Feb 28: One Word Spoken to All

Anonymous German Master: The Naaman Plaque
The British Museum, London, 12th cent.

Monday of the Third Week of Lent

Gospel: Lk 4:24-30

And Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. . . There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian (NRSV, Lk 4:24,27).”

Father, how often some of us among your holy people attempt to put a claim on you. It is so easy for us to consider you as “our” God instead of God “for us.” We try to use you in so many ways, as if we are the only ones to whom you speak or the only ones whose interests are yours. We pray in our holy places pretending that you listen only to us. We even go to war against our neighbors convinced that it is you who lead us into battle against sons and daughters who are also yours.

Luke tells us, when Jesus spoke in the synagogue in Nazareth making reference to the wonderful things that you did through Elijah in feeding the Widow of Zarephath and her son in Sidon and through Elisha in healing Naaman the Syrian of his leprosy, that the people rose up in their anger and tried to kill Jesus.

Father, help us to realize that you speak the same one Word to all peoples, in every time and place. In fact, it is the presence of your Word to everyone of us at the depth of our being, a presence that is never denied or abrogated, that finally makes us to be human beings. It is the share in your own divine life, first offered in our mother’s womb through the Word and accepted by us in the power of the Spirit, that begins our everlasting pilgrimage as human beings.

Each of us, Lord, comes to a fuller understanding of you admittedly in different ways influenced by so many factors that surround us. Help us, Lord, to recognize you and your truth in all of our fellow human beings even when it is dressed in cultural garb that may at first seem alien. Truly it is by listening to the many voices of your one family that we can all come to a greater understanding of the same Word spoken to everyone of us.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Feb 27: Water for Eternal Life

George Richmond: Christ and the Woman of Samaria
The Tate Gallery, London, 1828

Third Sunday of Lent

Gospel: Jn 4:5-42

“The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life (NRSV, Jn 4:14b).”

Father, Water symbolizes chaos and destruction but also life. Your holy people, in telling our story, have always associated water with critical moments in that history. The foundation event which we remember as awakening us to an awareness as your people is identified with the passage through the sea and deliverance from slavery to political freedom. Subsequently the passage through the Jordan would mean freedom from the sinfulness and rebellion that characterized the forty years of wandering in the desert.

Events of earlier times were later remembered as being associated with water. Your creation through your spoken Word, Father, was in the Spirit acting upon the great watery chaos and bringing out of it order and life. When the sinfulness of humanity undid that order and all returned to the watery chaos out of which you had brought it, Father,you guided the good man Noah and his family through the devastation of the flood and gave us a new world.

Despite your ongoing presence in the world through your Word and the constant generous offer of life in the Spirit, humanity continued to succumb to the sin of the world and its own selfish desires. John the Baptist summoned your people, Father, down to the Jordan to pass through it once again to leave their sinful selves in the desert and to accept forgiveness of sin. Jesus, the Word made flesh, began his public ministry by being immersed in the Jordan by John and being anointed by your Holy Spirit.

It is in baptism finally that we who believe identify with Jesus in his crucifixion and resurrection, going down to death with him and rising to new life.

In the end, Father, Jesus himself is the true water that springs up to eternal life. It is through the Word that we accept divine life in the Spirit that brings us a share, Father, in everything that you are. May we drink deeply from that well now and in every moment to come.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Feb 26: Everything from God is Gift

Giorgio de Chirico: The Prodigal Son
Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, 1922

Saturday of the Second Week in Lent

Gospel: Lk 15:1-3, 11-32

Father, for time out of mind and in places all over the globe, human beings have been trying to placate the divine power for their own wayward actions by offering gifts in payment. Jesus, in one story, perhaps the best attributed to him, puts it all to rest. There is never need for payment to you, Lord, for anything. Everything from you, Father, material creation, divine life that is shared, and most importantly, forgiveness for sins, all is freely given. All is gift.

Like the prodigal son who has squanders his father’s inheritance, we wonder what we must do to find forgiveness from you for our sins. What possible payment? The father in the story is only waiting for his son’s return. When he sees the son approaching in the distance, he rushes out, embraces him and orders the fatted calf killed to celebrate. The father is so effusive in expressing his welcome that the son never even gets to express his contrition.

And so it is, Father, with you and us. Even when we commit the most grievous of sins, your Word never abandons us even though we may try to flee his presence. He remains always with us, pressing in upon us, offering us your forgiveness, Father, and the renewed gift of your life. All we must do is accept it and allow it once again to transform our lives.

