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Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
Sometimes Photography is Preaching . . . revisited
Tuesday’s Responsorial Psalm is from Psalm 48, and today’s photo is from the Counterpoint Images of Sister Adele Rowland, OP, who definitely believed that her photography was a means of preaching. It especially displayed the beauty and glory of God’s creation. Sister Adele created her photo montages well before PhotoShop was created or dreamed. She worked with slides and negatives in a darkroom.
Great is the LORD and wholly to be praised
in the city of our God.
His holy mountain, fairest of heights,
is the joy of all the earth.
Does the Future Look Dark to You, then . . .
- We survey the events in the world . . . the horror, the violence, the greed, the devastation that is happening to our planet . . . and we would like to throw up our hands.
- We believe that we are, in our time, uniquely rushing off a precipice. And we are so overwhelmed, we don’t know what to do.
- We forget that others in earlier times and different places also experienced this.
Hildegard of Bingen lived in the 11th century, born close to the time of another millennium when people thought the world would end. It was a time of great change and turmoil. Hildegard, Benedictine nun, abbess, and mystic, wrote:
Even in a world that’s being shipwrecked, remain brave and strong.
Her words ring as clear and true today as they did nearly one thousand years ago.
God Calls the Most Unlikely Among Us
Yesterday we read about the call of the Prophet Isaiah. In Sunday’s first reading from Amos 7:12-15, we see that, no matter how unlikely we might think we are as God’s choice for some special work, God just doesn’t see it that way. All throughout Scripture, and all through our lives we discover that God overlooks education, status, gender, training, and economics and calls us to as poet, prophet, and preacher . . . to be holy, to help, and to heal.
Amos answered Amaziah, “I was no prophet,
nor have I belonged to a company of prophets;
I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores.
The LORD took me from following the flock, and said to me,
Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”
Here I Am, Send Me
The first reading on Saturday is Isaiah 6:1-8 – a dramatic story of God calling the prophet. Though we may not see visions, doesn’t it always feel a bit dramatic to experience a sense of call . . . to get a glimpse of the Holy . . . to be grasped by Something bigger than ourselves?
It may even give us the courage to say, “Here I am, send me.”
In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple.
Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings: with two they veiled their faces, with two they veiled their feet, and with two they hovered aloft.
They cried one to the other, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!
All the earth is filled with his glory!”
At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook and the house was filled with smoke.
Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed!
For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember that he had taken with tongs from the altar.
He touched my mouth with it and said,
“See, now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.”
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”
“Here I am,” I said; “send me!”
Trusting that our God Walks with Us
Friday’s reading is from the 14th chapter of the Prophet Hosea.
Let the one who is wise understand these things;
let the one who is prudent know them.
Straight are the paths of the LORD,
in them the just walk,
but sinners stumble in them.
Can We See Beyond the Gift to the Giver?
The Gift and the Giver
We ask for a piece of sand
and he gives us a beach.
We ask for a drop of water
and he gives us an ocean.
We ask for time
and he gives us life eternal.
And it is so easy for us
to fall in love with the gift
and forget the giver.
– Edward Farrell
Perhaps if God were not so generous, we would not be so confused. Should we ask God to be less generous then? No, let us ask God to help us to be more attentive.
Sometimes Poetry Is Preaching . . . Revisited
Preaching doesn’t always require many words. In fact, as St. Francis of Assisi once put it, “Preach always. When necessary use words.” And poets perhaps demonstrate this beauty and simplicity of preaching with words so well!
Simply Wait
You do not need to leave your room.
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
Do not even listen, simply wait,
be quiet, still and solitary.
The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked,
it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
– Franz Kafka
Gratitude and Generosity Go Hand in Hand
I read the following quote on the wonderful website gratefulness.org. We are reminded that gratitude and generosity go hand in hand. We can’t help but be generous when we are truly grateful, and when we are gifted through the generosity of others, our only response can be gratitude . . . and we then offer generosity to others.
The extravagant gesture is the very stuff of creation.
– Annie Dillard
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
God Leads Us in Love into the Desert
Today’s first reading is from Hosea – a favorite reading of mine from chapter 2.
Thus says the LORD: I will allure her;
I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart.
She shall respond there as in the days of her youth,
when she came up from the land of Egypt.
On that day, says the LORD,
She shall call me “My husband,”
and never again “My baal.”
I will espouse you to me forever:
I will espouse you in right and in justice,
in love and in mercy;
I will espouse you in fidelity,
and you shall know the LORD.
The Lord is my Light
Friday’s responsorial Psalm is from Psalm 27
The LORD is my light and my salvation;
whom should I fear?
The LORD is my life’s refuge;
of whom should I be afraid?
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