Be Opened!

Do any of us have speech impediments? A loss of hearing? I can admit to both! In this week’s Gospel, Jesus heals—yes, using spit! He heals a man who does not hear and does not speak. This year, I am thinking about my own speech impediments—what keeps me from speaking and when do I feel muted. At times it is fear! At other times, it is a very real silencing—a dismissal by others of what I have to say or the way in which I say it. These too are impediments to my speech. And as for hearing, there are some times when I just want to say, “I don’t want to hear it!” The hearing often has consequences; I become responsible in some way for what I have heard. At other times, I know how someone needs to hear me say the words, “I hear you!” All three words are emphatically important. We all need and want to be heard. We all need and want to be acknowledged.

Ears to listen and hear, mouths and tongues to speak and advocate!  When we gather each weekend as a community, we come to participate whole-heartedly—with open ears and bold voices. We aren’t mere spectators. We participate. And our participation does not end when we leave the church. That’s when following the Way of Jesus begins anew, just as it did for the disciples in Jesus’ time. When we witness a Baptism, we hear the words “May the Lord soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father” (Rite of Baptism for Children, #65). Perhaps we have forgotten this anointing we all received.

When I listen to the voices of our brothers and sisters in other parts of our city, I hear the inequities. Zoom meetings and virtual learning work for some of us. But if you don’t have access to Internet services, or you get a message like “your Internet connection is unstable”—everyone becomes frustrated. We become muted by a lack of access to technology. In this case, it doesn’t help to say, “Unmute yourself!”

I am more aware of how that declaration “Unmute yourself” isn’t as simple as a keystroke.  In many ways, we are all called to be healers—like Jesus! We have the call to give voice to the voiceless, to hear God’s voice in new ways from unexpected places and persons. We have the call from our Baptism to open our ears to the voices of all our sisters and brothers throughout the world. This weekend let’s ask for healing. Free our mouths to speak words that invite justice, freedom, and healing just as Jesus did. (And we don’t have to use spit!)

Because We Love God

Do I have to? I remember how often the seven of us kids would ask that of our parents when we were very young. Now I am an elder, and it seems that not much has changed. It seems that people everywhere are asking that question. Do I have to wear a mask? Do I have to get vaccinated? Do I have to welcome asylum seekers? Do I have to recycle? Do I have to forgive the one who hurt me?

“Humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you and is able to save your souls. Be doers of the word and not hearers only.” Our scripture readings challenge us to both welcome the word and to be “doers.” We are asked to express our faith, to follow The Way of Jesus in concrete ways, to show Jesus to others in words and in deeds. We are asked to use God’s statutes and decrees to help us to live God’s mind and heart, in pure and undefiled activity. Living God’s mind and heart is care for the orphans and widows in their affliction and to “keep oneself unstained by the world.”

How do we keep ourselves unstained by the world? It isn’t easy! Political ideologies, conflicting messages, lies even, anger and hatred, personal freedom over the common good, to name a few, make it difficult for us to keep ourselves unstained by the world. How do we make room in our minds and hearts for God’s commands and statutes—the ones that speak of love—love of God, love of neighbor, love of self? Who are the “widows and orphans” in our midst? Who are the afflicted ones? And how do words of love become actions of love? Kathy Sherman reminds us that we are who we are and we do what we do because we love God! Listen here:

God of Mercy, Give us today the strength and courage to transform the compassion of our hearts into acts of peace, mercy, and justice. May what we profess with our lips be proclaimed in our lives. We ask this in the name of Jesus and through the intercession of Mary, our Mother of Mercy. Amen.

Adapted: Praying in the Spirit of Catherine McAuley

And if you would like to pray more,

http://mercyassociationleadershipnetwork.blogspot.com/

Is Anyone Subordinate?

