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Tag Archives: Sabbath

In and Out

28 Sunday Jun 2020

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beauty, breathe, nature, Sabbath, silence, stillness, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

There are so many people and organizations giving advice daily on television, podcasts and all manner of “advice columns.” I sometimes feel a need to add my voice from my tiny corner of the world but often lately I sense more of a need to just sit quietly and let the silence speak. Nature seems complicit in this feeling this morning and gives me a nudge saying, “Yes, that’s it. Any thoughts you have are unnecessary today. Just listen. That’s what “sabbath” is all about.”

I can be confident in that feeling because here’s what has happened in less than the last hour. Knowing that I had a late start to the morning because of a late start to sleeping last night, I got my coffee and began my sojourn through my regular prompts—Scripture, USCCB notations, Franciscan media, the SSJE Brothers… and had trouble accessing the above mentioned pages or staying on the page when it finally showed up. As I surfed I realized it was getting darker outside and I still had nothing to offer. Suddenly there was a great, yet silent, cloudburst washing the trees with no wind, just a steady, torrential downpour that gave way to a sparkling sunshine and birdsong within minutes of the rain’s conclusion.

Why would I think I need to add to that happening? The silence fills the world with Sabbath beauty and stillness is God’s gift to my soul. May you be similarly blessed with the simple necessity of breathing into the day: in and out…in and out…no distress…only breath…in and out…in and out.

Balance, Please!

01 Sunday Jul 2018

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conservation of energy, generous service, healing, Jairus, Jesus, Joyce Rupp, Mark, mentor, Prayer Seeds, Sabbath, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, understanding, wisdom

ajesusmountainToday’s gospel has Jesus squarely in the midst of his healing ministry. (MK 5:21-43) On his way to heal the daughter of Jairus he encounters the woman with the hemorrhage. He is so totally present in his healing power that all she has to do is touch his cloak to be healed and he knows that power has gone out of him. That was most likely the easy part of the day. When he arrives at the home of Jairus, he would only allow the parents and three of his close friends to go with him into the room where the child was already dead. It seems that perhaps this was a conscious act of “conservation of energy.” Crowds can so easily suck all the air out of a place and those following him were obviously skeptical of a good outcome since he told them the girl was not dead but asleep. Jesus is confident in his power to heal, gets the job done and tells those in the room with him to keep the incident to themselves so as to be free, perhaps, of those who did not seem interested in understanding who he was and in whose power the healing took place. That would be the work of another day.

Joyce Rupp has a short prayer reminding me that even as this gospel implies constant healing work on the part of Jesus – going from one dire situation to another – he did, in fact, know when to take a break. It’s good advice for all of us on this day when Christians celebrate the weekly Sabbath.

Jesus, we turn to you, our model and mentor of giving and receiving. We recall how you poured yourself out in service to those who crowded around you. We bear in mind, too, how you withdrew to the mountainsides to pray and restore what was depleted in your body and spirit. Grant us, Giver of Gifts, the wisdom, inspiration and discipline to cultivate a healthy balance between generous service to others and compassionate care of ourselves. Amen. (Prayer Seeds, p.134)

 

 

 

 

 

The Seventh Day

04 Sunday Mar 2018

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Ancient Songs Sung Anew, keep holy the Sabbath day, life, listen, Psalm 95, Sabbath, ten commandments, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, voice of God

abenchNo matter what’s happening, when I wake up on Sunday morning I always feel different from other days. The Scriptures for today remind me of the reason that is true for me. The first reading (for Year B) recounts the Ten Commandments, the fourth being described as follows: Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day. Six days you may labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord, your God…no work may be done.

Sometimes these days it’s impossible for everyone in these United States to observe Sabbath in their traditional way. Just the fact that work schedules span the 7-day, 24-hour work week for certain employees makes that easy to see. Whether we have to carve out our own Sabbath time because of our life circumstances or are able to join with traditional services where we live, the observance of Sabbath is clearly an essential element of our well-being. A reminder in Psalm 95 today says it well.

So come, then, let us bow before this God of ours, and offer up our beings to the Lord. Listen deep within yourself to hear the voice of God who shepherds you and leads you forth to life. (vs. 6-7, Ancient Songs Sung Anew, p.241)

 

 

 

 

 

A Sacred Day

21 Sunday Jan 2018

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church, day of reflection, ever present in the now, keep holy the Sabbath day, pace of life, Sabbath, sacred, Sunday dinner, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, visit

ADUCKFEEDINGSometimes lately I have to look at the events scribbled in my calendar to remind myself of the date and what day of the week it is! I guess I could say that’s because of my advancing age, but I think it has as much or more to do with the pace of life now. Today is Sunday – for Christians, the Sabbath Day, set aside for rest and reflection on the spiritual side of life. I’ve been known to hear in my head the dictum “No unnecessary servile work on Sunday!” if I set about doing laundry or some other household duty. I was always grateful for that precept of the laws of the Church that guided our family life in that simpler time that was my youth.

Sunday really was a quieter day then, a time to go to church, to visit, have Sunday dinner and then sometimes to squeeze all of us (5 kids and two fathers in the early days) into Uncle Charlie’s station wagon and go for ice cream after feeding the ducks at Norumbega. I didn’t know that the dual purpose of those trips with our fathers gave the mothers – sometimes home with a baby or two – a bit of a respite and some quiet too.

