OPreach
Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
Feast of Saint Lucy – Feast of Light
On this Feast of Saint Lucy (whose name means light), I share a poem by Thomas Merton.
Lucy, whose day is in our darkest season,
(Although your name is full of light,)
We walkers in the murk and rain of flesh and sense,
Lost in the midnight of our dead world’s solstice
Look for the fogs to open on your friendly star.
We have long since cut down the summer of history;
Our cheerful towns have all gone out like fireflies in October.
The fields are dry and the vine is bare:
How have our long days dwindled, now that the world is frozen!
Locked in the cold jails of our stubborn will,
Oh hear the shovels growling in the gravel.
This is the way they’ll make our beds for ever,
Ours, whose Decembers have put out the sun:
Doors of whos souls are shut against the summertime!
Martyr, whose short day sees our winter and our Calvary,
show us some light, show seem forsaken by the sky:
We have so dwelt in darkness that our eyes are screened and dim,
And all but blinded by the weakest ray.
Hallow the vespers and December of our life,
O martyred Lucy:
Console our solstice wit your friendly day.
-Thomas Merton, The Collected Poems
Third Sunday of Advent
Would that all of us could receive the Christ whom we meet each day with the grace and humility of John the Baptizer.
John answered them, “I baptize with water; but there is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.” This happened in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
Nature Preaches on Motherhood in Advent
Sometimes the best lessons are outside one’s window, at least this one was the other day. During Advent we celebrate Mary’s gift of mothering to the Christ Child, as well as toward us. These youngsters are also appreciative of their patient mother doe.
Mary – Model of Openness
On today’s Feast of the Immaculate Conception, we celebrate Mary our Model of Openness to God
Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word.”
Then the angel departed from her.
– Luke 1:37-38
Advent Teaches Us to Wait
Sister Joanne Cullimore’s watercolor of Mt. Whitney, named Whitney Portal, speaks to our hearts as Isaiah does in today’s reading for the Second Wednesday of Advent. Waiting on God brings us strength . . . the strength of these granite mountains, created by our God.
- Whitney Portal
From Isaiah 40
To whom can you liken me as an equal? says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these things. . .
. . .Do you not know or have you not heard? The Lord is the eternal God, creator of the ends of the earth.
God does not faint nor grow weary, and God’s knowledge is beyond scrutiny. . .
God gives strength to the fainting; and for the weak makes vigor abound.
Though the young faint and grow weary, and youths stagger and fall,
They that hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar as with eagles’ wings;
They will run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint.
Teach me Lord, teach me Lord, to wait.
If you were a shepherd, what would you do?
Today’s Gospel reading in the Second Tuesday of Advent:
Jesus said to his disciples:
“What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray,
will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray?
And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it
than over the ninety-nine that did not stray.
In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father
that one of these little ones be lost.”
– Matthew 18:12-14
So . . . if you were a shepherd, what would you do?
Advent . . . Promise of Hope in our Dryness
Even in the Arizona desert . . . even in summer . . . we see the promise of new life . . . we see flowering forth of hope.
From today’s reading from Isaiah:
The desert and the parched land will exult;
the steppe will rejoice and bloom.
They will bloom with abundant flowers,
and rejoice with joyful song.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to them,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
They will see the glory of the LORD,
the splendor of our God.
A Beautiful Advent Morning!
In today’s Responsorial Psalm, we proclaimend:
Lord, let us see your kindness, and grant us your salvation.
And today I’ll let this morning’s sunrise in Bolinas do the preaching!
If You Could Ask for Just One Thing . . .
The following is from today’s responsorial psalm, Psalm 27:
One thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek:
To dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
That I may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord and contemplate God’s temple.
This is the one thing the psalmist asks of God. What would you ask?
Monks . . . Walking through Zion
Two summers ago when Sister Patty and I drove through Utah, we stopped at Zion National Park The beauty was breathtaking! Words from Psalm 47 kept coming back to me, ” Walk through Zion, walk all around it . . .” And then I noticed to Buddhist monks on the path walking toward us. They, too, were enjoying the grandeur of the God of Zion.
Walk through Zion, walk all round it; count the number of its towers.
Review all its ramparts, examine its castles,
That you may tell the next generation
That such is our God, our God for ever and always.
It is God who leads us.
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