“Choose your words carefully” was one of the foundational maxims I heard in my high school years. “Words matter” was another one. I am thinking of those maxims as I reflect on the readings for this weekend. We may or may not hear the following words this weekend: “Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord.” I know that there are also words about mutual subordination and mutual love and dignity expressed in the rest of the reading. But as I see the images of women and girls in Afghanistan, as I listen to the local news and the continuous “domestic abuse” and killing of women and girls in our own city, I, like many other women, am so aware of how those words “subordinate to their husbands” or subordinate to men are used. I would like to think that we have changed—that we have made other choices! How can we restore God’s intent to honor the dignity of every person God has created? How do we love and honor every human being? Is this one of the “hard sayings” that lead us to leave the path—The Way of being followers of Jesus? We too have choices in the words we use to describe our relationships to other humans (not just women and girls). Listen this week to words that express the subordination of any person or groups of persons. Then let us see if we can act as Jesus did to include everyone, without exception, in mutual love.

If you are curious about how others reflect on these readings, check these out:

https://learn.ctu.edu/twenty-first-sunday-of-ordinary-time-2/

The Answer to How is YES!

The Assumption of Mary into heaven is a celebration of the completion of her earthly life. She who bore Christ in her womb was raised body and soul in glory to be with God. This feast celebrates the end of Mary’s long life.

In contrast, the Gospel reading celebrates her youth—her amazing capacity to risk, to trust that God had great plans for her. She named her limitations—and she said YES! Her visit to Elizabeth is not unlike the visits that many of us have when as young persons we seek the guidance of our wise, more experienced elders. We discover that we need both, we need each other. In that visit, Mary’s joy is expressed in what we have come to know as the Magnificat. In that prayer, Mary shows what God has done for the poor, the outcast, and the stranger.

As we seek to imitate Mary’s holiness, how are we called to give hope to the lowly, food to the hungry, and to repair all that is broken in our planet and in our justice systems?

No matter our age or our ability, God continues to call all of us to boldly work to make the world a better place. Think of poverty, climate, starvation, justice, equity, peace! Like Mary, let’s look ahead to what we can do to make a difference. In many ways, the young continue to look to the elders. And the elders discover the promise of a future in youth. Mary’s question “How can this be?” is “YES!”

Listen to David Kauffman’s “Behold” here:

To Be Bread for Others

The sight of my grandmother hanging clothes to dry on the line was our calling to run across the field to join her. Yes, we helped her to wash and hang the rest of the clothes, but our real reason for going was to enjoy a treat. She always had freshly baked bread and freshly churned butter. Add a little homemade dewberry jelly and we were in heaven! Grandpa would join us at the table. We loved that time together. They gave us generous, undivided attention in conversation, in tears and in laughter. They fed us with food—the food that was love, compassion, joy, and wisdom. We fed them with companionship, stories about school and home, a lot of naiveté and countless opportunities to teach us something about life!

During this pandemic, many of you talked about how you had time to start baking bread again. And many of you have also been talking about how you became bread for each other in the same way my grandparents did for us. To “feed off each other” isn’t just an expression we use. It is real. Jesus continues to give us opportunities to be bread for each other.

Listen to Crystal Catalan here:

Enough!

Moses introduces the grumbling, complaining Israelites to God’s gift of manna. “This is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.” Each day, for 40 years in the desert, there was enough to eat; they filled themselves. But when they tried to store some for the next day, it spoiled. This is recalled in the celebration of the Seder meal, in a song—Dayenu!—which means “it would have been enough.” The song is a litany, a counting of generous blessings from God.

In the small groups that have been gathering in our Parish ReConnect process, we are hearing many of us telling how this time of isolation was very disorienting for us. In the midst of our own wandering in a kind of desert, we learned to see and experience things differently. It shook us from our “taking things for granted.” Families discovered that they didn’t need “more” of some things; in fact, “less” was good for everyone. Priorities changed! People prayed more. Many became less self-absorbed and did more outreach to others, volunteering hours of time to help neighbors. And many stories shared told of how some of the losses became blessings. They discovered some of their real needs, different from what they thought they needed!

As we come to the table of the Eucharist, where we receive the Bread of Life, we are reminded of all the ways that Jesus is enough. We discover again and again that Jesus is the Bread of Life! Listen to Steve Angrisano and Tom Booth here: