Tag Archives: creation

The Season of Creation: September 1-October 4

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Ten years ago, Pope Francis called for A World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation for September 1st. The day of prayer, coinciding with the publication of his letter Laudato si’ , began a Season of Creation, an ecumenical endeavor shared with other churches and communities that extends from September 1st to October 4th, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. 

Our church calendar, besides feasts and seasons, has days of prayer when particular causes  arise. In a recent letter, Pope Leo called the care of creation a particularly timely issue to pray for:

“…given the evidence in various parts of the world that our earth is being ravaged. On all sides, injustice, violations of international law and the rights of peoples, grave inequalities and the greed that fuels them are spawning deforestation, pollution and the loss of biodiversity. Extreme natural phenomena caused by climate changes provoked by human activity are growing in intensity and frequency (cf. Laudato Deum, 5), to say nothing of the medium and long-term effects of the human and ecological devastation being wrought by armed conflicts.

As yet, we seem incapable of recognizing that the destruction of nature does not affect everyone in the same way. When justice and peace are trampled underfoot, those who are most hurt are the poor, the marginalized and the excluded. The suffering of indigenous communities is emblematic in this regard.

That is not all. Nature itself is reduced at times to a bargaining chip, a commodity to be bartered for economic or political gain. As a result, God’s creation turns into a battleground for the control of vital resources. We see this in agricultural areas and forests peppered with landmines, “scorched earth” policies, [1] conflicts over water sources, and the unequal distribution of raw materials, which penalizes the poorer nations and undermines social stability itself…

Environmental justice – implicitly proclaimed by the prophets – can no longer be regarded as an abstract concept or a distant goal. It is an urgent need that involves much more than simply protecting the environment. For it is a matter of justice – social, economic and human. For believers it is also a duty born of faith, since the universe reflects the face of Jesus Christ, in whom all things were created and redeemed. In a world where the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters are the first to suffer the devastating effects of climate change, deforestation and pollution, care for creation becomes an expression of our faith and humanity.

Now is the time to follow words with deeds.”

 ( For THE 10th WORLD DAY OF PRAYER
FOR THE CARE OF CREATION 2025)

Recently, the Dicastery for Divine Worship provided a preliminary text for a Mass for the Care of Creation. A good resource for prayer during the Season of Creation.

MASS FOR THE CARE OF CREATION

Entrance Antiphon Ps 18: 2

The heavens declare the Glory of God,

and the firmament proclaims the work of his hands.

Collect

God our Father,

who in Christ, the firstborn of all creation,

called all things into being,

grant, we pray, that docile to the life-giving breath of your Spirit, we may lovingly care for

the work of your hands.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God, for ever and ever.

Prayer over the Offerings

Receive, O Father,

these fruits of the earth and of our hands:

bring to completion in them the work of your creation,

so that, transformed by the Holy Spirit,

they may be for us the food and drink of eternal life.

Through Christ our Lord.

Communion Antiphon All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

cf. Ps 97: 3

Prayer after Communion

May the sacrament of unity

which we have received, O Father,

increase communion with you and with our brothers and sisters,

so that, as we await the new heavens and the new earth,

we may learn to live in harmony with all creatures.

Through Christ our Lord.

https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/messages/creation/documents/20250630-messaggio-giornata-curacreato.html

Saint Irenaeus

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“We are all called to be holy. ‘Each in his or her own way,’” Pope Francis says in his exhortation “ Gaudete et exultate”.  We’re all different; saints are different too.

Today, the church remembers St. Irenaeus,  yesterday we remembered St. Cyril of Alexandria. Two different people, two different saints.. Cyril was a forceful, confrontative bishop of Alexandria; Irenaeus, as his name suggests, was a fair man and a peacemaker.

