Over and Over

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forgive, forgiven, forgiveness, John Newton, Luke, Matthew, Our Father, spiritual practice, The Lord's Prayer, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

The prayer we know as “The Lord’s Prayer” or the “Our Father” can be found in two of the four canonical gospels – Matthew and Luke – and, although translations vary, the wording of the two is virtually the same. What differs are the verses that follow. Luke, chapter 11, gives an example of what Jesus meant by telling a story. Today we have Matthew’s version which tells people how they are to act when doing spiritual practice – not looking gloomy and neglecting their appearance so people know they are fasting, etc. (That always makes me smile as I know how easy it is to moan to let others know when I am in pain from some small injury or distress…). I noticed something in between Matthew’s directives this morning, however, that surprised me and made me wonder if I will ever have a new thought that doesn’t touch on our relationships in today’s world situation. (See the past few entries of this blog.)

After the “forgive us our debts/trespasses as we forgive…and deliver us from evil” lines and before the “don’t be gloomy,” there is an extra push on forgiveness. If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions. If we judge by the amount of text given to a thought, the necessity of forgiveness seems to win out over every other action in this prayer.

So once again today, I guess there is need to look at how easily – or not – I forgive. And here is another possibility. I have recently been made aware of a website entitled healthbeyondbelief.com of John Newton, a distance healer. To begin, one might choose to read – often – his Comprehensive Forgiveness Prayer for Ourselves. If this is an introduction for you to such a concept, it might seem a bit extreme, but I recommend openmindedness.

Whatever works, I suggest reflection once more on the issue of forgiving and allowing ourselves to be forgiven. It’s a big topic but worth the time.

 

 

 

 

 

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Out of the Depths

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Ancient Songs Sung Anew, despair, Easter season, familiar, forgiveness, impact, Lent, Lynn Bauman, mercy, practices, prayers, presence, Psalm 30, responsibility, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

My first thoughts on this fifth Sunday of Lent centered around my relatively low level of attention for what (in my experience anyway) was always called “the holy season of Lent.” I do not disparage that title; more Christians are likely aware of religious practice during these six weeks than at any other time in the year. It makes me wonder, however, why the fervor doesn’t often last throughout the fifty days of the Easter season. Perhaps we find it easier to do penance than to rejoice! If so, what does that have to say about our image of God? But I digress…

The tenor of my offerings over these last weeks comes, I think, from my conviction that although reminders of special times are important, it is our everyday devotion that will move us toward God, sort of a “one step at a time” approach, and I sometimes think that we become so familiar with certain prayers or practices that they can lose the impact of their meaning for us. Take Psalm 30, for instance. I can recite the whole thing and recognize that we are being called to repentance by the psalmist’s cry, but sometimes it sounds so dire – as if I am the worst sinner in the universe – that I refuse the import of what can be gained by reflection on the meaning and stop at the part about my guilt, thereby missing the resolution in the last verses. I miss both my responsibility to repair relationship and God’s willingness to allow it to happen. Maybe it’s because the psalmist is talking about the relationship of the nation of Israel to God rather than my person. Thus, I come to my point. I find in Lynn Bauman’s translation of Psalm 30 a recognition both of my responsibility for my unworthy actions and an acknowledgment of God’s willingness to hear my longing for the benevolent embrace of forgiveness and love. It only takes the effort of silence to recognize the possibility. Listen to this text below with your heart wide open.

Lord, I am calling to you again, from the depths; in this place of despair hear my voice. Listen, listen, if you will, for I am crying. If you were to note everything, all missteps and offenses, none of us could stand before you uncondemned. But always, always you forgive, and make us whole again, and so we stand in awe before you, waiting. My whole being waits for you, my God, listening for your presence. I long to hear your voice again, speaking. So like a watchman who anticipates the crack of dawn, my heart waits for the first-light of your word. Listen, listen, wait in silence listening for the One from whom all-mercy flows, who is the secret source of our redemption, and the healing of the wounds our sins have caused. (Ancient Songs Sung Anew, p. 334)

 

 

 

 

 

Homecoming

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Ask and you shall receive, forgiveness, Genesis, homecoming, hope, journey, lift up, Luke, Mary Magdalene, optimistic for the future, perseverance, prayer, Sisters of St. Joseph, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wisdom

Today ends what the Sisters in my local community have taken to calling my “triathalon” which denotes the three legs of my journey from Windsor, NY to Orlando, Florida for a national convention, then to Japan (through Los Angeles and Honolulu) for a retreat with our Japanese Sisters, and back to Albany for a “Wisdom Circle” experience called Mary Magdalene and Conscious Love. It has only been sixteen days since I left home but it seems so much longer because of the fullness of each of the experiences.

