OPreach
Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
Finding God in the Here and Now
We are often inspired by stories of holy people and doubt that we would ever hear God’s voice or experience God’s awesomeness in a burning bush. Yet God probably spoke to the prophets and saints in the most ordinary ways. Elizabeth Barret Browning expresses it best in her poem “Aurora Leigh”.
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees takes off his shoes –
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware…
Pay Attention!!
Why Is the Grass Always Greener?
The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence.
Fences have nothing to do with it.
The grass is greenest where it is watered.
When crossing over fences,
carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be.
– Robert Fulghum
The World is Holy . . . A Flower is Holy
The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy. Daily prayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, the whisperings of grasses, the shimmering of leaves.
-Terry Tempest Williams
from Talking to God: Portrait of a World at Prayer (anthology)
Hope in the Face of . . . Seeming Doom
The message of the Gospel is a message of Resurrection – of Easter. It does not deny darkness. It does not seek to cover-up Good Friday.
We are always pointed toward Hope – toward Easter.
In the words of the beloved Pope John the XXIII:
We feel we must disagree with those prophets of doom, who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world were at hand. . . In the present order of things Divine Providence is leading is to a new order of human relations which, by our own efforts and even beyond our very expectations, are directed toward the fulfillment of God’s superior and inscrutable designs.
A Reminder to Turn Ourselves toward Gratitude
Thomas Merton in Thoughts in Solitude says it so well:
Every breath we draw is a gift of God’s love; every moment of existence is a grace.
Let Us Be Blessing
The more alert we become to the blessing that flows into us through everything we touch, the more our own touch will bring blessing.
-David Steindl-Rast, A Listening Heart
We Continue to Give Thanks
From Psalm 118
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his mercy endures forever.
My strength and my courage is the LORD,
and he has been my savior.
The joyful shout of victory
in the tents of the just.
We Give Thanks this Easter and Always
From Psalm 8 we read:
Give thanks to the LORD, for God is good,
for God’s mercy endures forever.
Let the house of Israel say,
“God’s mercy endures forever.”
Let those who fear the LORD say,
“God’s mercy endures forever.”
Peace Be with You
We hear Jesus say in Thursday’s reading from the Gospel of Luke:
The disciples of Jesus recounted what had taken place along the way,
and how they had come to recognize him in the breaking of bread.
While they were still speaking about this,
he stood in their midst and said to them,
“Peace be with you.”
Jesus said it often, “Peace be with you.” He also often said, “Be not afraid.”
He faced death and came back from it, so clearly he know what he was talking about, and offers that same gift of peace that dwelt in him so deeply.
They Must have been Out-of-their-Minds with Excitment
When I went to Musée d’Orsa in Paris I noticed this wonderful painting of the Apostles Peter and John running to the tomb after Mary Magdalene had brought them the news of the Risen Christ. Their body language and expressions show anticipation, joy, and wonder. John wears a please-let-it-be-true look on his face. I was so taken by the picture, I just had to snap my camera.
When I think about how the disciples must have felt during their rolller-coaster-of-a-ride from the days leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion to the days after his resurrection, I can’t help but imagine that their nerves must have felt raw from the excitement of it all. We read on Wednesday about Jesus’ visit with the disciples on the way to Emmaus, as it is described in Luke, chapter 24.
Once Jesus had revealed himself to them – and then vanished, “they said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?’ So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the Eleven and those with them who were saying, ‘The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!’ Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.”
They must have been out-of-their-minds with excitement!
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