and
fill the sky with rainbows.
Let the warmth of the sun heal us
wherever we are broken.
Let it burn away the fog so that
we can see each other clearly.
So that we can see beyond labels,
beyond accents, gender or skin color.

Let the warmth and brightness
of the sun melt our selfishness.
So that we can share the joys and
feel the sorrows of our neighbors.
And let the light of the sun
be so strong that we will see all
people as our neighbors.
Let the earth, nourished by rain,
bring forth flowers
to surround us with beauty.
And let the mountains teach our hearts
to reach upward to heaven.
Amen.
a prayer for the world - rabbi harold kushner - 2003
 

A Story of Sharing . . .

 

One morning, the sun got up in a bad mood.
‘I’m really tired of getting up every morning and giving light to the earth, day after day,’ it said. ‘I’m tired of ripening the corn and melting the snow. What does the human race ever do for me in return?’

The sun was still thinking all this over, when the rain arrived. ‘Lady Rain,’ the sun remarked. ‘You water the earth all the time and make the flowers grow. You turn the fields green, and fill up the rivers. What does the human race ever do for you in return?’

Hearing this, the rain furrowed her brow, broke out in a terrible noise and fell headlong on to the earth. And as she fell, she pounded out these words: ‘Listen, Mother Earth. You let humankind work you, rip you open, scratch and scrape you. What does the human race ever do for you in return?’

The earth turned into its own furrows and murmured to the grain of wheat, ‘Hey, little grain of wheat. You let yourself die so that humankind can eat bread. What does the human race ever do for you in return?’

And then the sun stopped shining. The rain stopped falling. The earth stopped holding the grain. Eventually, the sun became bored, because there were no longer any children dancing in its warmth and light.
The rain became saddened at never seeing the smile of the gardener in her garden.
The earth became weary at never hearing the joyful steps of laborers on her back.
And the grain of wheat began to rot in solitude.

Together, they decided to have a meeting with God, the creator, and this is what they said to God: ‘God, everything is dying in this universe that you created to be so good and fruitful. Give back life to the earth, we beg you.’

And God replied, ‘My friends, I have given you everything you need to support life on earth. Life cannot be born except of you and between you. And life will be born anew if each of you shares of its nature with all creation.  For life is born out of a sharing of life. And where cooperation is refused, life cannot be.’
(A French parable)

Maureen Glavin, RSCJ Preaches for the Second Sunday of Easter

Mary Magdalene . . .Letting go with Easter Love! . . .

 

(Source Unknown)

MARY MAGDALA’S EASTER PRAYER

Author: Ron Rolheiser, OMI (1985)

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.

 

Mary Magdalene . . .faithful disciple!

 

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.

 

Mary Magdalene . . .proclaimer of Good News!

 

The Magdalene’s Blessing 

~ Author – Jan Richardsonhttps://www.janrichardson.com/

You hardly imagined

standing here,

everything you ever loved

suddenly returned to you,

looking you in the eye

and calling your name.

 

And now,

you do not know

how to abide this hole

in the center

of your chest,

where a door

slams shut

and swings open

at the same time,

turning on the hinge

of your aching

and hopeful heart.

 

I tell you,

this is not a banishment

from the garden.

This is an invitation,

a choice,

a threshold,

a gate.

This your life

calling to you

from a place

you could never

have dreamed,

but now that you

have glimpsed its edge,

you cannot imagine

choosing any other way.

 

So let the tears come

as anointing,

as consecration,

and then

let them go.

Let this blessing

gather itself around you.

Let it give you

what you will need

for this journey.

 

You will not remember the words –

they do not matter.

All you need to remember

is how it sounded

when you stood

in the place of death

and heard the living

call your name.

Hope . . .

 

Rough Translations by Jan Richardson

Hope nonetheless.

Hope despite.

Hope regardless.

Hope still.

 

Hope where we had ceased to hope.

Hope amid what threatens hope.

Hope with those who feed our hope.

Hope beyond what we had hoped.

 

Hope that draws us past our limits.

Hope that defies expectations.

Hope that questions what we have known.

Hope that makes a way where there is none.

 

Hope that takes us past our fear.

Hope that calls us into life.

Hope that holds us beyond death.

Hope that blesses those to come.

 

From: Circle of Grace, Wanton Gospeller Press, Orlando, FL, 2015
 http://www.janrichardson.com/index.htmlichardson.com 
©Jan Richardson. janrichardson.com
Photo by sjh

Holy Saturday . . .Holy Waiting Day . . .

Holy Saturday
I wrote this reflection over  thirty years ago while I was attending a Holy Week retreat.  I wanted to imagine what it may have been like in this “amniotic darkness” of Mother Earth holding the body of Jesus for only a laser-like moment before the Resurrection.

The Mother-Tomb

She welcomed and embraced him within her earthen breast.
Holding him, enfolding him in her arms of caressing-clay.
A struggle of new birth.  A struggle of new life.
A struggle to rise beyond all time and space.

For in this mother-tomb of emptiness, she holds the Fullness of all Life;
she holds the Fullness of all Love. 
Nurturing him with gentle, warm love.  Whispering to him a lullaby of peace. 
Blessing him with a tender-touch.  Kissing his wounds to release the pain.
 
For here in this womb-tomb, he will pass over from this Mother's heart
to the Creator's arms.  

For here in this womb-tomb, he will pass over from death to Life!
For here in this womb-tomb, he will pass over to God-Glory ~ Alleluia!