I learned about Irenaeus many years ago in a course on Gnosticism in Rome under Fr. Antonio Orbe, SJ, an expert on the subject. Gnosticism threatened Christianity in the 2nd century; afterwards most of its writings were destroyed. A large cache of its writings buried in the sands of Egypt had been recently unearthed and Father Orbe was just back after studying them. Until then, the Gnostic teachings  were known mostly through the writings of St. Irenaeus, whom we honor today.,

Fr. Orbe observed that as he compared the gnostic writings to Irenaeus’ reports of them he was struck how accurately and fairly Irenaeus described them,, not distorting anything they said or omitting their ideas. He was fair and respectful.  Irenaeus was fair minded and respectful to friend and foe alike. He was a peace-maker. Cyril of Alexandria was different. He would have left those writings buried in the sands of Egypt.

Irenaeus is not a bad example for today when hot words and smear attacks, distortions and lies dominate so much communication.  Peace makers like him don’t destroy, they heal and unite. That’s why they’re called blessed. He was named the 37th Doctor of the Church by Pope Francis in 2022, who said he was a “Doctor of Church Unity.”

Irenaeus also had a deep respect for creation. Some scholars today insist that the ancient gnostics were broadminded, creative people–rather like themselves–  more progressive than the plodding, conservative people of the “great church”– a term Irenaeus used..

In fact, the gnostics made the world smaller than it is, because they made much of the world evil, only some of it meant anything at all. Forget about the rest of it.

All creation is God’s, Irenaeus wrote. “With God, there is nothing without purpose, nothing without its meaning or reason.” All creation is charged with the glory of God.

Irenaeus saw the Eucharist as a sign of this. Bread and wine represent all creation. God comes to us through these earthly signs. We go to God through them.

“God keeps calling us to what is primary by what is secondary, that is, through things of time to things of eternity, through things of the flesh to things of the spirit, through earthly things to heavenly things.”

We should not demean creation, Ireneaus taught. That’s also the message of Pope Francis in “Laudato si.”

Tenebrae: Holy Saturday

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Today’s Tenebrae psalms (Psalms 15, 4, 24) speak of Jesus’ burial in the earth. He is the seed that falls to the ground, but he will rise and bring life:

“My heart rejoices, my soul is glad,                                                                                        Even my body shall rest in safety,                                                                                             For you will not leave my soul among the dead                                                                       Or let your beloved know decay.” Psalm 15

Jesus gives the gift of risen life, not only to humanity, but to the earth itself. “Cry out with joy to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness.”“

It’s a gift we doubt is ours:

O men, how long will your hearts be closed
will you love what is futile and seek what is false"
It is the Lord who grants favors to those whom he loves. Psalm 4

The gates of heaven open to Christ, risen from the dead, they are lifted high for all he loves:

O gates lift high your heads, grow higher ancient doors,
let him enter the King of Glory.
Who is the King of Glory, the Lord the mighty and valiant,
the Lord the valiant in war! Psalm 24

Tenebrae for Holy Saturday ends with an ancient homily: “Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.”

“The earth trembled and is still…” 

The Passion of Jesus is not only a human story; creation has part in it too. At his death “the earth quaked, rocks were split” Matthew’s gospel says. (Matthew 27,51) “From noon onwards darkness came over the whole land till three in the afternoon,” Matthew, Mark and Luke all say..

 The sun that rules the day, the moon that rules the night respond as Jesus cries out in a loud voice and gives up his spirit. Artists through the centuries place sun and moon at the cross of Jesus.

Remember too blood and water, those great elemental realities blood that John’s gospel says flowed from the side of Christ when a soldier pierced his side. Water refreshed with contact with the Word of God; blood source of life for living creatures come from the side of Jesus. They also share in the mystery of redemption.

The homily for today says that Jesus at his death goes “to search for our first parent…to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve…I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.”

Artists from the eastern Christian traditon see the Passion of Jesus leading to a great redemption. Jesus does not rise alone, but humanity and creation itself  will follow him.

Waters of the Jordan and the Sea of Galilee

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The land where Jesus lived spoke to him and inspired so many of his parables. The sea did too.

