OPreach
Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
Teach Me Your Paths
Today’s Responsorial Psalm is Psalm 25
Your ways, O Lord, are love and truth to those who keep your covenant.
Your ways, O LORD, make known to me; teach me your paths,
Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my savior.
Remember that your compassion, O LORD, and your love are from of old.
In your kindness remember me, because of your goodness, O LORD
Good and upright is the LORD, thus he shows sinners the way.
He guides the humble to justice, and he teaches the humble his way.
Your ways, O Lord, are love and truth to those who keep your covenant.
- O Lord, make known to me your paths.
To You, O Lord, I Lift Up My Soul
A Lenten reflection from today’s responsorial Psalm 86
Have mercy on me, O Lord,
for to you I call all the day.
Gladden the soul of your servant,
for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
There is a Time for Feasting and a Time for Fasting
In today’s Gospel from Matthew 9:14-15 we read:
The disciples of John approached Jesus and said,
“Why do we and the Pharisees fast much,
but your disciples do not fast?”
Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn
as long as the bridegroom is with them?
The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
and then they will fast.”
I am reminded that once when St. Teresa of Avila and her sisters were criticized for enjoying a fine meal of partridge, her reply was, “There is a time for penance and a time for partridge.” Holy Spirit grant us the wisdom to know the difference – and the grace to recognize that these seasons come to others at different times than they may to us.
Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me
In Today’s Gospel reading, Luke 9:22-25, we read: Jesus said to his disciples: “The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.
Then he said to all, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?”
Mold Our Hearts on Ash Wednesday, during Lent, and throughout our Lives
Today, on Ash Wednesday, I share a reflection by our Sister Sally Lowell, OP
Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to your God. For gracious and merciful is God, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment.
– Joel 2:13
Several years ago I was invited to make some clay hearts for a friend who was giving a Lenten Parish Retreat. Since she requested 500 hearts, I began the project right away. As I rolled, molded, shaped and held the clay in my hands a new image of Lent began to emerge. “Rend your hearts, not your garments and return to God.”
Yes, Lent is about giving up, letting go, prayer and alms-giving. Yet, for me, it is a time of invitation: an invitation to be open and receive what God has in store. In other words, Lent is a time of surrender and letting go so that Jesus can mold our hearts anew. The journey of Lent is an inner journey of prayer which enables us to offer our whole being to God: our joys and fears, accomplishments and struggles, successes and conflicts. This recognition of our gifts and limitations is difficult and scary, because when we cooperate with God’s desire for us, our hearts, like the clay I rolled, shaped, and molded will be transformed.
Jesus asks each of us for a change of heart this Lent. Will we let Jesus create in us new hearts that acknowledge our gifts so that we can use them to do God’s work? Will we let Jesus break any conflict, fear, or hardness within our hearts? Will we let Jesus change our hearts with his healing, forgiveness, and grace?
If we can make these changes and surrender to his invitation, the true freedom of Easter will emerge. Perhaps our Lenten mantra might be:Yes, mold our hearts today.
“When We cooperate with God’s desire for us, our hearts, like the clay I rolled, shaped, and molded, will be transformed.”
This reflection, and others throughout the season of Lent, can be found on the website of the Dominican Preachers for the Western Region – http://www.opwest.us/. You are invited to visit. May these reflections assist you in your prayer during Lent.
Draw Near to God
Today’s reading from the Letter of James reminds us that Lent is on the way.
So submit yourselves to God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God, and God will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you of two minds.
Begin to lament, to mourn, to weep.
Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection.
Humble yourselves before the Lord and God will exalt you.
God Is Always Doing Something New
Today’s First Reading is a wonderful passage from the 43rd chapter of the Prophet Isaiah. For me it brings to mind a promise from the Prophet Jeremiah. God has plans for us . . . something new that we can’t even begin to imagine.
Thus says the LORD:
Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not;
see, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
In the desert I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers.
The people I formed for myself, that they might announce my praise.
Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob, for you grew weary of me, O Israel.
You burdened me with your sins, and wearied me with your crimes.
It is I, I, who wipe out, for my own sake, your offenses;
your sins I remember no more.
To Whom Am I Listening?
If I cannot listen to all of life, then any part that I do hear will be only partial or distorted. If I am listening only in chapel, if I am listening only to my peers, if I am listening only to my profession, if I am listening only to my routine, then I have cut out the poor, the children, the needy, the holy where it is calling me to be present.
– Joan Chittister from Alive Now! July/August 1994
Take Up Your Cross or the Cost of Discipleship
Today’s Gospel reading is from Mark 8
Jesus summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake
and that of the Gospel will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? What could one give in exchange for his life?
The picture below is from a chapel in El Salvador, commemorating Archbishop Oscar Romero who offered his life for those he served. His words, “Si me matan, resucitare en el pueblo salvadoreno” – “If they kill me I will be resurrected among the Salvadoran people.”
Walking Humbly on the Earth
To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of creation. When we do it knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, destructively, it is a desecration.
– Wendell Berry
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