Renewed in your grace, Lord, we go out to others that we have sinned against in an effort to undo as best we can the evil that we have wrought. The forgiveness we have received, we too will share with those who have sinned against us. Hopefully then sinner and sinned against will together accept even a further growth in the divine life of your Spirit that you always offer to all through your Word.

Alleluia. Amen.

Feb 23: Service of Others

Christoph Weigel: A Mother's Request
Biblia ectypa: Bildnussen auss Heiliger Schrifft
Alt und Neuen Testaments, 1695

Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent

Gospel: Mt 20:17-28

“Just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many (NRSV, Mt 20:28).”

Father, it is so often the case when we plan our future that there is really nothing new about it at all. We merely take our present situation which is always impoverished when compared to what could be and dream up a future that is just more of the same. Jesus preached the coming of your kingdom and of course we thought of it as just another earthly kingdom, maybe one that might function a bit better than others. What Jesus really preached was a kingdom unlike any other that the world has experienced. It is a kingdom, Father, in which your rule will overcome all evil and everything will be put right. Even death will be finally understood, not as undoing, but as passage to a fuller life.

The wife of Zebedee, the mother of James and John, came to Jesus, Matthew tells us, to seek places of honor for her two sons, that they might sit at the right and the left of Jesus when he would come into his kingdom. Jesus tried to explain that in this kingdom that there would be no places of honor as they are usually thought of. Jesus said that all he had to offer was a cup of suffering. In the coming kingdom there would be no lording it over one another. In the kingdom to come the one who would be great would be the one who would place himself at the service of the others, even as a lackey might do. After all Jesus himself had come not to be served, as one might expect of a king, but to serve and to give his life for the many.

Father, we think we know what a priest is, what sacrifice is, what a kingdom is, what a king is, but Jesus shatters all of our preconceptions and opens up for us a whole new understanding of what it means to be human, a whole new understanding of the future. It is a future, not of self-fulfillment, as we might hope for, but a future of self-denial and service of others.

Help us, Father, to break out of the past, even as it has brought us to the present moment. Open us up to a future of constantly growing, unexpected newness of life in you and of committed service to one another.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Feb 22: The Great Gifts Bestowed Upon Us

Pietro Vannucci, called il Perugino:
Christ Giving the Keys to Peter (detail)
Cappella Sistina, The Vatican, 1482

Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, Apostle

Gospel: Mt 16:13-19

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it (NRSV, Mt 16:18).”

Father, thank you for so many gifts. First of all, I am grateful for the gift of life, not only physical life for this world, but a share in your own divine life for the world to come. You give me this life even from my mother’s womb. Through the Word always present to me, even in my sinfulness, I have the opportunity in every moment of embracing in the Holy Spirit forgiveness and further growth in your life.

I am thankful also that the Word, ever pressing in upon me challenging me to further increase in the Spirit, has come into the world in the flesh in Jesus Christ, that his presence has been made manifest in the body. Now we have seen with our eyes the glory to which you call us.

I am thankful as well for the gift of your Church, the body of Christ, your holy people, Father, which is the ongoing sacrament of your presence in the world, the visible gathering of all who believe in the Lord Jesus and look forward to life in the world to come. In the Church, we ritually and effectively celebrate the one saving act that is your very being, making present in tangible ways the great mystery of creation and sanctification, in every moment available to all, which otherwise we would only experience in the depth of our being and in other ways hidden and not made manifest.

Father, help me and all of your daughters and sons to live lives worthy of your great gifts to us.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Feb 19: Pilgrimage of Love

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones: Love and the Pilgrim
The Tate Gallery, London, 1896-97

Saturday of the First Week of Lent

Gospel: Mt 5:43-48

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (NRSV, Mt 5:43-44).”

Father, it was as you led us out of slavery in Egypt that we realized for the first time how you are God and we are your people. We learned then of the great care you have for us and how you want us to care for one another. It was at Mount Sinai, as our deliverance continued that we focused our attention on how you would have us live. We continued on our journey after Mount Sinai convinced that we were your covenanted people bound to you by the Law. The Law found expression in precepts to guide our lives, precepts attributed to you.