The theme running through all of my days of travel has been the hope that lives in the hearts of the Sisters and others I have met. Regardless of the dire situations in our country and the world, we are optimistic for the future and grounded in a life of prayer because of our trust in the benevolence of the Divine Being who will not leave us to our own devices. All of us are held in relationship with God and one another in a bond that I experienced as a felt sense of joy and confidence in each place that I touched down.

I was reminded of this sense of optimism and the need to work toward the good by today’s lectionary readings about perseverance in prayer. We are called by Abraham’s courage in his famous plea to the God who was prepared to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of the wickedness abiding in those cities. Beginning with the question: “If there were 50 innocent inhabitants there, would you relent?” (GEN 18:20-32) Abraham continued to ask toward a greater favor asking: “What if there were 45…40…30…20…10???” God’s willingness to answer with alacrity that those cities would not be destroyed for the sake of the few innocent people tells me that, ultimately, God desires to forgive, not to punish or destroy. God is on our side.

Jesus knew that God and encouraged his followers to ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find; knock and the door shall be opened to you. ( LK 11:1-13) All of my experiences during these days have convinced me of the need for us to pray – alone and together – for changes in ourselves and all around us that will bring us back to balance. This prayer cannot be a “sometimes” thing. We need to be serious and consistent to actually “be the change we wish to see in the world.” Thus our prayer will become our way of living and lift up the quality of life for everyone. We will “come home” to our deepest selves and meet each other at each step of our journeys. In this way wherever we find ourselves in the world will be recognized as home and we will be welcome there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Forgiveness of Sin

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cries of freedom, distress, forgive, forgiveness, Jesus, King David, Nathan, Pharisee, Pope Francis, psalm 32, Samuel, shelter, sinfulness, sinner, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, your sins are forgiven

When we think of King David, it is natural to focus on his greatness, his love of God and his importance in the history of the Hebrew people, even though we know his failings. Today, however, we hear the prophet Nathan speaking for God, recounting all the favors God has done for David and then listing all of David’s egregious transgressions (2 SM 12: 7-13). Most stunning is the question: “Why have you rejected the Lord and done evil in his sight?” If David had been ignoring the seriousness of his sins or trying to rationalize his actions, that question must have shocked him into recognition of the depth of his sinfulness, because immediately he responded to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” His deep remorse is difficult to grasp from that simple sentence, but God knew his heart. Nathan answered for God saying, “The Lord on his part has forgiven your sin; you shall not die.”

In the gospel, it is Jesus who points out the sinful behavior of Simon the Pharisee who has invited him to dinner (LK 7:36 – 8:3). When a woman known to be a sinner approached Jesus, weeping and anointing his feet with ointment, Simon judged not only her but also the legitimacy of Jesus as prophet because he should not be allowing the touch of such a woman. When Jesus points out Simon’s lack of hospitality to him and compares it to how generous the woman has been with her love, everyone at the table is surprised when he then says, “Your sins are forgiven.” Again we have a simple sentence that holds so much meaning! Her life was undoubtedly changed forever.

Pope Francis surprised the world some time ago by declaring that he is a sinner; he knows and admits that this is a fact of his life. In a way, it seems, the Pope’s declaration has opened a way for all of us to admit the same. God’s forgiveness of David was immediate because, in spite of his sin, David loved God intensely. Jesus saw that same love in the woman who bathed his feet with her tears and welcomed her because of that love. We suffer in our sins because we cannot accept the possibility of God’s forgiveness and the reality that God is just waiting to hear us say, “Please forgive me.”

Psalm 32 proclaims that if we acknowledge our sin it will be taken away. As a result, the psalmist sings to God: You are my shelter; from distress you will preserve me; with glad cries of freedom you will ring me round. And what could be better than that! So let us run to God’s heart and feel the words we long to hear: “My Beloved, your sins are forgiven!”

