Saturday in ordinary time: 'the heavenly [person]'

I am bound by the vows I have made you.
O God, I will offer you praise
for you have rescued my soul from death,
you kept my feet from stumbling
that I may walk in the presence of God
and enjoy the light of the living.

Psalm 55 [56]: 13-14

. . .

I was glad to hear Msgr John's reflections on the readings for today, from 1 Corinthinans ('the heavenly man') and Luke's gospel (the sower parable): believe and persevere. Believe in the change that only God can work, and keep on the road toward it. Not often have I heard such a clear, direct and concise homily.

Interestingly, though, there is this other reading: the Psalm. Usually it seems to go under the radar, and yet there it is today, perfectly connecting the heavenly orientation of 1 Corinthinans with the perseverance of the 'good soil' in Luke's gospel. The obedience, or perseverance in God's Word (yep, I mean the Word of the Father), originates in the saving act of God and looks to the presence of God as its destination. Pressing forward with a good heart and a steady will requires both memory and hope. The soul who knows the salvation of God, who has experienced God's rescue, anticipates God's presence in hope. What strikes me about the Psalm is the way in which it subverts any inclination to think that either the belief or the perseverance comes from ourselves and not from the God who rescues us. It is the Lord who 'rescue[s] my soul from death and [keeps] my feet from stumbling'.

I still find the mystery of the heavenly person vexing: it seems I see not so much in a mirror dimly, but rather remain in darkness. Fortunately it is a mystery, and not a complicated algebra problem I simply lack the intellectual skill to solve. Because in the end it is, after all, grace.

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St Matthew

The heavens declare the glory of God...
                                   Psalm 19 [18]: 1

Go, and learn what this means: I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.
                                   Matthew 9: 13

.             .             .

I am glad I will not be called upon to give a homily today. Although I am certain that a clever preacher would easily find common themes in the readings for the feast of St Matthew, I am not that clever. Psalm 19 is a particular favourite, partly because it begins with the witness of nature and ends with the testimony that is the law. God reveals.

And what does God reveal? God, of course. In the person of Jesus, who says such provocative things as 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice'. If I were writing a homily (or even if I were simply less tired) I would chase down the places where that sentence is repeated in Matthew's gospel, and show how it subverts the usual uses to which the most famous bit of Matthew 18 has been put. The richness of creation, the glory of the heavens, the beauty of the Word made flesh, all point much more certainly (or so it seems to me) to the plenitude of the seventy times seven than to the exclusion of anybody.

St Andrew Kim Tae-gon and companions, martyrs

Give thanks to the Lord for he is good,
 for his love has no end.
Let the sons of Israel say:
 'His love has no end.'
                      Psalm 117

.                 .                .

I don't suppose considering the endless love of God two days running counts as monotony. After all, it is pretty amazing to ponder. I did a lot of listening to a number of people talking about theology (some even about God's love) today; By far the most interesting thing I heard was the idea that forgiveness is like love. Seems obvious, when you think about it, doesn't it? The point that the speaker was making was that if we conceive of forgiveness as an event, we're bound to be frustrated when it doesn't happen in an over-and-done-with way. If, instead, we understand forgiveness as analogous to love, we see immediately that it isn't that sort of thing. Yesterday I reflected that all love comes from God. It makes sense to think of forgiveness in the same way: as coming from God and not, ultimately, from ourselves.

I'm not at all certain that makes forgiving any easier. But it does give me hope that it is possible, not because I think I can do it but because it doesn't matter that I can't. Dwelling on the memory of wrongdoing or staring into the face of the wrongdoer (if only in my mind) and trying to conjure up 'forgiveness' will not do. Only the One whose love has no end can supply it. My task is to turn again (and again and again) and receive forgiveness, until my broken heart overflows.

St Januarius

For the word of the Lord is faithful

and all his works to be trusted.

The Lord loves justice and right

and fills the earth with his love

                                Psalm 33[32]: 12

.                   .                        .    


Love. The Lord 'fills the earth with his love.' I have spent a lot of time lately wondering about God. When my mother died last summer, the boundary between heaven and earth (however we might imagine it) moved like the San Andreas fault. Everything shook for a while, and some things fell down. A few things broke, I think, and I still experience aftershocks from time to time. When the immediate shaking died down, I read some physics (and I don't really do science, but my mother did). After I put a few things back in place (or found new places for them), I turned back to the Scriptures. And I wondered a lot about God.

The answers I had for my children did not satisfy me. 'Nana is in heaven,' I heard myself say. But what did it really mean? Who (or what) was God, anyway? I was walking along the river one day, and the words of this Psalm (from the Mass readings for today) came alive for me. The Lord 'fills the earth with his love.' God is the One who gives us love, who loves us and who is the love we share. Without God, we would not have love. However uncertain I may be, however distant I may feel, I can know with certainty that God is near: God 'fills the earth [and that includes me, and you, and my husband and my children] with his love.'