O Mother Earth, Womb of Life, embrace us in our darkness. 
Hold us to your earthen breast.  Mid-wife us as we struggle with our humanness. 

Nurture us, bless us, and caress us.  Place your healing kiss upon our wounds. 
Teach us the lesson of passing over; teach us the lesson of letting go. 

Guide us as we search with eager-earth-eyes for the bright brilliance of Easter Light - and to look up and see only Jesus.  Alleluia!  Alleluia!
 

 

A Mother's Sorrowful Mystery!

https://stpetersbasilica.info/Altars/Pieta/Pieta.htm

Liturgy by Irene Zimmerman, OSF

All the way to Elizabeth
and in the months afterward,
she wove him, pondering,
‘This is my body, my blood!’

Beneath the watching eyes
 of donkey, ox, and sheep,
she rocked him, crooning,
‘This is my body, my blood!’

In the moonless desert flight
and the Egypt days of his growing,
she nourished him, singing,
‘This is my body, my blood!’

In the search for her young lost boy
and the foreboding day of his leaving,
she let him go, knowing,
‘This is my body, my blood!’

Under the blood-smeared cross,
She rocked his mangled bones,
re-membering him, moaning,
‘This is my body, my blood!’

When darkness, stones, and tomb
bloomed to Easter morning,
She ran to him, shouting,
‘This is my body, my blood!’

Stilling!

 

Artist Unknown

Still

This day

let all stand still

in silence,

in sorrow.

Sun and moon

be still.

Earth

be still.

Still

the waters.

Still

the wind.

Let the ground

gape in stunned

lamentation.

Let it weep

as it receives

what it thinks

it will not

give up.

Let it groan

as it gathers

the One

who was thought

forever stilled.

Time

be still.

Watch

and wait.

Still.

From: Circle of Grace by Jan Richardson

 http://www.janrichardson.com/index.htmlichardson.com 

Choose!

 

Painting by Antonio Ciseri.

 

Magnificat of Terror (Luke 23: 20-25)

The Romans dragged him here and lashed him brutally.
We, a few women friends and I, we waited silent in the courtyard of the Antonia Fortress, as waited other families of the prisoners.

They pushed him out onto the judgment floor elevated above us and then pulled another beaten man to the other side of the trial platform.
His name is evidently Bar Abbas, as his family cries out, a family great in number: friends, parents, wife, sisters, brothers, and his children weeping to see him suffering so. “No, my abba,” cries out a small child’s voice.

Now, the Legionnaire’s game begins. They strut before the crowd. “You choose,” they mock, “you choose which one dies.”
“This one or this one,” grunts the leader, slapping his staff on their bleeding backs. There is only silence from those gathered there.
“Come now. Choose or both die.” Once more.
“This one or this one.” Again, silence.
“Once more,” the Roman shouts. “Last time. Decide or both die.” 
“This one or this one.” Again, a silence until at last one of Bar Abbas’ family murmurs and then screams as the staff is held over my son’s head. “That one. Crucify him.”

Others of Bar Abbas’ family join in to save their loved one. “Crucify him,” pointing to my only son.
So the “vote” is cast and Bar Abbas is shoved off the judgment platform into the waiting arms.
They cradle him because he cannot walk so weak and damaged is he from the beatings.  Carrying him out from the hated Fortress, one woman turns to look at me with agonizing eyes.

We all know of crucifixion. The road to Jerusalem’s gates is lined with crosses bearing suffering men, families gathered at the foot of them, Roman soldiers gaming nearby. The surrounding hills too are so decorated.
And all of those people who followed him, their precious teacher, all of those people who sang joyfully as he entered Jerusalem, and the Twelve he so loved: Where are they?

I must not ask, I know. They are where they belong with their families. For these are holy days for us. The Passover meal just passed last evening and the Sabbath preparation today.

They are where they belong, with their families. Others perhaps are in fearful hiding. But had they been here and we could have outshouted Bar Abbas’ family, we might have been able to scream “Crucify him. Crucify Bar Abbas.” To cry out even louder than the others. To win our dear one’s life at the cost of another.

But would my son have wanted such a thing?

(From: Miryam of Nazareth by Ann Johnson)




Jesus Before Pilate by Hieronymus Bosch

A day of rest . . .

 

Jesus dies . .
Image by Michael O'Brien

 In John O’Donohue’s book,
Anam Cara,
he writes about death.

“Death is a lonely visitor.
After it visits your home,
nothing is ever the same again.
There is an empty place at the table;
there is an absence in the house.

Having someone close to you die
is an incredibly strange and desolate experience.
Something breaks within you then
that will never come together again.

Gone is the person whom you loved,
whose face and hands and body
you knew so well.
This body, for the first time,
is completely empty.

This is very frightening and strange.
After the death many questions
come into your mind concerning
where the person has gone,
what they see and feel now.
The death of a loved one is bitterly lonely.

When you really love someone,
you would be willing to die in their place.
Yet no one can take another’s place
when that time comes.
Each one of us has to go alone.

It is so strange that when someone dies,
they literally disappear.
Human experience includes
all kinds of continuity and discontinuity,
closeness and distance.

In death, experience reaches
the ultimate frontier.
The deceased literally
falls out of the visible world of form and presence.

At birth you appear out of nowhere,
at death you disappear to nowhere. . . .

The terrible moment of loneliness in grief
comes when you realize that
you will never see the deceased again.”

John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom, (New York, HarperCollins, 1997) p.207

 

Jesus is laid in the tomb
Image by Michael O'Brien