Jesus went out along the sea.
All the crowd came to him and he taught them.
As he passed by, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus,
sitting at the customs post.
Jesus said to him, “Follow me.”
And he got up and followed Jesus. (Mark 2:13)

From the Jordan where he heard his Father’s voice and the Spirit rested on him, Jesus went to Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee where he taught crowds and called disciples.

I remember looking quietly on the waters of the Sea of Galilee years ago on a visit.. At night a stillness centuries old takes over. The waters of the Jordan flow into it on their way to the Dead Sea. The river winds almost 200 miles from the Golan mountains in the north into the Sea of Galilee, then on to the Dead Sea in the south, a direct distance of about 60 miles. The river falls almost 3,000 feet on its way to the Dead Sea,.

.Jesus’ ministry began in the Jordan River. The waters spoke to him more strongly than they do to us today. The Jordan was sacred to the Jews from the time they miraculously crossed it on their way to the Promised Land. The great Jewish prophet Elijah came from a town near the river’s banks. Later he sought safety from his enemies there.

Elijah’s successor, the Prophet Elisha, also came from the Jordan. He told the Syrian general Namann to bathe in the river to be cured of his leprosy, and he was cured. Ancient hot springs near Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee still witness to the river’s curative powers.

At the time of Jesus, the river’s fresh flowing waters were the life-blood of the land, making the Sea of Galilee teem with fish and the plains along its banks fertile for agriculture. Pilgrims from Galilee followed the Jordan on their way to Jericho and then to Jerusalem and its temple. The river always spoke of life.

The Jordan Today

The river is still life to the region. It’s the primary source of its drinking water and crucial for its agriculture. Its water is a major point of controversy today between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

Nourishing Prophets

The Jordan nourished prophets.  Somewhere near Jericho John the Baptist preached to and baptized pilgrims going to the Holy City. The place– hardly a desert as we may think of it– offered enough food for survival, like the “ grass-hoppers and wild honey” John ate. It was also an uncultivated place that taught you to depend on what God provided.

Jesus taught this too. “I tell you do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or drink, or about your body, what you will wear… Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.” (Mt 6, 25 ff) The desert was a place for learning to put worry aside and trust in the goodness of God.

Water is a sign of life. When Jesus entered the waters of the Jordan, he acknowledged his heavenly Father as the ultimate Source of Life, the creator of all things.  Like the prophets Elijah and John the Baptist, Jesus remained in this wilderness near the water for forty days before his divine mission. He also baptized and taught there with his first disciples. He readied himself there to depend on God for everything.

The Jordan after Jesus

Later, when the Roman empire accepted Christianity in the 4th century, Christians came to the Jordan River in great numbers on Easter and on the Feast of the Epiphany to remember the One baptized there. They bathed in the sacred waters, and many took some of it home in small containers.

Early Christian pilgrims like Egeria, a nun from Gaul who came to the Holy Land around the year 415 AD, left an account of her visit to the Jordan where Jesus was baptized. Monks who settled near the river knew a place called Salim, near Jericho. The town, associated with the priest Melchisedech, was surrounded by fertile land with a revered spring that flowed into the Jordan close by. Here’s Egeria’s description:

“We came to a very beautiful fruit orchard, in the center of which the priest showed us a spring of the very purest and best water, which gives rise to a real stream. In front of the spring there is a sort of pool where it seems that St. John the Baptist administered baptism. Then the saintly priest said to us: ‘To this day this garden is known as the garden of St. John.’ There are many other brothers, holy monks coming from various places, who come to wash in that spring.

“The saintly priest also told us that even today all those who are to be baptized in this village, that is in the church of Melchisedech, are always baptized in this very spring at Easter; they return very early by candlelight with the clergy and the monks, singing psalms and antiphons; and all who have been baptized are led back early from the spring to the church of Melchisedech.”

A 19th Century Pilgrim at the Jordan

Christians in great numbers visited the Jordan River. Towards the end of the 19th century, an English vicar, Cunningham Geikie, described  Christian pilgrims following the venerable tradition of visiting its waters.

