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Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
How to Choose the Way We Live Our Lives
As the Vocation Minister for our congregation of Dominican Sisters, I am often asked about how to choose from among the many wonderful possibilities of vocations. It is easy for us to choose when Choice A is clearly good, and Choice B is clearly bad. But it usually doesn’t work that we. We most often make choices from among things that are good. And if they are good, we also know that God is in them. So we are also not making a choice between God and Not-God.
Now much as I would like to tell many gifted, generous, and committed women that the best choice is to become a Dominican Sister of San Rafael, alas, I cannot do that. We only know our own hearts. And, as much as this has been a wonderful and life-giving vocation for me, others have other fulfilling vocations to live.
So how to choose? Perhaps the Sufi poet Rumi can help us. I don’t think I could say it any better!
Let yourself be silently drawn
by the strange pull of what you really love.
It will not lead you astray.
~ Rumi ~
The Greatest Commandment
In Thursday’s Gospel reading from Mark 12, we hear a scribe’s response to Jesus’ answer to the question what is the greatest commandment. He says,
“Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, God is One and there is no other. And to love God with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
It seems to me that we continue to struggle with this, and concentrate on the wrong things. We can never err on the side of compassion. I think Jesus would probably agree with the Dalai Lama who said, “My religion is kindness.”
Fill Us at Daybreak with Your Kindness
Today’s Responsorial Psalm is from Psalm 90. May we, not only at daybreak, but everyday, recognize the kindness with which our God fills and surrounds us. May our eyes be opened to God’s beauty, and our hearts, by God’s love.
In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.
Before the mountains were begotten
and the earth and the world were brought forth,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.
You turn man back to dust,
saying, “Return, O children of men.”
For a thousand years in your sight
are as yesterday, now that it is past,
or as a watch of the night.
In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.
Seventy is the sum of our years,
or eighty, if we are strong,
And most of them are fruitless toil,
for they pass quickly and we drift away
In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.
Fill us at daybreak with your kindness,
that we may shout for joy and gladness all our days.
Let your work be seen by your servants
and your glory by their children.
In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.
The Feast of the Visitation
Today is the Feast of the Visitation, and we remember the loving, accepting, and supportive friendship of Mary and Elizabeth.
Today I include an excerpt of a poem by Mary Oliver, “Am I Not Among the Early Risers.” I’ll bet that both Mary and Elizabeth were early risers. We know that Mary was among “the long-distance walkers.”
May we remember to be among the “long-distance walker” and go the distance in our friendships. Then we, when we touch the holy during our visitations, as Elizabeth and Mary Oliver, “bow down”.
and the long-distance walkers?
the perfection of the morning star
above the peaks of the houses, and the crowns of the trees
blue in the first light?
Do I not see how the trees tremble, as though
sheets of water flowed over them
though it is only wind, that common thing
free to everyone, and everything?
worthy to do, and then gone off, barefoot and with a silver pail,
to gather blueberries,
thus coming, as I think, upon a right answer?
at the top of the field,
her eyes sharp and confident as she stared into mine,
has not already done?
what pomp
would satisfy me as thoroughly as Blackwater Woods
on a sun-filled morning, or, equally, in the rain?
every motion of my body there was a delicious ease,
and in every motion of the green earth there was
a hint of paradise,
and now I am sixty years old, and it is the same.
Above the evil man and the just, the same stars.
Above the child who will recover and the child who will
not recover, the same energies roll forward,
from one tragedy to the next and from one foolishness to the next.
Flowers, Grass, and a Few Thistles
Wednesday’s first reading is from the first chapter of First Peter.
“All flesh is like grass,
and all its glory like the flower of the field;
the grass withers,
and the flower wilts;
but the word of the Lord remains forever.”
This is the word that has been proclaimed to you.
Thoughts for Memorial Day
I always enjoy going to the website gratefulness.org. I found the following there today, and it reminds me of my reflections last night after watching 60 Minutes and listening and observing the effects of our wars upon these women and men who have offered their lives for others.
Today we show our gratitude for life by mourning war’s victims, both military and civilian. Their loss reminds us how terrible war is, and we pledge our lives anew to the mediation, mercy, and compassion which bring about peace.
You Will Show Me the Path to Life
From Thursday’s Responsorial Psalm (Psalm 16) we read:
Keep me safe, O God; you are my hope.
You will show me the path to life,
fullness of joys in your presence,
the delights at your right hand forever.
Keep me safe, O God; you are my hope.
And when God shows us the path of life, may we all see it as clearly as the one above.
Let Us Set Our Sails
The winds of grace blow all the time. All we need to do is set our sails.
-Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
I was in Santa Cruz on the weekend with my family. What a wonderful time! The weather was perfect! We saw dolphins, pelicans, sailboats, surfers, and even a whale. Unfortunately my camera was not at the ready!
What Would We Ask of God? What Would Jesus Ask?
Jesus said to his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. Until now you have not asked anything in my name;
ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.
“I have told you this in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures but I will tell you clearly about the Father. On that day you will ask in my name, and I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you. For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have come to believe that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world. Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.”
(From John 16:23b-28 – Saturday’s Gospel reading)
I wonder . . . We end our prayers in Jesus name . . .”we ask this in the name of Jesus”, or “through Christ our Lord, Amen.” We make the sign of the cross at the beginning and the end of our prayers: “In the name of . . . .” Do we use this as a formula after so many years of repetition? (I recall that teachers can often get the class quiet enough to pray by announcing loudly, “In the name of the Father . . .” Indeed, that is a formula!)
I wonder. Maybe Jesus meant to ask the way that he asks – to ask for the things that are in his heart – to live and pray in such a way that our prayers echo the prayers of Jesus. Of course God will answer, for those desires live in the heart of God.
Ask.
To Be a Saint
Recently in a comment on one of my postings, Pastor John Keller reminded me of a quote about vocation by Frederick Buechner. Today I share another of Buechner’s quotes, this one is also about our vocation . . . what we are all called to as God’s people . . . to be a saint.
To be a saint is to live not with hands clenched to grasp, to strike, to hold tight to a life that is always slipping away the more tightly we hold it; but it is to live with the hands stretched out both to give and to receive with gladness. To be a saint is to work and weep for the broken and suffering of the world, but it is also to be strangely light of heart in the knowledge that there is something greater than the world that mends and renews.
– Frederick Buechner
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