The Prophet, the Poet and the Pope

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baby, care, compassion, forgiveness, Isaiah, Jesus, love, mercy, mother, motherly tenderness, Pope Francis, Psalm 145, tenderness, The Lord is kind and merciful, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

As I sit in my rocking chair this morning before dawn, I hear inside me the refrain from Psalm 145, often sung in our Liturgy of the Word: The Lord is kind and merciful; the Lord is kind and merciful. Isaiah has already prepared me for the sense of peace that washes over me as I rock to the tune. He asks, Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? (IS 49:15) I picture my mother rocking my brother to sleep while crooning such tender words, just as Isaiah has conjectured the care of God for each of us. The Lord is kind and merciful… One translation of verses 17-18 of the psalm praises God saying: You open your arms of love to us and the longing of each soul is deeply satisfied. Your paths run straight to every creature ever made. Your compassion fills up everything you do. I marvel at the sheer poetry of the psalmist’s message and again I hear: The Lord is kind and merciful…

Pope Francis reminds us that Jesus images perfectly these qualities of God’s mercy and kindness and calls us often to do the same. In a general audience on March 27, 2013 he said it this way: What does being a Christian mean? What does following Jesus on his journey to Calvary on his way to the cross and the resurrection mean?…He spoke to all without distinction: the great and the lowly, the rich young man and the poor widow, the powerful and the weak; he brought God’s mercy and forgiveness; he healed, he comforted, he understood; he gave hope; he brought all to the presence of God who cares for every man and every woman, just as a good father and a good mother care for each of their children. God does not wait for us to go to him but it is God who moves toward us, without calculation, without quantification. That is what God is like.

Today I am thankful for Isaiah, the psalmist and Pope Francis for bringing me to a place of peace, a remembrance of motherly tenderness and an assurance of God’s all-giving and forgiving mercy. What more can I ask of this day but to spread the word that, indeed, the Lord is kind and merciful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

70 X 7

Tags

forgive, forgiven, forgiveness, gracious, innumerable, Jesus, Joel, merciful

There are two strong statements in today’s Scripture passages, one from the Book of the Prophet Joel that appears as the gospel acclamation and one from Jesus in the gospel. As is often the case, I am taken by a few words or a phrase, today being the introductory phrase of each citation that gives strength to the message.

The gospel is really about the wicked servant that is forgiven and yet does not forgive his colleague a debt. This parable is occasioned by the question to Jesus that says: “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how many times must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answers: “I say to you, not seven but seventy-seven times.” There’s no question that forgiveness is necessary since the questioner doesn’t ask, “do I have to?” but “how many times must I forgive?” Jesus responds beginning with the frequently used, “I say to you” which often appears in the Scriptures as counter or more emphatic to a former statement of law, or to assure that listeners are really getting the point. And we know that “seventy times seven” means “innumerable” in Scriptural terms.

Reading backward from the gospel to its introductory verse, we hear Joel remind us: “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart for I am gracious and merciful.” That message floods me with relief from the first two words, telling me that past behavior can always be forgiven if I am willing to turn my life around now. Even at this late date, God is still hoping for my return, no matter what came before. That is certainly enough to convince me that forgiveness of anyone in my life for anything they have done is the right thing for me to do. If God is willing, so must I be – 70 X 7.

Have Mercy On Me, O God!

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acceptance, acknowledgment, contrition, David and Bathsheba, evil, forgiveness, grace, guilt, just, personal sin, Pope Francis, psalm 51, recognition, relationship with God, repentance, Samuel, sinfulness, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Year of Mercy

Yesterday I was having a conversation about sin – not sins but sin, as in “the sin of the world” or “social sin.” It’s much easier to look at it that way, not so difficult then to exclude myself from the topic rather than talking about my personal sin and guilt. Today, however, I could not avoid such a “close encounter” in the face of the story about David and Bathsheba. (2 SM 11:1-17) David’s actions of adultery and the subsequent plotting the death of Uriah when his attempts to hide Bathsheba’s pregnancy from her husband had failed sound like a modern movie plot! This from God’s chosen one, the king of Israel, the one whose reign was to last forever through his descendants!

Most of us know our own sinfulness and try to hide our shadow side from others for fear that we would be abandoned if anyone “really knew me.” David’s story gives us opportunity for a different way to proceed. It comes in a series of steps: recognition, acknowledgment, contrition, repentance, forgiveness and finally acceptance – all of which come in his relationship with God. His waking up to the seriousness of his sin came at the death of the child born of his liaison with Bathsheba but that recognition was so deeply felt not only by the loss but also because of his great love for God and the knowledge that he had severely damaged that covenant. Thus, his sorrow matched his guilt as he sang, “I have done such evil in your sight that you are just in your sentence…Let me hear the sounds of joy and gladness; the bones you have crushed shall rejoice. Turn away your face from my sins and blot out all my guilt!” (PS 51) It is because of the depth of relationship that David could come to trust God’s forgiveness. Still cognizant of the enormity of what he had done, David was then able to accept himself and let go of his guilt to live into God’s welcoming embrace. I am confident that we are called to the same willingness in the face of our sin.

