Blog Archives

Pause

31/8/2022

A Reflection on the Psalm for Sunday September 4th, 2022:
Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Psalm 90

R. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

You turn man back to dust, and say, “Turn back, you children of Adam.” For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night.

R. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning; in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.

R. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart. Turn, O Lord! How long? Have compassion on your servants!

R. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands.

R. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

This psalm really stirred me up. It quite literally strikes the uncomfortable chord of the conundrum of human life and gives us hope for the meaning of man.

In today’s society we are often in a hurry, rushing around to accomplish tasks, in an endless desire to keep up with all the demands placed on us. There are some moments where we lift our heads and take a pause from the intensity of the pace of life and wonder what we are striving for, what is our purpose, or if we are simply caught in an endless, meaningless wheel. People often turn to magazines or self-help books to remind them that the meaning they seek can be found in things that can be captured, like money, wealth, significance, fitness. That sends us on another frenzy of searching for meaning. We then come to a point on the quest again where we are reminded, just as today’s psalm reminds us,

“In the morning man shall grow up like grass; in the morning he shall flourish and pass away: in the evening he shall fall, grow dry, and wither.”

We come back to realize that we all turn back to dust and wither away. No one can hold money, or wealth, or significance forever. These things fade away and when our time comes, we also pass. It can be easy to read this and feel hopeless. This is not the intent of the psalmists’ writings this Sunday. It is meant to remind us of Who our work is for, Who we live for. At the end of time, through God’s mercy, our lives will be redeemed through His grace.

“And let the brightness of the Lord our God be upon us […]”

Praying for you all. If you are in a hopeless season, be reminded that the brightness of God is near.

Theresa James

3 Comments

Limits

30/8/2022

2 Comments

A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, September 4th, 2022:
Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wisdom
9.13-18

For who can learn the counsel of God?
Or who can discern what the Lord wills?
For the reasoning of mortals is worthless,
and our designs are likely to fail;
for a perishable body weighs down the soul,
and this earthly tent burdens the thoughtful mind.

We can hardly guess at what is on earth,
and what is at hand we find with labour;
but who has traced out what is in the heavens?
Who has learned your counsel,
unless you have given wisdom
and sent your holy spirit from on high?

And thus the paths of those on earth were set right,
and people were taught what pleases you,
and were saved by wisdom.

I seem to have a hard time keeping track of where my appendages are. That would probably account for all the marks running up my arm, collected gradually by sequential small burns and nicks, or the bruises and scrapes that my legs seem to have gathered as I saunter through life. I can’t seem to figure out where my body ends and the edge of the frying pan or the corner of the picnic table begins. It’s not that I’m clumsy; I just have problems with boundaries.

For a perishable body weighs down the soul,
  and this earthly tent burdens the thoughtful mind

I’m feeling my limits these days. I tend to live for a span as if I don’t have them, until I run smack into one. I am, in the core of my existence, defined by limits. There is a limit to how many places I can be, to how many people I can help, to how much beauty I can create, to how much damage I can do. There is a limit to how many things I can fix, to how many things I can learn, to how many mysteries I can solve, to how many people I can love. And there’s a limit on all of this in every person I could ask to join with me, to bear the load, or to find a way. Except for One.

And thus the paths of those on earth are set right.

The word ‘paths’ lifts off the page, and joins itself to another time I heard of a path. The path of life David sings about in Psalm 16.11.

Tu me fais connaître le chemin qui conduit à la vie.
Quand Tu es là, la joie déborde.
Auprès de Toi, le bonheur ne finit pas!

You make known to me the path of life.
In Your presence there is fullness of joy.
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Every morning I get an English verse of the day in an app, and a French verse of the day in an email. One day, during a season particularly lacking in joy, they were the same verse. I found myself memorizing it in the French because I was pierced through by the thrust of ‘déborde’ — overflowing, beyond the boundary, past the limit I set for it.

This is what joy gets up to when You are there. Quand Tu es là.
It spills right over the edge. My limits aren’t the issue anymore.

This is the most anchoring and freeing thing I’ve known:
   auprés de Toi … close to You … holding Your right hand.
This is where I am held firm and set loose, all at the same time.

Here I can settle into my limits, revel in the nearness of You and take a walk.
Thankfully, only You are limitless, my King.

Noreen Smith

2 Comments

Isn't It Ironic

26/8/2022

6 Comments

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, August 28th, 2022
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Luke
14.1, 7-14

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, the lawyers and Pharisees were watching him closely. When Jesus noticed how the guests chose the places of honour, he told them a parable.

“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honour, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place.

“But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honoured in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

Jesus said also to the Pharisee who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

As I imagined this scene at the table in this Pharisee’s home, I was struck by how Jesus appeals to their desire for honour and reassures them that, in cultivating their humility, they will be exalted.

I’ve been reflecting on that ironic bit of this parable, and I realize that the subtlety here is in the motive.