“Holy water is traditionally carried away by ship masters visiting the river as pilgrims to sprinkle their ships before a voyage; and we are told that all pilgrims alike went into the water wearing a linen garment, which they sacredly preserved  as a winding sheet to be wrapped around them at their death.

“The scene of the yearly bathing of pilgrims now is near the ford, about two miles above the Dead Sea, each sect having its own particular spot, which it fondly believes to be exactly where our Savior was baptized…

“Each Easter Monday thousands of pilgrims start, in a great caravan, from Jerusalem, under the protection of the Turkish government; a white flag and loud music going before them, while Turkish soldiers, with the green standard of the prophet, close the long procession. On the Greek Easter Monday, the same spectacle is repeated, four or five thousand pilgrims joining in the second caravan. Formerly the numbers going to the Jordan each year was much greater, from fifteen to twenty thousand….”(Cunningham Geikie, The Holy Land and the Bible,Vol 2, New York, 1890 pp 404-405)

The Jordan and Christian Baptism

Today, every Catholic parish church has its baptistery where the mystery of the baptism of Jesus is celebrated for new believers. Some eastern Christian churches call their baptisteries simply “the Jordan.”

Today the site of Jesus’ Baptism, according to archeologists, is in Jordanian territory at el-Maghtas, where a large church and pilgrim center has been built following excavations begun in 1996 by Jordanian archeologists. It is probably the  “Bethany beyond the Jordan” mentioned in the New Testament where Jesus was baptized and John the Baptist preached.

http://www.lpj.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=599%3Achurch-of-the-baptism-of-jesus-christ-maghtas-project-jordan&catid=81&Itemid=113&lang=en

The Jordan River offers its own commentary on the mystery of death and resurrection of Jesus, expressed in his baptism.  At one end of the river is the Sea of Galilee brimming with life, and at the other end is the Dead Sea a symbol of death. The river holds these two realities together, and if we reverse its course we can see the gift God gives us through Jesus Christ.

Like him, we pass through the waters of baptism from death to life.

World of Vapor

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“World of Vapor”
A reflection on Ecclesiastes 1:1-11
©️2024 Gloria M. Chang

The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens to the place where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.
All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.
All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.
What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.
There is no remembrance of former things,
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be
among those who come after.

Ecclesiastes 1:1-8 (ESV)

What is the Meaning of Life?

Qoheleth, the “Preacher,” writing in the name of Solomon, the son of David, wrestles with the absolute in the book of Ecclesiastes. The Hebrew word Qoheleth (from qahal, a root that means “assembly” or “congregation”) is Ekklesiastes in Greek, which names the book. Early traditions attribute the book’s authorship to Solomon, but philological evidence dates the book to no earlier than the mid-fifth century B.C., a half-millennium after Solomon’s reign. Thus, Qoheleth, a Hebrew sage, critiques the world through the eyes of King Solomon, the wisest, wealthiest, and most powerful man in the world. He investigates the patterns of nature and human striving, hoping to discover an ultimate purpose behind it all.  

World of Vapor

Qoheleth begins by lamenting that all is “vanity” (in Hebrew hebel, “vapor, breath”), which he pronounces five times in a single utterance (1:2). Finding no ultimate profit in the drudgery of human toil, he rhetorically asks, “What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?”

Ephemeral phenomena and superficial impressions shift and slide incessantly “under the sun,” where nothing is constant. The rising and setting of the sun, and the circuitous currents of wind go “round and round” ceaselessly in a futile loop. The sea, too, like human ambition and appetite, never finds fulfillment despite continuous filling: “All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full” (1:7). Jaded by familiarity, Qoheleth deplores the predictable motions of the earth.

“All things are full of weariness,” he despairs, “a man cannot utter it.” “The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing” (1:8). Ever restless, human desire insatiably consumes the panorama of sight and sound—representative of all sensory and intellectual stimuli. All impressions eventually evaporate like steam (hebel).

