OPreach
Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
Sometimes Poetry Is Preaching
This morning a poem by e.e. cummings provided a sense of gratitude.
Timely, any time, but even more so this week of Thanksgiving.
i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
~ e.e. cummings ~
(Complete Poems 1904-1962)
Feast of Christ the King
On this Feast of Christ the King we recall that Jesus came to serve, not to be served, and calls us to do the same. When He was asked by Pilate whether or not He was King of the Jews, his reply was, “You say that I am.” So we learn that claiming Christ’s Kingship is not as meaningful as living Christ’s Kingship, which is a life of service. We might also remember that when we truly claim the Kingship of Christ, it ultimately leads to the cross.
This statue is found in the chapel of the Dominican Nuns of Prouille, France. This was the original site (though not the original buildings) of the first convent of Dominican Nuns, founded by St. Dominic in 1206. Dominic founded the nuns first; the Dominican Friars were founded in 1216.
Dominicans for Peace and Justice
When I pray for peace,
I pray not only that the enemies of my own country may cease to want war,
but above all that my own country will cease to do the things that make war inevitable.
– Thomas Merton
We pray for peace.
We pray for an end to violence and the teaching of violence.
Let us not study war any more.
We pray for all those who will be gathered this weekend at Fort Benning.
We pray for those who ask that we close the School of the Americas.
We pray for those who will cross the line.
Our Responsibility to this House of Prayer in which we dwell
In today’s Gospel passage from Luke we read: Jesus entered the temple area and proceeded to drive out those who were selling things, saying to them, “It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.”
Isn’t all of God’s creation sacred? How do we profane it? What is our responsibility toward this house of prayer in which we dwell?
Do We Live like We’re Looking for an Escape Clause?
No Christian escapes a taste of the wilderness on the way to the promised land.
“No Escape” by Evelyn Underhill
I’ve been thinking about this as I witness and experience the fragility of life all around me. I wonder how it is that we seem to approach life as if we had some guarantee that everything would go well, and we would “live happily ever after.” Then I read this morning’s quote from Gratefulness.org. I guess I’ll just keep working on letting go and trying to welcome the present moment . . . with the help of the Spirit.
I try to remind myself that we are never promised anything, and that what control we can exert is not over the events that befall us but how we address ourselves to them.
The Earth House
The Feast of St. Albert the Great
Today is the feast of a Dominican saint, St. Albert the Great. He was born sometime around the year 1200, and died in Cologne in 1280. His teachings that stretched the Church of his time to look beyond the confines of a Christian
milieu for truth could stand us in good stead in these days when many proclaim that they have a corner on the truth. Albert and his famous student, St. Thomas Aquinas, found truth in the writings of Aristotle . . . found that they complemented Christian teaching. The Church named Albert a Doctor of the Church and a saint in 1931. We would do well to cultivate the willingness to listen and study the experience and beliefs of others before condemning them out of hand. We would also do well to cultivate the discipline to rigorous study that was demonstrated by St. Albert the Great, rather than taking the easy road of listening to what we want to believe, and taking that for truth.
Appreciating Beauty as Prayer
Last week Gratefulness.org published this quote.
What is real prayer? Praise to God. And the meaning of praise? Appreciating; thus opening the heart more and more to the divine beauty one sees in manifestation.
– Pir-O-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan
Bowl of Saki
Joining Worthy Women – Reaching out their Hands to the Hungry
The first reading today, on the Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time talks about a worthy wife. Obviously sisters and nuns are not wives. And in the days that the Book of Proverbs there weren’t nuns or sisters, so our lives could not be imagined. So I’ve taken a little liberty here and changed a few of the words so that it relates to women, whether married or not.
Proverbs 31: 10-13, 19-20, 30-31
When one finds a worthy [woman], her value is far beyond pearls.
[Those who] entrust their heart to her, have an unfailing prize.
She brings good, and not evil, all the days of her life.
She obtains wool and flax and works with loving hands.
She puts her hands to the distaff, and her fingers ply the spindle.
She reaches out her hands to the poor, and extends her arms to the needy.
Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting; the woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
Give her a reward for her labors, and let her works praise her at the city gates.
- While this is a Christmas setting, Sister Anne Bertain, definitely a “Worthy Woman” reaches out her hand to the hungry every day at St. Dominic’s.
And if you happen to be a single woman, maybe you might think about joining us as we “reach out our hands to the poor, and extend our arms to the needy. Sister Anne Bertain, a Dominican Sister of San Rafael, does this every day in San Francisco at St. Dominic Catholic Church. To learn more about us, please go to our website. If you would like to pray with us, we invite you to San Rafael for an Advent Vespers service on December 1st. Please feel free to contact me to find out more.
What Do Football and the Church Share in Common?
There’s a common thread that runs through many of the latest news items.
I’m just wondering what is it that Football and the Church have in common?
- Is it that they both have major celebrations on the weekends?
- Is it that they are both male bastions?
- Is it that they both adhere to a code of silence?
- Is it that their most loyal fans cry “Foul!” in disbelief?
- Is it because both “institutions” are hierarchical – and seemingly beyond blame?
- How else can you explain the feeling of vulnerability of the janitor/witness?
- How else can you explain away the fact that the university police didn’t pursue this?
- How else can you explain the D.A. not investigating or prosecuting?
- How else can you explain all those men knowing . . . and doing nothing?
May our resolve for justice be like this sister in El Salvador and the persistent widow in Luke's Gospel.
When a child is attacked, they look the other way. When a woman reports her attacker, she is called a whiner, and others are warned not to speak up. Women and children . . . the powerless ones . . . the vulnerable ones.
On behalf of the vulnerable, we must be like the widow in today’s Gospel reading:
Jesus said, “There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being. And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, “Render a just decision for me against my adversary.” For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought, “While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being, because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.””
The Lord said, “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18: 1-8)
Who do you want to stand with?
Can We Discern the Artisan from the Beauty that Surrounds Us?
More from today’s selection from the Book of Wisdom
All were by nature foolish who were in ignorance of God,
and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing God who is,
and from studying the works did not discern the Artisan;
But either fire, or wind, or the swift air,
or the circuit of the stars, or the mighty water,
or the luminaries of heaven, the governors of the world, they considered gods.
Now if out of joy in their beauty they thought them gods,
let them know how far more excellent is the Lord than these;
for the Original Source of Beauty fashioned them.
Or if they were struck by their might and energy,
let them from these things realize how much more powerful is the One who made them.
Wisdom 13
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