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Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
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?
Love without Borders
On this day when we celebrate our independence – the birth of our nation – I recall to mind the words of the Spanish cellist Pablo Casals:
Go Out into the World and Tell the Good News
Today’s antiphon for the responsorial psalm is:
Go Out into the World and Tell the Good News.
Truly, if we paid attention, we would discover that the world is already telling us the Good News. It is all about us.
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!
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