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Daily Scripture

+ 7th Week of Easter

We are to be consecrated in truth.

Readings: Acts 20:28-38 Psalm 88:29-30, 33-36 John 17:11b-19

Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they may also be consecrated in truth. [John 17:18-19]

Read the Gospel very slowly and if possible, out loud and if necessary, three times! Although John’s literary style is quite complex, the farewell prayer of Jesus is as powerful as is Paul’s farewell message in Acts.

It is not likely that these passages are the actual words of Paul and Jesus. They are compositions that Luke and John or whoever wrote in their name and are based on the oral tradition of the sayings of Jesus and the preaching of Paul. They were written in the style of farewell addresses of prominent leaders of their times in order to win the attention of early believers to whom the message of truth was entrusted.

The ‘truth’ that is being proclaimed is not from a catechism nor is it a defined doctrine or dogma. It is the core truth about the God who spoke through the prophets and then through Jesus about the universality of God’s love.

During this time of immediate preparation for Pentecost, we are invited to think about our own responsibility to pass on the ‘truth’ of God’s goodness entrusted to us in Christ and how we are to live that truth in our daily lives, each in our own unique way. No one of us can do this alone and so we much join hands literally and figuratively within the community of believers everywhere.

To live the ‘truth’ is to live in the Spirit of Jesus Christ the fruits of which are charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, moderation, self-control, reverence, etc. I’m sure you memorized these ‘fruits of the Holy Spirit.’

These are the true ‘marks’ of our authenticity as believers.

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time 'A'

Saturday January 22, 2011

Conduits of God’s healing love

“The world is not in need of a new religion, nor is the world in need of a new philosophy: What the world needs is healing and regeneration. The world needs people who, through devotion to God, are so filled with the spirit that they can be instruments through which healing takes place, because healing is important to everybody.” [The Art of Spiritual Healing by Joel Goldsmith, quoted in “There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem” by Wayne W. Dyer, Chapter 9, ‘Where there is injury, pardon,’ Quill, Harper Collins, NY, 2003]

Since the Feast of the Epiphany three weeks ago, the Sunday scriptures have focused on the identity of Jesus as the light to all nations. We need physical light to see with our eyes; we need spiritual light to see what the eye cannot see. It is our belief that Jesus is the light that has come into the world to dispel the spiritual darkness that encompasses the world, the darkness that breeds the bacteria of violence and despair.

For sincere Christians, indeed, for sincere searchers and seekers, Jesus is the exemplar of all that we can become over time, in our time and place. When we get into the rhythm of God think and God talk, there is no limit to what God can accomplish through us. The evil that we see around us is nothing more than a denial of the goodness and Godness that is the underpinning of all creation. Earth was intended by God to be the cusp of heaven.

Paul speaks of a unity of mind and purpose. He wasn’t speaking of dogmatic unity – the Church had not arrived at a creed at this point—but a unity of spirit, a community joined in Christ crucified and risen from the dead. It was a grounded not in the baptism of one minister or another but of a common baptism in Christ.

This is a powerful statement of our spiritual identity.

In other words, we were loved into being to show forth the goodness of God and to pave the way for God’s glory to shine in every corner of the globe and therein lay our unity and purpose.

Jesus came to heal broken humanity in ways that at first appear supernatural—through physical and spiritual miracles. In reality, miracles belong to God’s nature and when we accede to God’s invitation to live in grace, God’s nature becomes our nature. And so the miraculous becomes a way of the life for true believers.

The greatest challenge to his disciples was to accept a new way of seeing, a new way of thinking. And that remains our greatest challenge—to look at reality in a new way with the conviction that things do not have to be as they appear and that miracles can and do happen when we are tuned into our higher power.

That in essence is the good and gracious news of Jesus Christ our Savior. “He went around all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness among he people.” [Matthew 4:23]

We are called to be instruments of God’s healing presence that is already in our midst. Disciples of Jesus are called to be the delivery system of God’s love, animators of God’s healing grace, conduits of peace and joy.

For this to happen in practical ways, we need to have a direct experience of God. Ironically, the first step toward a direct experience of God is to let go of all the fears and anxieties and doubts about what God can do in the most impossible set of circumstances.

Wayne Dyer in his book, “There’s a Spiritual Solution To Every Problem” put it this way:

“Letting go. Yes, that’s correct, detach yourself from your thoughts of anger, bitterness, self-pity, or whatever and just love your body as the temple that God gave you to house your soul on this journey. The process of letting go and refusing to harbor thoughts of illness will bring a calm healing energy to you in the moment and this peace will be your reward for letting go.” [“There’s a Spiritual Solution To Every Problem, Chapter 9, ‘Where There is Injury, Pardon,’ Wayne W. Dyer, Quill, Harper Collins, NY, 2003]

This is the kind of attitude that results in miracles of healing in a world torn by dissension on so many levels—at home, abroad; on the campaign trails, in the stock exchange, in heartlands and on the battle field.

God’s love is a quiet and healing love.

When I was a child,
I used to think of God as an old man
high in the sky
with a long white beard stretching over the earth,
sweeping silk silver-lined clouda.,
a sort of Santa Claus
a gentle soul
but not adverse to “making a list and checking it twice
to find out who’s naughty or nice.”

Such talk among adults is silly isn’t it?
fodder for Gnostics or agnostics and even atheists? Perhaps, but I think God enjoys a bit of banter now and then.
And I suspect that God is often amused
at the attempts of great and small,
of prophets, priests and popes among them
to pin on God a personality
put words in God’s mouth
as if such were possible
though I do believe artists and poets have come close
in their playful pursuit to depict
the movement of love through the lens of ancient sages
down through the ages – healing love, quiet love.

‘The Great Mystery’
is the name our Native American ancestors
gave to God because they knew
God is mysteriously part of everything and everyone—quiet love
penetrating the depths of eternity from one end to the other
birthing us to life
at every moment—day and night.

I believe that Jesus gave birth to God in humanity
uniquely as no one else in human history—as movement, as life, as goodness, as love.
I think of Jesus as the incarnation of healing, quiet love.

I think too of all the people confined to silence, not by choice,
in cells of solitude, prisoners of their body
the windows of their minds closed to the familiar faces of yesterday.
Quiet love silenced by the slow deterioration of the mind
or worse, empty souls, searching for someone to love,
searching for someone to love them.
And the many who have lost their way on lonely streets
or in caves of dark despair
waiting for quiet love to free them from the isolation of insignificance
or the dysfunction of worthlessness or ironically, iconic vanity.
+Waiting for quiet love to touch them._

Yet quiet love seeps through the cracks and crevices
of ancient times and places
and over time we come to know our origin
_and our destiny, quiet, healing love—
that will not be silenced.

May our quiet love be reflected in all that we say an do and may our light shine bright enough to dispel the darkness of despair, in these days of challenge and change.