OPreach
Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
Tomorrow is Election Day
Yes, Tuesday, November 6th, is Election Day. No matter who is elected, we remember the words from Tuesday’s Responsorial Psalm (Psalm 22):
All the ends of the earth
shall remember and turn to the Most High;
All the families of the nations
shall bow down before God.
Let us remember this whether we are happy or disappointed with the results of the election!
Where Can We Find Peace?
Monday’s Responsorial Psalm (Psalm 131:1,2,3) leads us to peace.
In you, O God, I have found my peace.
O God, my heart is not proud,
nor are my eyes haughty;
I do not busy myself with great things,
nor with things too sublime for me.In you, O God, I have found my peace.
Rather, I have stilled and quieted
my soul like a weaned child.
Like a weaned child on its mother’s lap,
so is my soul within me.In you, O God, I have found my peace.
O Israel, hope in God
both now and forever.In you, O God, I have found my peace.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Geometry
Albert Einstein is quoted as saying,
The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.
What Is God’s Desire . . . My Desire?
Saturday’s Responsorial Psalm from Psalm 42 reminds us of our longing for God. And since we are made in the image and likeness of God, it also tells us of God’s longing for us.
My soul is thirsting for the living God.
As the deer longs for the running waters,
so my soul long for you, O God.My soul is thirsting for the living God.
All Souls Day – A Feast of Hope
I love the second reading for this wonderful feast from Romans 5:5-11:
Sisters and brothers, Hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
May our hope be enkindled by all the souls – saints and sinners (which all of us are at some time or another) – to pass this hope on to others.
We Are All Saints – Children of God
On the Feast of All Saints we are reminded that we are all children of God.
Beloved: See what love God has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are . . . We are God’s children now, what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed, we shall be like Christ, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:1-3).
Kindness . . . Foundational to All Spiritual Traditions
The Buddha sad,
If you propose to speak, always ask yourself, is it true, is it necessary, is it kind.
So very similar to Paul’s words in his letter to the Ephesians:
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. (Ephesians 4:15)
Weekly Photo Challenge: Foreign
We conveniently forget what we have been taught. For we read in Deuteronomy 10:19:
So you, too, must show love to foreigners, for you yourselves were once foreigners in the land.”
And our President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said,
Remember, remember always, that all of us…are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
So why do we refuse to enact compassionate immigration reform?! As Bishop James Tamayo of Laredo said in a Statement at the Justice for Immigrants Press Conference in 2005,
We can no longer accept a situation in which some public officials and members of our communities scapegoat immigrants at the same time our nation benefits from their labor. We can no longer accept a status quo in which migrants are compelled to risk their lives in order to support their families. We can no longer accept a reality in which migrants fill jobs critical to Americans and U.S. employers without receiving appropriate wages and benefits. We can no longer tolerate the death of human beings in the desert.
Please join with us, the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael, and others in our Stance for Compassionate Immigration Reform.
If You Were Healed of Blindness . . .
If you were healed of blindness, what would you be amazed by?
We read in Sunday’s Gospel reading from Mark 10:46-52
As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a sizable crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus, sat by the roadside begging. On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth,
he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.”
And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me.”
Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.”
He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.
Jesus said to him in reply, “What do you want me to do for you?”
The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.” Jesus told him, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.
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