As we continued on from Mount Sinai we came to understand ourselves as a pilgrim people journeying towards the land of promise. We looked into our past and recognized that the journey had begun long before even with our father Abraham as he left his home in Mesopotamia, surely even before him, right from the beginning. Then your son Jesus, the Word made flesh, awakened in us the understanding which the Word has always taught us in the depth of our being, if hitherto unacknowledged, that we are on pilgrimage not towards the land at all but towards you, Father, to the fullness of the eternal life that you share with us. It is our very nature to be a people on pilgrimage, even from this world into the world to come.

All along this journey, Father, through your Word you teach us. You teach us once and for all in every moment but that teaching becomes ever more real for us as we move forward on our journey. There are certain moments that seemed privileged for our understanding, moments such as at Mt. Sinai or when Jesus taught us on the holy mountain, but every single moment contains within it the possibility of real growth. It is as we grow in your life that we grow in our grasp of what you require of us.

Just as our pilgrimage is everlasting our realization of the meaning of love is continually challenged to increase. No one understanding of love is final as there is always the possibility of growth in comprehension.

If we mistakenly conclude, Lord, that we have finally reached the open clearing of definitive knowledge, that we have at last the answers that we seek, the clearing inevitably becomes obscured in darkness and we are caught in the brambles of confusion and error. It is then that Love herself who is your Holy Spirit, prompted by your ever-present Word, beckons us forward, offering us her hand to help us on our continuing pilgrimage.

Alleluia. Amen.

Feb 13: One Does Not Live by Bread Alone

Anonymous Spanish Master: The Temptation of Christ
Hermitage of San Baudelio de Berlanga, Province of Soria, Spain
The Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, c. 1125

First Sunday of Lent

Gospel: Mt 4:1-11

But Jesus answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God (NRSV, Mt 4:4).’ ”

Father, as we begin this holy season of Lent, may your Spirit lead me as well into the desert that with Jesus, in a confrontation with death, not always recognized as the sister that she is, I too may come to realize in this moment who I am and what it is that you require of me here and now. May this moment also prepare me for coming moments and their demands as I continue my pilgrimage towards you who are my one, final and true Future.

After forty days of fasting, Jesus was hungry and the devil came to him and challenged him to change stones into bread to satisfy his hunger. But Jesus answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’ ”

During this Lenten season, Lord, help me to understand more fully what you have already taught me: the life that I lead is only apparently a life of this world, a merely physical life. It would seem, like other created beings around me, that my life is determined finally by the laws of this world, that I had a beginning at a certain moment in time, offspring of mother and father; that, interacting with others and things about me, I have grown to maturity; and that I shall eventually go into decline and die.

But, Lord, listening to your Word spoken within me, even from that first moment in my mother’s womb, I have realized that it is not by mother and father that I truly have life but by your Spirit that is given to me. It is through the Word who speaks to me that I receive the Spirit. It is through the Word, then, and not by bread alone, that I truly live and move and have my being. Physical life has been passed on to me by earthly mother and father but my true life, Lord, comes from you through your Word in the Spirit. It is your very life, Lord, that you share with me. It is as Jesus the Word himself made flesh declared: It is by him, by your Word, that I live.

Help me, Lord, during this Lent, to nourish myself more fully in your Holy Spirit gifted to me through your Word who always, in every situation, even though I wander, speaks to me.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Feb 12: To be Human is to be Called in the Moment

Hendrick ter Brugghen: The Calling of St. Matthew
Centraal Museum, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 1621

Saturday after Ash Wednesday

Gospel: Lk 5:27-32

After this Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me (NRSV, Lk 5:27).”

Father, Jesus chose his close disciples, each during a passing encounter. I used to wonder what would have happened to them if they had hesitated or even said “No;” if Peter and Andrew and James and John had not dropped their fishing nets and left their boats to run after him; or if Levi, whom we also know as Matthew, had not gotten up from his counting table to abandon his profession of tax collector. There is also the case of the would-be disciple who wanted first to bury his dead father. Is it possible that he did actually abandon his deceased father to follow Jesus then and there? Or is there another, somewhat cryptic message for him, and us, hidden in Jesus’ challenge? We know, from the story, that the rich young man did walk away from Jesus saddened because of his attachment to his wealth. Was there a second chance for him? Many argue, Father, that you have a particular life’s work laid out for each of us? One can wonder what might be our fate if that opportunity is deliberately missed.

Father, what I have learned about you and my relationship with you has come to me in flashes of insight received now and then over the course of a lifetime. With each of these advances, I have acknowledged that it was always something that I knew all along but just did not seem capable earlier of putting into words. My conclusion, Lord, is that your Word to me has been spoken all along, the same one Word, everything that I have to know about you and everything else, spoken there within me waiting to be understood.

In fact the Word spoken, I now realize, is the Word speaking. Your Word, your Son, made flesh in our Lord Jesus, is always present to me. He not only reveals you to me in one spoken Word; that revelation also offers me your life. Even when I sin or resist his offer, your Word always remains present to me, calling me to conversion, offering me your forgiveness and new life. All of this is essential to my being a human being.

And that, Lord, gives me the answer to what I have so long wondered: every moment, not just one particular moment, is the saving moment. Every moment, every occasion is privileged. Regardless of what I have done in the past, of how many possibilities missed, each moment brings the opportunity of a new beginning.

Father, I am listening. Through your Word, ever present to me at the depth of my being, regardless of how I have responded up until this moment, you are calling me right now to die to myself and my past and to be reborn in you. Help me to accept and to say “Yes” now, and in every moment to come.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Feb 11: Is Not This the Fast that I Choose?

Anonymous German Master: St. Elizabeth Clothes the Poor
and Tends the Sick (edited)
Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne, 1390s

Friday after Ash Wednesday

Reading I: Is 58:1-9a

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin (NRSV, Is 58:6-7)?

Father, it seems possible that we can believe that you exist and know certain truths about you without it transforming our lives, but when we say “yes” to the challenge of your Word always present to us and accept his offer of a share in your divine life, or, even more, growth in that life, then something inevitably happens to the way we live. As you, Father, go out of yourself in begetting the Word, and both you and the Word go out of yourselves in the procession of the Holy Spirit, so, when we accept that life which you, who are three in one, share each with the other; when we get caught up in the one true sacrifice of divine giving, receiving and sharing; our lives are inevitably changed by your grace and the decision that we have made.

As you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit share life and love among yourselves and with us, so also will we share life and love in return, through the Son, with you and, among created beings, with one another.

The life and the love that you share with us, Father, will inevitably and without fail, as long as we remain faithful to the gift, transform our lives. We shall freely ex-ist, go out of ourselves, especially to all of our sisters and brothers in need. We shall feed those who are hungry and tend to the needs of the poor. We shall console and comfort those who are sorrowing. We shall care for the sick.

In ages gone by, it was individual acts of mercy that consumed us who would live out your life shared with us. Today, we realize more and more that changing the very structures of our society can do much better. Society can be reorganized so that many of the pains and difficulties that oppress us can be more effectively alleviated than by disparate individual acts. A structural reorganization of society, built upon individual conversion, is the most effective way towards greater justice and peace throughout the world.

Father, we are ever grateful for the gift of your life in the Holy Spirit that we receive through your Son, the Word. May we live out that life effectively through loving and serving our neighbors, especially those most in need, and by working to change society so that justice and peace may prosper.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen

Feb 10: Choose Life!

Gustav Klimt: Death and Life
Collection of Frau Marietta Preleuthner, Vienna, Revised 1915

Thursday after Ash Wednesday

Reading I: Dt 30:15-20

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses (NRSV, Dt 30:19a).

Father, in the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses says that he set before the people two choices, life and death, and challenged them to choose life. As your people emerged from slavery in Egypt into freedom in the desert, they understood, as best they could, that you were leading them into the land that was to be theirs. When they and Moses thought of “life,” what they projected was ongoing life, not for the individual, but for the people in the land. “Death” meant death in the desert, the promise lost. Moses challenged them to choose life!

In the resurrection of your Son Jesus, we have learned, Lord, that from the very beginning you have not only offered us life that is more than just physical life here on earth, even life as a people in the land, you have offered us a share in your own divine life. That offer has been made to every human being in his mother’s womb. The acceptance of that offer, saying “yes,” to you, Father, offering us your Spirit through the Word, is what makes us to be human beings. To be human is already to be on the journey to everlasting life shared with you in the world to come, a gift that begins with the very first “yes” in the womb and continues to grow forever with each additional “yes” made in each moment.

Choosing death, Father, is far more than denying ourselves the possibility of a future as a people in the land. Choosing death, turning away from you, Lord, and succumbing to the web of evil that surrounds and ensnares us all, and to our own self-gratification, is to deny our very nature. It is to deny who we are and who we are called to be.

Father, how grateful we are for the gift of divine life that you share with us. May we be responsive in every moment to your Word, ever present to us, who invites us to grow in your gift, and if we have turned away, implores us to repent and to say “yes” to forgiveness and new life.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Feb 9: Ash Wednesday

Anonymous Russian Master: The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Spencer Collection, New York Public Library, New York, 16th century

Ash Wednesday

Reading II: 2 Cor 5:20–6:2

See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation (NRSV, 2 Cor 6:2b)!

The story of creation and the story of the beginning of the individual human being, Father, is your Word calling all that is finite out of nothingness to being. We, who are your children, your Word has called, in particular, to share in your very life: not only to participate in your being but to ex-ist, to go out of ourselves in your Holy Spirit and to grow constantly in your divine life. Your Word challenges us at every moment to move higher along the ladder of divine ascent.

Father, as we ascend towards you, it is important for us to understand more fully what we are called to be and how we are to live. We reflect on this, hopefully, a number of times a day. We pause on our journey to find ourselves and you in prayer as we move forward and upward.

In the assemby of the Church we gather, some of us more frequently, but, as a community, once a week, on the day set aside for you, Lord. If possible we meet during this sacred time in a sacred place so as not to be distracted by the always pressing concerns of the workaday world. There we pause to celebrate the Eucharist, to remember who we are and the destiny to which you call us. We listen to the sacred Scriptures, your Word written down for us, and we break Bread together celebrating the sharing of your life with us in the Body and Blood of your only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. We pray to you, Lord, during this sacred time in this sacred space, but both are really set aside for us that we may be refreshed on our journey in the Spirit forward and upper to you.

If once a week we observe the Lord’s Day as sacred, every year, before the annual celebration of the mystery of Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection, we set aside forty days to pause significantly on our pilgrimage for a fuller assessment of our life and the direction it is taking. During these forty days of Lent we go out into the desert to fast and to pray with Jesus that our mission may become manifest to us as it was to him.

We fast and do penance, we read and devote more time to prayer, not so much too subjugate a rebellious body, as to renew our focus on our final destiny and to order our entire life in conformity with that goal.

Father, may this Lent be for us truly a sacred season, a holy time of growth in understanding and direction, of further growth in your divine life.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Feb 8: Let Us Make Humankind in Our Image, According to Our Likeness

William Blake: Elohim Creating Adam
The Tate Gallery, London, 1795-1805

Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

Reading I: Gn 1:20–2:4a

Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them (NRSV, Gen 1:26-27).

Father, you created me in the darkness of my mother’s womb in your one unchanging act that is your being, act at once creative, life-giving and salvific. Your Word challenged me to accept the gift of becoming a human being, that is, a being already sharing in your divine life. Human life, generated by wife and husband, soon to be earthly mother and father; human life, physically developed enough to support consciousness; human life, still, of course, without language or logic; this human life, in the power of your Holy Spirit, said “yes” to that challenge of accepting your own divine life, Lord, and of thus becoming a human being. I had begun my pilgrimage, Lord, from nothing to everlasting growth in divine life ever to be offered to me at every moment.

Your priest, Lord, held me naked in his arms and, slowly immersing me in the water of the font three times, he said the words, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Down into the water I went, Father, only days into my physical life, to die with your only begotten Son, Jesus, and to rise with him to new life. Your priest, Father, then anointed me with sacred chrism as Jesus had been anointed by the Spirit at his baptism by John. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” the priest prayed

By the same unchanging act that is your being, Lord, act at once creative, life-giving and salvific, by this same act that invited me still in the womb to share your life; I was now baptized into your life and your Church, under the visible sign of water, and anointed with sacred chrism.

From the first moment of my existence as a human being in my mother’s womb, I was invested in the priesthood, the kingship and the prophetic dignity that are those of your Son, Jesus, the Word made flesh. Now, by your same one, creative, life-giving and salvific act, all was signed and made visible for the world to witness.

Father, as I continue on my pilgrimage toward you, ever challenged by your Word, and empowered by your Spirit, may I always be faithful to my calling as a human being: priest, king and prophet with our Lord Jesus Christ.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Feb 7: The Everlasting Journey of Creation

Kim Jae Im: In the Beginning
Korea, 1993

Memorial of Saint Mel, bishop

Reading I: Gn 1:1-19

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters (NRSV, Gen 1:1-2).