Serendipitously as I was pondering all this, my eye fell on a quote that seems apt for both this reflection and this “Year of Mercy.” Pope Francis writes that the Church is commissioned to announce the mercy of God, the beating heart of the gospel, which in its own way must penetrate the heart and mind of every person. Having received the grace and ability to acknowledge our own sins, may we be moved to extend such mercy to our companions and, yes, to our broken world.

Papal Power

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forgiveness, joy, mercy, modern day prophet, Pope Francis, smile, Spirit of God, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

In almost every conversation around the USA this week, comments about the visit of Pope Francis abound. Before he arrived speculation about his message ran high. A man full of surprises, when asked about what he would say to Americans, he responded: “I just want to visit them.” Clearly, just in his presence from the moment he emerged waving from the plane, this first purpose has been achieved. The joy of the crowds, the smiles on the faces of dignitaries and children, the hope that his very being inspires goes far beyond the members of his own Church to all those desiring a better world. But Francis will not leave this country without speaking his mind. This modern day prophet will likely challenge our country to do a better job in caring for the poor and for our environment. His tone will not be one of judgment or condemnation for failure, if we can judge by past statements about mercy and forgiveness. We are wise to listen deeply for universal concerns in his speech which nevertheless are applicable to our personal lives as well.

Let us give thanks for the Spirit of God shining through this simple man who gives so much hope to so many and gives example of carrying the weight of the world with prayerful demeanor and a dazzling smile.

Difficult Grace

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confession, cures, forgiveness, Jesus, miracles, mystics, Padre Pio, St. Pio, stigmata, suffering, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today on the US Catholic Bishops’ website, I saw the name of the saint being celebrated today. I must’ve been still half-asleep because I was thinking it was some obscure person from long, long ago. I decided to look up St. Pio of Pietrelcina to see if there was anything interesting about him. In doing so, I saw the dates marking the span of his life (1887-1968) and realized all at once that he was the beloved Padre Pio, known the world over for his holiness, his tirelessness in hearing confessions and his suffering – both physical and psychological. An Italian Franciscan friar, baptized with the name Francesco, he modeled the life of his patron, St. Francis, even to the point of having a vision of Jesus (9/20/1918) during which he received the stigmata, the wounds of Jesus, in his hands, feet and side. Twice over the ensuing 13 years, the authenticity of the stigmata was questioned and Pio (his religious name) was not permitted to celebrate Mass publicly or hear confessions. He did not question or complain and these decisions were subsequently reversed. His life was spent in the confessional, forgiving penitents in the name of God, and in concern for the physically ill and suffering people who came to him. Many cures were credited to his intercession. By his urging a 350-bed hospital was built and was called “House for the Alleviation of Suffering.” He died on September 23, 1968 and was named a saint of the Church on June 16, 2002.

Visionaries and stigmatics are not commonly known in our day; we more easily accept those like St. Francis and Catherine of Siena, saints who lived centuries ago. Detractors and the curious were many in the life of Padre Pio in the last century where reason and ability to explain unusual events was (and continues to be for most) the order of the day. Now, when science and spirituality are beginning to speak the same language in tentative ways, it is to our advantage to suspend judgment of how certain things happen and live with the evidence of that they have happened in order to expand our consciousness of how God and the universe conspire for the good of all.

Words To Live By

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Colossians, compassion, forgiveness, gentleness, humility, jewel in Paul's crown, kindness, love, Luke, patience, peace of Christ, psalm 150, thankful, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wisdom

Sometimes it is rather difficult for me to find a theme for reflection in the day’s Scriptures. Today I have the opposite dilemma. Everything is pertinent to daily life! I would encourage anyone with a Bible to read Psalm 150, one of the greatest psalms of praise and/or the Gospel of Luke 6:27-38, which also deserves our time and attention. I cannot, however, fail to use the first reading in its entirety to share my favorite advice of Paul to the Colossians; it is, to my mind, the “jewel in Paul’s crown” – a pattern for life that is as relevant today as it was in Paul’s time and – even if studied one word or phrase at a time – offers possibility for changing the world.

Brothers and sisters: Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do. And over all these virtues put on love, that is, the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ, rich as it is, dwell in your hearts, for as one body you have been called to that peace. Always be thankful. Let the word of Christ, rich as it is, dwell in you, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, singing psalms and hymns and inspired songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (COL 3:12-17)