Nothing New Under the Sun

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.

Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 (ESV)

Ecclesiastes affirms the truism that “history repeats itself.” As civilizations rise and fall, human nature remains the same. War and peace, joy and sorrow, strength and weakness, freedom and slavery, profit and loss—the same old human affairs cycle round and round, generation after generation, world without end. A keen observer of human nature and historical recurrence, Qoheleth bleakly concludes, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

Puff of the Past

There is no remembrance of former things,
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be
among those who come after.

Ecclesiastes 1:11 (ESV)

As the sands of time fade away, so does human “remembrance of former things.” Stars and galaxies, fossils, and artifacts provide clues to the mystery of the 13.8 billion-year-old universe and human evolution. Yet billions of ancestors lie buried in the ground, forgotten by their descendants. Apart from cave paintings, oral traditions, scrolls, books, annals, chronicles, and even modern audiovisual media, which capture only fragments from limited perspectives, the past vanishes like vapor “under the sun.” Can fragmentary memories preserve an unbroken, unified recollection of the past? Can mortals achieve immortality in the minds of posterity? 

The Value of Struggle

Ecclesiastes challenges the assembly of wisdom seekers to find ultimate purpose and profit “under the sun.” Like Job, Qoheleth embraces disputation and wrestling with elemental questions. Sometimes described as “unorthodox,” these books goad the pious to “struggle with God,” the meaning of Israel’s name (Genesis 32:28). Questions do not threaten religion but expand its horizons. 

Without being an atheist, Qoheleth journeys to the edge of human striving to discover its peaks and valleys apart from God. His experiment confirms Paul’s observation that, on account of Adam’s departure from God’s will, “the creation was subjected to futility” (Romans 8:20; Genesis 3:17). The Greek word for futility, mataiotés (“vanity,” “emptiness”), translates the Hebrew word hebel (“vapor,” “breath”) in the Septuagint. Ecclesiastes allows every seeker of meaning to feel the emptiness of a life and vision that never rises above the sun. 

I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a chase after wind.

Ecclesiastes 1:14 (NABRE)

All is vanity, a chase after wind.
Series and cycles—these I examined.
Under the sun, seasons whirl like vapor.
What do humans gain by all their labor?


This content by Gloria M. Chang was originally published online at Shalom Snail: Journey to Wholeness.

Praying with Creation During Lent

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Lent is a time to look for God’s wisdom, our reading today from the Book of Sirach seems to say.  God’s wisdom is unknowable, Job proclaimed. “As for wisdom—where can she be found Where is the place of understanding? Mortals do not know her path, nor is she to be found in the land of the living.” (Job 28: 12-13)

But Sirach says “God has poured her forth upon all his works, upon every living thing according to his bounty; he has lavished her upon his friends”  ( Sirach 1:10)

“The sand of the seashore, the drops of rain, the days of eternity: who can number these? Heaven’s height, earth’s breadth, the depths of the abyss: who can explore these?” Yet creation is meant to be explored, because as a work of God it leads us to uncreated Wisdom.  

Lent is a time to follow the gospels that speak of Jesus, the wisdom of God. But let’s not forget creation that also reveals him. 

Father John O’Brien, a liturgist from my community, wrote an essay in 2004 entitled: “Thomas Berry, the Easter Vigil and the Greening of the Liturgy” 

“This essay”, he wrote, “ argues that the next horizon of liturgical development will require a paradigm shift in understanding and spirituality. This is a shift from a present anthropocentrism to a new role and placement for creation. Although the liturgy has used the stuff of creation to celebrate the magnalia Dei, it has emphasized that water and food, bread and wine, soil and oil, rocks and rivers are at the service of the human community. Creation exists for human use and the promotion of human redemption. If this redemptive motif prevails, humankind may flourish into the immediate future. But the earth that sustains human life will be diminished and destroyed.”

