OPreach
Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
Do We Miss the Wonder that Surrounds Us?
Rachel Naomi Remen asks us:
Days pass and the years vanish and we walk sightless among miracles. Oh Holy One, fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing. Let there be moments when your Presence, like lightning, illumines the darkness in which we walk. Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns, unconsumed. And we, clay touched by Thee, will reach out for holiness and exclaim in wonder, “How filled with awe is this place and we did not know it.
Earth’s Plantings in our Souls
Every moment and every event of every [person’s] life on earth plants something in the soul.
– Thomas Merton
Reverence and Respect
Thomas Merton tells us:
Advertising treats all products with reverence and the seriousness due to sacraments.
Likewise, sometimes we church people treat church rituals, sacraments, and sacramentals with more reverence and seriousness than with which we treat people.
We need to remember the People of God are also Sacrament.
Let us treat one another with reverence and respect.
God’s Faithfulness Reaches to the Clouds
In Friday’s Responsorial Psalm we read from Psalm 36:
With you is the fountain of life, O Lord.
O LORD, your mercy reaches to heaven;
your faithfulness, to the clouds.
Your justice is like the mountains of God;
your judgments, like the mighty deep.
With you is the fountain of life, O Lord.
And I love to take pictures of wonderful clouds!
Gratitude for a Smile
For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.
– Elie Wiesel
I find Elie Wiesel’s writings inspiring. What courage and faith they demonstrate in the face of one of the great horrors of history – the holocaust. Can I say, as she does, that every hour is grace? Is there gratitude in my heart each time I am greeted by a smile?
Just One Drop of Water
Another perspective on the importance of just one drop of water –
Penetrate the heart of just one drop of water, and you will be flooded by a hundred oceans.
– Mahmûd Shabistarî
The Mystic Rose Garden
It’s Okay to Be Just a Drop in the Ocean
We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.
– Blessed Mother Teresa
Seek First
Today’s Gospel Reading is Matthew 6:24-34, and we are reminded.
Seek first Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.
Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.
Sufficient for a day is its own evil.
Let Yourself Be Drawn
Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.
– Jalaluddin Rumi
Essential Rumi, versions by Coleman Barks
God Offers the Beauty of the Sunset to All of Us, without Distinction
Tuesday’s Gospel reading is from Matthew 5:43-48.
Jesus said to his disciples: “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. This will prove that you are children of God. For God makes the sun rise on bad and good alike; God’s rain falls on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your sisters and brothers, what is so praiseworthy about that? Don’t the Gentiles do the same? So be perfect, just as your Abba God is perfect.”
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