Thanks be to God.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord;
  I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts;
  I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of he-goats.
Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean;
  remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes;
  cease to do evil, learn to do good;
seek justice, correct oppression;
  defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.
                Isaiah 1: 11, 16-17

Mark this, then, you who forget God,
   lest I rend, and there be none to deliver!
He who brings thanksgiving as his sacrifice honors me;
   to him who orders his way aright
   I will show the salvation of God!
                  Psalm 50 [49]: 22-23

                    .                     .                       .                        .                        .                      .          

Somehow, until today, I had not connected the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel with Elijah's fantastic defeat of the prophets of Ba'al. But, of course, that was Mount Carmel. I owe the link to the Office of Readings for today: the readings for feast days are always rich and instructive. Occasionally, as was the case today, there is also overlap with the Mass readings. Psalm 50 [49] occurs in both (though only in abbreviated form in the Mass), weaving together Elijah's famous duel with the opening gambit of the book of Isaiah.

I must admit that I overlook, sometimes, the scolding and threatening verses in the Psalms and the prophets. My reading of the Lord's victory at Mount Carmel focuses on God's prevenient grace; God is a God who rushes to save, who waits for the prodigal son and runs out to meet him; God is a God who is 'abounding in steadfast love.' We are called not only to rely on God's love, however, but to display it, to share it, to live it constantly and fully, always and everywhere. That obligates us, as Isaiah reminds us, to the powerless and all those in need. It also demands that we forgive, as the Lord's prayer (and Matthew 18) show so clearly. Not only that, though. God's love draws us further up and further in, as CS Lewis described it, and the only way forward is in holiness: 'to [the one] who orders [her] way aright I will show the salvation of God.'

To do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God--so simple, all-inclusive, and difficult. It really does require our attention all the time: love, forgiveness, thanksgiving, humility and discernment...to see where the Lord is leading, to respond to our neighbors (spouses, children, colleagues, students, teachers, friends) in love and humility, to forgive when it hurts, and to thank God anyway. Not an easy task, and one at which we are all bound to fail at one time or another. (Ok, so I admit I fail often.)

That's why we depend on grace: for the strength to carry on, and to raise us up when we have fallen.

Friday in Ordinary Time

Have mercy on me, O God,
 according to thy steadfast love;
according to thy abundant mercy,
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
 and cleanse me from my sin!
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned,
and done what is evil in thy sight,
so that thou art justified in thy sentence,
and blameless in thy judgment.

.                       .                      .                      .                       .                          .                           .


Anytime I read Psalm 51 (50LXX), I immediately hear it, and see myself in a very small room-cum-chapel so full of incense it looked like a smoky bar. I probably found more peace there, in that tiny room, than anywhere else on campus during the years I studied at the seminary. My Greek teacher, as it happen, was also a priest in the Orthodox church (OCA). Every morning, he would sing morning prayer with a handful of students to whom the practice appealed. And so it was that the child of a Roman Catholic first learned to cross herself from right to left, careful to press the first two fingers of the right hand against the thumb, to symbolize the Trinity.

Something happened there, in that chapel, that would forever alter me. As much as it was connected to the chant and the incense (I am a huge fan of the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei), it was shaped by my regular reflection on this Psalm. Each day, morning prayer began with this psalm--quite a different invitatory than those I find in my breviary. I found it humbling and refreshing to begin with two reminders: that I needed God, and that what God desired from me was to admit it.

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
   righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
Faithfulness with spring up from the ground,
  and righteousness will look down from the sky.
Yea, the Lord will give what is good,
  and our land will yield its increase.
Righteousness will go before him,
  and make his footsteps a way.
                                     Psalm 85.10-13

                          .                     .                     .                      .                     .

This is one of my favorite images from the Psalms. The Psalms have been my refuge since my youth, truly. I have no idea how I might have survived adolescence without having recourse to the songs of exile and lament that often voiced my own anxiety and sense of not-belonging. Among my favorites, though, this Psalm is a relative late-comer and reflects a slightly different perspective on the Psalms. Different, I say, not more mature. It may well be that I have grown up (by God's grace) since I pleaded with God to 'have mercy on me, because I am lonely and weak...' (the Good News Bible's rendering of Psalm 25.16), but I know full well that I am as prone to stumbling as the next person.

My fondness for the image centers on the love that is integral to peace and justice in the Psalmist's description. I imagine faithfulness and righteousness gazing at one another in intimate love: something intrinsic to each draws it to another. The unity of God's love and righteousness draws from creation a faithfulness that displays recognition of its source and destiny. And it isn't just in the abstract, either. I cannot read the final verse without seeing John the Baptist making the way for Jesus. In Jesus steadfast love and faithfulness meet, the creation responds appropriately to the Creator.

For all my romantic portrayal of the scene, I could have done worse than to read the Gospels. In Jesus the Lord has given what is good: Himself. And the fruit of His coming still grows, by the grace of the Spirit. But that's another story.