The liturgy can help us acquire this new vision, John suggested, and the Easter Vigil might be a good place to start. The play of light and darkness in the vigil, the fire in the dark, the Genesis readings, the waters of baptism and blessing are reminders of creation in the Easter story.  But in his essay John recognized that people weren’t exactly flocking to the Easter Vigil then. They’re not now.   

Better to start with our daily liturgy, our daily prayer? Should we look more closely at what our prayers say and how we pray every day? 

Daily prayer, particularly the psalms, can help us bond with creation. Isaiah says God’s word comes down from heaven like rain and snow, watering the earth and providing for the human family as well. Rain and snow are more than figures of speech, they’re messengers from God, beyond human control. Created by God they lead us to God, bestowing his gifts on us. God speaks daily through created things like these, the psalms say: 

“The heavens declare the glory of God;

the firmament proclaims the works of his hands.

Day unto day pours forth speech;

night unto night whispers knowledge.  (Psalm 19,2-4)

Morning with the rising sun, evening with the promise of new light, with a voice not heard, without speech or words, creation speaks for God and is promised a place in the new creation with us. 

The Holy Spirit, the “Lord and Giver of Life”, “God adored and glorified along with the Father and the Son” sustains creation, Elizabeth Johnson writes in her book “Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love” (2014). Key biblical images, powerful natural forces like blowing wind, flowing water, and blazing fire expand the notion of the active presence of the Spirit in the world God made.

At morning Mass candles are lit. Tongues of fire come upon us now. The fire that created the Big Bang billions of years ago is with us now, as the bread and wine, and water enter our cosmic prayer.

Can daily prayer, if we let it, give us eyes to see creation as our partner in praising God. Our readings for the 1st week of Lent are about prayer. They begin Monday with the final judgment from Matthew’s gospel. Those judged ask “when did we see you” in the “the least.”

Can we say “the least” also includes creation, which today we have reduced to the least? Can prayer be a way of seeing it?

Sunday: 4th Sunday of Lent

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Watch this week’s homily by selecting the video below:

https://player.vimeo.com/video/209957636

Morning Thoughts: The Sound of Life

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Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

—Genesis 2:7

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What is it this moment holds? Not last night, not later today. This moment. What does it hold?

Friendship.

Hello my friend. Good morning.

It is cold. Outside. In here though, it’s quite comfortable.

Just you and me.

Just me and you.

Shall we talk or just sit a while?

Ha, that reminds me of being in the chapel, early in the morning.

No one speaking but such a beautiful sound.

An old man, a holy priest, breathing quite loud.

But it wasn’t just air passing to and fro.

It was the sound of “spirit and truth.”

———

Community is the beautiful sound of other people breathing.

———

May God truly bless your day. May we both appreciate what He has given. And may we forgive each other our petty crimes. For you, my friend, in many ways, here and now, in earthen clay, are all I got. For without you—my neighbor, my brother, my wife, my boss, my employee, my business partner, my competitor, my foe—I won’t glimpse the face of Christ. And that I so badly need to do. He is after all, all we truly got. My face and yours will dry up and wrinkle, His remains the same. His love never gets old. May we hear each other breathe, with compassion and mercy, knowing that so much we take in causes mold. But it’s also in that very sound—the mysterious sound of breath—that can seemingly annoy us to death—that we witness daily the Word become flesh, again and again, to and fro, the entire universe, expand and contract.

We hear the One who sits on the throne.

We hear Him reconciling the world to Himself.

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Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit…”

—John 20:21-22

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—Howard Hain

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Friday Thoughts: Just Up At Dawn

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utagawa-hiroshige-titmouse-and-camellias-right-sparrow-and-wild-roses-center-and-black-naped-oriole-and-cherry-blossoms-left-ca-1833

Utagawa Hiroshige, “Titmouse and Camellias (right), Sparrow and Wild Roses (center), and Black-naped Oriole and Cherry Blossoms (left)”, ca. 1833

 

Lord, You are good.

Truly Good.

You are a great promise.

You are as good as Your Word.

You set free and You restore.