Father, the foundation event for the Israelites, what made them understand themselves as your people, was the act of your calling them forth out of slavery in Egypt. That was the first moment that they, or apparently any people in history, recognized you as God. Of course, it was not your first moment for them. You, Father, we have learned do not have moments. You have no “now and then,” no “here and there.” You just are. Without past and future. Just an eternal unchanging present. Everywhere and yet no place.

But for us who are created, who exist here or there, with a present, yes, but a past and future as well; for us, in every one of our moments we meet you, Lord, and in every moment, without fail, we experience you as calling us. First calling us into existence and then calling us forward. Calling us out of Egypt to freedom. Calling us, as you did Abraham, out of Mesopotamia, into a future of faith. Always, calling, calling, calling, out of whatever limits us into further growth in the freedom of your life. If we resist and turn away from you, you are still there calling us to accept forgiveness and to move forward once again.

The creation of the world, Lord, is not something you once did. It is a reality that in the one act that is your being that you just do. Nothingness, chaos, responds to the wind that is your Holy Spirit, and through your Word, begotten but uncreated, the world is called into existence. And out of that world that you create, you call life, then human life, then human life to share and grow always in your life. The call is eternal. It just is. The response is gradual. Understanding is gradual. Growth in life is gradual. But everything created is called always forward, to increase upon increase, to growth upon growth, without end.

Father, in the Book of Genesis, it seems that creation began and was ended. It appears to have been done in six days and then you rested on the seventh because everything that needed to be done had been accomplished. The story of Sabbath rest, like so many stories in Scripture, is a story for us. We are the ones, not you, Lord, who must rest. Not that we must cease to act, but that, to be truly human, we must punctuate our work-a-day lives with celebration, that, in leisure and prayer, we may find ourselves, and better understanding our being called constantly by you, Lord.

Creation, Lord, is a never-ending process. Actually it is our pilgrimage, our journey to you. It began in nothingness and continues forever toward you who are the beginning and the end of all. Father, continue to bless us on our pilgrimage.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Feb 6: Light for the World

Joseph Mallord William Turner: Light and Color - Goethe’s Theory - The Morning after the Deluge - Moses Writing the Book of Genesis
The Tate Gallery, London, 1843

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Responsorial Psalm: Ps 112:4-5, 6-7, 8-9

The just man is a light in darkness to the upright (Ps 112:4a).

Father, the psalmist tells us that the just man is a light in darkness. In John’s gospel, Jesus tells us that he is the light of the world. You, Father, through your Son, the Word, in the Holy Spirit, are light for us. As we continue to accept your life, always freely offered to us through the Word, into our own life, we become ever greater instruments of your light which cannot help but to shine out to those around us. Your light, Father, is seen by others through our actions, our concern for the poor, the oppressed, all of those in need. It is only through your life in us that we can do these things, and to accept your life into our own is always to allow your life to transform us more and more in the service of justice and peace. If we are light for the world, Lord, it is because you are light for us.

As we grow more and more in the life which you always in every situation offer to us, we are bathed more and more in your light. As the circle of light grows, our understanding of the mystery of your being also grows with it. The greater the circle of light, the more understanding there is. But, as the circle of light expands and grows larger, so does the perimeter of darkness surrounding it. We realize that there is always more and more to learn about you, Lord, who are all in all, inexhaustible in your life, in your being. There is so much more life to fill us and to make us ever greater sharers in you, Lord. Growth in you, Lord, is a pilgrimage that began in nothingness but that never ends.

Father, we pray that at every moment on our pilgrimage to you, there will always be more light to guide us as we say “yes” to growth in your life, and that your life, lived by us here and now, may also be light for others on their journey.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Feb 5: The One, True Sacrifice

Andrei Rublev: The Old Testament Trinity
The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, c. 1410

Memorial of Saint Agatha, virgin and martyr

Reading I: Heb 13:15-17, 20-21

Through Jesus, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God (NRSV, Heb 13:15-16).

Lord, the one and only true sacrifice is the giving and receiving of life and the sharing in love which is your being: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We your children, who participate in your life, by that very gift, accepted by us, are caught up in this one, true sacrifice. Through your Word, when we say “yes” to you, Lord, when we receive a share in your life, we are, by that very participation, caught up in your inner life. Through your same Word, we are thereby empowered with him, and in him and through him also to give to you, Father. The giving, receiving and sharing, Lord, which is your inner life, becomes, by participation, also our life. This has been true from the beginning.

Even when, through sin, we reject this sharing in your life, out of your great love for us, Lord, your Word remains ever present to us, inviting us to turn back, to accept your forgiveness, and to live your life once again.