The subtlety is revealed when I acknowledge that God knows my heart better than I do.

When I ask myself whether I have made an effort to do everything I do out of love for God and for others, and not for self-centred motives, I need to really examine my conscience and unwind the tangled threads of genuine altruism and self-interest, because they can be closely intertwined. There are many ways in which I can be tempted to seek a place of honour, including the achievement of worldly recognition.

So how can I tease out the difference? How do I know what my motives are?

I really do need the love of those around me in order to be healthy and to grow and learn. But the truth is, people love imperfectly, and seeking the love and approval of others to affirm my self-worth is dangerous territory into which I can easily stray. It can be difficult, in every moment, to see past the immediacy of my desire for validation from others. If instead I rest in the perfect love of God, which is healing and never-ending, I will, ironically, receive the honour I desire. It will lead me exactly into what I am here on earth to do.

Jesus is saying here that the ultimate honour is in glorifying God, not ourselves. Others, out of jealousy or doubt, may question our motives even if we know they are pure – but they are not the judge of our hearts – God is.

Let us pray:
Dear Lord, heal the wounds in my heart that keep me looking anywhere but to You for the Love that I need.

Reinforce in the depths of my being that I was made by Love, for Love, and this is the essence of who I am. All the gifts You have given me are for the creation of heaven on earth. Help me to discover and to rest in my giftedness, delighting only in its purpose, which is to glorify You.

Thank You for those You have placed in my life who have encouraged me in Your name; through them, You are transforming my soul. Help me to see clearly how I might assist others to discover their own gifts, allowing Your healing touch to transform them as well. Enrich all of my relationships with vulnerability and honesty, selflessness and forgiveness.

Illuminate my path, Lord God, so that I might grow in true humility, the kind of humility that clothed You as You carried Your cross to Your death. May my life reflect Yours, Jesus – replace my hurts, pride and self-interest with Your heart. Amen.

Lindsay Elford

6 Comments

The Still Small Voice

25/8/2022

2 Comments

A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, August 28th, 2022
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Hebrews
12.18-19, 22-24a

Brothers and sisters: You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them.

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable Angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.

Paul’s description of our encounter with God must have sounded quite surprising to his Hebrew readers. This isn’t language designed for the Gentiles, but rather for the Jews who grew up hearing and studying the Scriptures. The first section is laden with scriptural images, directly pulled from Elijah’s encounter with God in 1 Kings 19:11-13. God was not in the violence of nature, but something beyond nature.

Paul speaks again to Jewish tradition, referencing Mount Zion and Jerusalem – physical places where heaven touched earth. But it’s a new heaven and a new earth, a place where man and angel can gather together with God to feast.

For Elijah, that God wasn’t in the acts of nature was odd. God had created pillars of fire, separated the sea, and sent a myriad of plagues. God had gone ahead of them in battle, given children to aged couples, and sprinkled manna in the desert. God’s relationship with His chosen people had been so physical, so deeply related to our specific needs and particular circumstances.

So, a God who is above that – who is speaking into our hearts rather than through a burning bush – is as challenging for us as it must have been to the early readers of the book of Kings. As Christians, our part of the story is quite similar. Jesus came and worked wonders in the presence of His people. He healed people, He walked on water, and He rose from the dead. He entered deeply into our humanity and suffered alongside us.

Now, like Elijah, our experience of God is less in the overcoming of nature, and more in the still small voice in our hearts. Not that there aren’t any miracles but, to our eyes, they’re easier to attribute to a fluke of nature half the time, and we only trust they’re a miracle after we’ve engaged in rigorous scientific investigation. We are in an age when seas aren’t parted, and pillars of fire are a natural disaster rather than divine intervention.

While God may not be making a big splash via nature, His presence is still with us. When Jesus ascended into Heaven, He didn’t leave us orphaned. He sent us His Spirit. And that Spirit dwells among us, working in and through us. He is still there in the still small voice, teaching us, guiding us, correcting us, comforting us.

And in the Mass, we experience an incredible, incomprehensible, world-shaking miracle every day. We witness the most humble bread become the Creator of the world; and we consume Him, becoming one in the flesh with Him. The humility of the Bread of Life. The still, smallness of that Bread containing His whole presence in the Tabernacle. That is the promised feast of Heaven and Earth. That is the place where God, Angels, and humanity join together at the celebration of the new covenant. The still small voice invites us to hear Him. To believe in Him. To become like Him. That is the miracle Elijah experienced. That is what awaits us in the Mass.

Stephanie Potter

2 Comments

<<Previous

Pause

A Reflection on the Psalm for Sunday September 4th, 2022:Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Limits

A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, September 4th, 2022:Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Isn't It Ironic

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, August 28th, 2022Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Still Small Voice

A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, August 28th, 2022​Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Archives

A Reflection on the Psalm for Sunday September 4th, 2022:
Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, September 4th, 2022:
Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, August 28th, 2022
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, August 28th, 2022
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time