You truly make all things new.

I have seen great deeds.

Only Your hand can accomplish.

Within spaces.

So big and so small.

I have seen you in the sky and in the bird.

I have heard You cry and felt You shake.

I feel Your smile.

This very moment.

Good morning, Father.

You are so very good.

You are God.

And You alone.

Thank You for teaching me.

For showing me how to be free.

By asking only one thing.

Each and every moment.

What is Your will?

I need know nothing more.

I need not see, nor hear, nor feel, nor sense anything else.

I need not understand, nor remember, nor plan.

I need not desire nor will more than Your will itself.

I am.

Here.

To know.

To love.

To serve.

You.

And You alone.

That is Your will.

Your will is You.

One and the same.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Holy Mother Church.

Holy Angels.

Holy Saints.

Cloud of Witnesses.

Help me, Lord God.

Maker of Heaven and Earth.

To love You more and more each day.

In all Your creation.

Every bit of Your handiwork.

All for Your sake.

Simple. Clear. Honest. Pure.

A sparrow just up at dawn.

Tweet…tweet…tweet…

I hear Your will knocking at my door.

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—Howard Hain

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http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/56918

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Trinity Sunday

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DSC00528

A story’s told that St. Augustine, the great philosopher and intellectual, was walking along the seashore one day when he saw a little boy playing in the sand, taking water from the sea in a small bucket and pouring it into a hole he had dug. Back the forth the boy went.

“What are you doing?” Augustine asked, “Do you think you can put the whole sea into that little hole?”

“No,” the little boy answered, “And neither can you put God into that small mind of yours no matter how smart you think you are.”

The story reminds us that our minds are limited before the mystery of God, even the smartest, most brilliant mind. God is beyond us. The Feast of the Holy Trinity is, first of all, a reminder of our limits before the mystery of God.

And yet, this feast also says that God invites us to know him, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As Father, God is the creator of heaven and earth. All creation ultimately comes from God’s hand. Creation itself is God’s gift;  through the created world we come to know God.

God has also invited us to known him in Jesus Christ, who was born of Mary over two thousand years ago, who walked this earth and died on a cross, who rose from the dead and remains with us.  We have his words, his actions, his promises. He’s our Savior and Redeemer, a sign of God’s love;  he’s promised us life eternal..

The Holy Spirit also is God with us, within us, guiding us and our world to our common destiny.

Yet, though God reveals himself, we’re still like the little boy on the seashore. We’re looking at an unmeasured sea that we approach with the little buckets of our minds. We can’t grasp it all. Even the most accessible person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, remains a mystery to us.

Remember the story of the conversion of Paul the Apostle. Saui, the unbeliever, was on his way to the City of Damascus to persecute the followers of Jesus, when suddenly a blinding light throws him from his horse. “Who are you, Lord?” Paul cries out. “I am Jesus whom you persecute, “ the voice from the blinding light says.

Jesus Christ is like the blinding light of the sun. Yes, he is human like us, but he shares in the nature of God, who is brighter than sunlight. He blinds us when we try to see him. God dwells in light inaccessible, the scriptures say, and so even though we know much about Jesus, even though the scriptures and great saints and scholars describe him, he’s still beyond anything we can know.

Like the sun, Jesus is a blinding light, and yet, paradoxically, his light shines into the darkness of creation to give life and light.  St. John says: “No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him.” (John 1,18)

As people of faith we’re not like those who say you can’t know God at all or like those who say God doesn’t exist because my mind cannot grasp him. Yes, we have to admit that we are children of the Enlightenment, that movement in our western world that says there’s no need to pay much attention to God. Pay attention to the world at hand. Pay attention to yourself. That’s what’s important.

As people of faith we know God is important. God reveals himself to us little by little. God is the most important reality we can know and love.

The Feast of the Holy Trinity is a reminder of God’s invitation to know him, to serve him in this life, to pray to him and to be with him one day where we will know him much more. It’s an invitation God extends every day, all our lives. Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
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