How difficult it has been for us to understand, Lord, our sharing in your life. How difficult for us to understand the true meaning of sacrifice. We thought for so long and often continue to think that we can appease you by offering you gifts of all sorts, animals out of our flocks, the first fruits of the land, material things of every description, even sacred buildings erected in your honor, penitential practices strictly imposed upon ourselves, all to no avail. The only sacrifice you demand, Lord, is that we accept the one, true sacrifice, your life, into our own lives.

Sharing your life with us is not enough for you, Lord. You want as well to take upon yourself our life. Your Word has become visible among us, has taken upon himself a human body, has become a human being in the Lord Jesus Christ. In Christ, the one true sacrifice, which is your life, becomes visible in our midst. Your giving, receiving and sharing in love becomes tangible for us and catches us up in that mystery, by which we live, which we cannot see. That mystery, made visible, remains visible for us even now in the Eucharist, by which we share visibly, here and now, your life among us by partaking of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ under the appearance of bread and wine.

Father, through your Word, truly one of us in the Lord Jesus, may we now and always by caught up in the one, true sacrifice that is your very life.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Feb 4: One Life Given to All

Sandro Botticelli: Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist (detail)
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, c. 1488

Friday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel: Mk 6:14-29

King Herod heard about Jesus, for his fame had become widespread, and people were saying, "John the Baptist has been raised from the dead; that is why mighty powers are at work in him". . . When Herod learned of it, he said, "It is John whom I beheaded. He has been raised up (NAB, Mk 6:14,16)."

Father, how long it has taken us to recognize that there is one power at work in all of us. There is one life that animates our being. According to Mark’s gospel, the people, and indeed Herod Antipas himself, witnessing the power of Jesus’ ministry, were confident that John the Baptist had been raised from dead. We realize, quite to the contrary, it is the same power that filled Jesus, the power of the Word, your power, Father, that strengthened John.

Father, all of us who are human live by your life and power. It is shared with us through your begotten but uncreated Word, through whom we are all created, and through whom, in the Spirit, we receive the gift of your life. This is true of every human being who has ever lived. We are all divine beings called to share in your life. Even those of us who later reject the gift of your life, Father, accepted in the womb in the beginning, who succumb to the sin of the world which ensnares us all and to our own self-gratification; remain, through the Same Word pressing in upon us, forever in your presence, shared divinity gone wrong. We speak of Lucifer and his cohorts, in their sinfulness, as having fallen from such a great height. We who are human beings, who later reject our initial commitment to divine life, suffer the same denigrating condition of having denied who we are and who we are called to be. How gracious you are, Lord, in response to our sins, always to pour out your Spirit of forgiveness upon us if only we will accept.

Yes, Lord, it was the life and power of your Word, made flesh in Jesus Christ, that enlivened, and continues to enliven, John the Baptist. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you are one in your being, one in intellect and will, distinct but not separate in three persons. We who are human are, on the other hand, created, distinct and separate one from the other and from you, Lord, each with their own intellect and will, but still by your gracious favor, Lord, called, all of us, to share and to grow in your divinity. Continue to strengthen us, Lord, that in response to your Spirit given to us through your Word, we may be as faithful to our one calling as was John the Baptist.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Feb 3: Go, You are Sent!

Raffaello Sanzio: Eight Apostles
Woodner Collection, New York, c. 1514

Thursday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel: Mk 6:7-13

Jesus called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. . . So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them (NRSV, Mk 6:7,12-13).

Father in heaven, everyone who shares your life is endowed with divine power to drive out evil and to heal. Your Son Jesus, the Word made flesh, summoned the twelve and sent them out two by two. Your same begotten but uncreated Word, who always presses in upon us, also calls every one of us and sends us out to preach and to minister to those victimized by evil and to heal those who are sick. We celebrate this commission to ministry by our baptism and confirmation in our faith.

Just as you, Lord, never take over in our lives and act for us, so our charge is not to do for others but rather to awaken in them the life and the power that is always available to them if they would only accept it and allow it to transform them. While all are called to mediate divine life and power to one another, in the one mediator who is Jesus Christ the Word, finally each of us is responsible for their own actions, for their own response in faith.

Regardless of how we may fail one another or how circumstances may isolate us, every moment is the saving moment. Forgiveness of sin and spiritual healing, mediated by every situation, are there finally for all who say “yes” to them.

