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Daily Scripture

+ 7th Week of Easter

“Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

Readings: Acts 20:17-27 Psalm 68:10-11, 20-21 John 17:1-11

I am in the world no longer, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. [John 17:11]

Shakespeare ‘penned’ the phrase quoted above. I didn’t understand it as a student of Shakespeare in high school but I began to understand it when I waved goodbye to my family as I sailed off to Italy on September 21, 1963 for a three-year stretch in Rome. In fact, it has multiple meanings and applications that I appreciate now more than ever before.

There is another phrase that perhaps gives credence to my thoughts so poorly expressed and it’s this: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Ah, that’s it. At times we need to separate from ‘the source’ in order to appreciate how important it is to stay connected.

The farewell speech of St. Paul in Acts and the farewell ‘prayer’ of Jesus in John’s gospel were more likely composed by the authors of these texts along the lines of the farewell speeches of great leaders of their times in order to attract the attention of Jesus’ followers.

The departure of Jesus and later that of Paul created ‘fallow’ time in the hearts of the neophyte believers that was absolutely necessary if they were to grasp the significance of Jesus’ message and the teachings of St. Paul.

We are once again in ‘fallow’ time as we prepare for Pentecost. It’s a time of discernment during which we are invited to ponder the words and deeds of Jesus so that in his absence, we may come to know his presence in the Spirit that remains within us and around us.

As we ponder, it is important to reflect on the gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and reverence of the Lord. And the fruits of the Holy Spirit are qualities that are characteristic of a community living in Christ: charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty self-control and chastity.

There is much to ponder as we wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

Thomas Merton on Politics and Politicians

Wednesday November 8, 2006

The Merton Reflection for the Week of November 6, 2006

Courtesy of Fr. Pat Collins
www.vatican2.org/patrickcollins

“Meditation does not necessarily give us a privileged insight into the meaning of isolated historical events. These can remain for the Christian as much of an agonizing mystery as they do for anyone else. But for us the mystery contains, within its own darkness and its own silences, a presence and a meaning which we apprehend without fully understanding them. And by this spiritual contact, this act of faith, we are ourselves properly situated in the events around us, even though we may not quite see where they are going.

One thing is certain: the humility of faith, if it is followed by the proper consequences—by the acceptance of the work and sacrifice demanded by our providential task—will do far more to launch us into the full current of historical reality than the pompous rationalizations of politicians who think they are somehow the directors and manipulators of history. Politicians may indeed make history, but the meaning of what they are making turns out, inexorably, to have been something in a language they will never understand, which contradicts their own programs and turns all their achievements into an absurd parody of their promises and ideals.

Of course, it is true that religion on a superficial level, religion that is untrue to itself and God, easily comes to serve as the “opium of the people.” And this takes place whenever religion and prayer invoke the name of God for reasons and ends that have nothing to do with Him. When religion becomes a mere artificial façade to justify a social or economic system—when religion hands over its rites and language completely to the political propagandist, and when prayer becomes the vehicle for a purely secular ideological program, then religion does tend to become an opiate. It deadens the spirit enough to permit the substitution of a superficial fiction and mythology for the truth of life. And this brings about the alienation of the believer, so that his religious zeal becomes political fanaticism.

His faith in God, while preserving its traditional formulas, becomes in fact faith in his own nation, class or race. His ethic ceases to be the law of God and love, and becomes the law of might-makes-right: established privilege justifies everything. God is the status quo.”

From Contemplative Prayer. New York : Doubleday, 1996 edition with an Introduction by Thich Nhat Hanh: pp. 112-113, courtesy of Father Pat Collins.

Thought for the day:

“_Prayer does not blind us to the world, but it transforms our vision of the world, and makes us see it, all men, and all the history of mankind, in the light of God. To pray “in spirit and in truth” enables us to enter into contact with that infinite love, that inscrutable freedom which is at work behind the complexities and intricacies of human existence_.”

Merton, Contemplative Prayer, p. 112.]