Physical healing is often a tangible manifestation of the deeper healing that is spiritual and touches on our relationship with you, Lord, and others. None of us can escape physical death, Father, but healed and whole in our shared life with you and our sisters and brothers, it can become an hour of glory. Having accepted your life and made it our own, Lord, we are, in the end, healed by our own power in this life for life in the world to come. As Jesus rose from the dead by his own power so also shall all who believe in him.

Father, grateful for the gift of your life, for the forgiveness and healing that we have experienced, may we too accept the commission given to the twelve to go out and to mediate your divine life to others by awakening in them a lively faith and acceptance of your gift of life and power.

Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Feb 2: The Lord Comes into his Temple

Hans Memling: The Presentation in the Temple
The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., c. 1463

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

Reading I: Mal 3:1-4

The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight--indeed, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts (NRSV, Mal 3:1b).

Father, we read in the Pentateuch how, in the Exodus of your people out of Egypt, the eldest son of each Hebrew family was spared by the angel of destruction in the last and greatest of the plagues, the slaying of the first-born male offspring. In later generations, to celebrate the sparing of the first-born, every eldest son had to be presented to you, Lord, as gift and then purchased back, redeemed. Thus it was that forty days after his birth the infant Jesus was presented in the Temple.

Your prophet Malachi speaks of the sudden coming of the Lord to his temple. "He is coming," he declares.

How grateful we are, Lord, that as we say “yes” to you and accept you into our lives, you make all of us to be temples of your Holy Spirit and you come through your Word in the Spirit to take up your abode with us. Your coming is without distinction, in every time and place, to all who welcome you.

And even, if by our sinfulness, by our turning away from you, we desecrate the temple of our person and drive your Spirit away from his sacred dwelling place, you never abandon us. Out of your great love for us, your Word remains always present to us and through him, you offer us forgiveness and new life if only we would accept your Spirit again and allow him once more to transform us into vessels of your grace.

Today, on this feast of the Presentation, may I welcome the Lord Jesus into the temple of the Holy Spirit that is my person and, as Simeon received the infant into his arms and blessed you, Father, and the holy family, may the Lord Jesus, your Word made flesh, now bless all of us whom he has redeemed, bless us now and forever more. Amen.

Feb 1: Now, in a Mirror, Dimly

Pablo Picasso: Girl before a Mirror
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1932

Feast of Saint Brigid, abbess, secondary patron of Ireland

First Reading: 1 Cor 12:31-13:13

For now we see in a mirror, dimly [Gk: in a riddle], but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known (NRSV, 1 Cor 13:12).

Father, so intense was Paul’s awareness of the risen Jesus present to him that he proclaimed himself an apostle, the last, he thought, but most certainly the least of the apostles, he argued, because he had persecuted the Church. Paul’s understanding of the Church and our relationship with you, Lord, that filled his preaching and his writings came not from instruction from the others but from his immediate experience of your Word spoken to him, that same Word spoken to all. Still Paul admitted that what he understood, what he saw, was as if in a mirror, dimly, like some sort of a riddle. He looked forward to a fuller understanding, of knowing even as he was known.

And so, Lord, it is also with us. Over the centuries, as your holy people, and throughout our individual lives, we listen to the one Word which you speak to us. We have clearly grown in our grasp of what we hear once and for all. Your revelation is one, always the same, but our understanding of it has progressed. There have been remarkable breakthroughs in our discernment of what is that you speak to us. We have never been the same after our meeting with you at Mt. Sinai. And everything has become ever so much clearer in the resurrection of your Son, Jesus. But, as Paul says, we still see as if in a mirror, dimly, like it was all a riddle yet to be solved.

Continue, Lord, through your one Word spoken to us, to encourage us on our pilgrimage, not only of growing in your divine life, but of understanding more fully who you are and what it is that require of us, how you would have us live.

Help us, Lord, to avoid the trap of concluding in any aspect of things that we have arrived at the end of our journey, that our grasp of the truth has been finalized. Only you, Lord, are truth, and we must grow in that truth even as we grow in your life.

Moses and the Israelites received your Law on Mt. Sinai. There for the first time in history did we realize that you demand that we live in love of you and of one another. But ever since then, Lord, we have been refining and refining the meaning of what we thought had been concluded in the desert. Help us, Lord, in each moment, to learn more and more what love of you and love of neighbor means, of seeing you and all of reality with more light and less dimly.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.