For most of us, times have changed radically as the pace of life picked up and three-shift jobs became the norm. It’s more difficult now to allow ourselves a day of the week that is set apart from the others. Perhaps a more novel idea would be to train our hearts to a mindset of every day being a Sabbath – a sacred day of reflection. It wouldn’t need to mean staying home from work or ignoring necessary tasks at home. Maybe setting our inner clock to an hourly “stop!” to remember and give thanks to God would be enough to make each day as holy as the last and as anticipated as the next while staying ever present in the now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Refreshment

03 Sunday Sep 2017

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eyes, hearts, hope, Mary Oliver, rest, Sabbath, St. Paul, thanks, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

ahugtree

It rained all night last night and I slept a grateful nine hours, with only two brief moments of waking just to reposition myself in my bed. Having those two events to take forward, I feel some inner turning as well. Perhaps it’s because it happens to be Sunday, my traditional day of Sabbath rest, however that unfolds.

The gospel acclamation for this morning spoke the message to me first, saying: May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ enlighten the eyes of our hearts, that we may know what is the hope that belongs to our call. Then a program from a long-ago event fluttered out from between two books on my side table offering me an enrichment of Paul’s words from the pen of Mary Oliver. In her inimitable style she gave me all these images to consider.

There are lots of words meaning thanks.
Some you can only whisper.
Others you can only sing.
The peewee whistles instead.
The snake turns in circles,
The beaver slaps his tail
on the surface of the pond.
The deer in the pinewoods stamps his hoof.
Goldfinches shine as they float through the air.
A person, sometimes, will hum a little Mahler.
Or put arms around old oak tree.
Or take out lovely pencil and notebook to find a few
touching, kissing words.

What more would I ask on this first day of the rest of my life?

In Praise of Sabbath

09 Sunday Jul 2017

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Catholic Church, conscious work, Genesis, keep holy the Sabbath day, praise God, Psalm 145, Sabbath, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, worship

adayofrestThis morning I am thinking of the notion of “Sabbath” and how the busyness of our lives has squeezed the practice that originated in the book of Genesis (God resting on “the seventh day” from all the work of creation) into a religious service that may last an hour at most. I speak of Catholic practice, which is what I know best, and am pushing aside any sense of commitment and feeling of the difference that accompanies this most important day of the week for many people, in order to shine a spotlight on how things “used to be.” I would wager that “no unnecessary servile work on Sunday” is a concept unknown to most Catholics under the age of 40 years.

My point is not to return to an understanding of the call to worship as a statute that, if broken, has dire consequences. It is simply a sadness that we seem, as a people, to have lost a sense of wonder and awe about creation and the Creator that – in and of itself – calls us to stop and give praise on a regular basis. Were we to understand the depth of what we have been given as possibility for conscious living, we would likely have little time for anything but praise! The paradox about that, however, would be our ability to do everything we are doing with more ease and success if we were acting consciously all the time. Let us, then, begin this morning with Psalm 145, as does the lectionary. The psalmist reminds us of the duty and privilege of praise so let us also raise our voices in like manner.

O sovereign God, all-powerful, your name I praise above all else. Each day that comes I add another note of song that I shall never cease to sing, for you, Almighty One, are great beyond my telling. Of you there is no limit and no end.

Good Help

28 Tuesday Mar 2017

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God's law, gratitude, healing, ignore, Jesus, John, pool, righteous, Sabbath, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, tireless people, unnecessary, water

ajesusbethesdaThis morning’s gospel left me with many possible avenues of exploration. It’s the familiar healing by Jesus of the man at the pool of Bethesda who had been ill for 38 years but had no one to put him into the pool for healing when the healing waters were stirred. (JN 5:1-16) I first think (and thus have commented about) how impossible it sounds that he was lying around for 38 years and nobody lifted him into the pool. Secondly, it gives me pause to think about that scene and how the whole thing worked: how large the pool was, how and how often the waters were “stirred”, how big a crowd was there waiting (I think of the processions in the grotto at Lourdes with massive crowds) and finally how intent everyone must have been on their own invalid so that everyone ignored this man. So many considerations with little information to help me conceive of his predicament…

Today, however, I was caught by the end of the text after the healing where the man was berated for carrying his mat on the Sabbath as that was against the law. That sounds almost as ridiculous as the difficulty he had finding help! (I don’t mean to denigrate any precept of the Mosaic law; I remember when in my youth we were to do “no unnecessary servile work” on Sunday.) And in the end, when those “righteous” people found Jesus, they began to persecute him “because he did this (healing work) on the Sabbath.”

I have always heard that God’s law is higher than human law so in cases of doubt, it’s always better to look to God. And the word “unnecessary” in the creed of my youth eliminated a lot of concern in that way. So the final strain of my thought process this morning was about doctors and nurses and other hospital workers whose week is generally not like that of other people. Often they have rotating schedules – off one weekend and on the next. Sometimes they are called in for an emergency at any hour of the day or night. First responders are in the same category. What would happen if the hospitals and urgent care clinics and fire houses were closed on the weekends?

Today, I will pray for people who have no one to care for them and will bow in gratitude for those tireless people who serve in professions where their willingness heals our ills and can sometimes save our lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Close Contact

04 Saturday Mar 2017

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conduct becoming, faithful servant, God, hug, Isaiah, listen, Lynn Bauman, mercy, misery, poverty, psalm 86, Sabbath, secret joy, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, whisper

atalkIsaiah is still waxing eloquently about good living and today introduces the concept of Sabbath when moving from “conduct becoming” in relationships to other people to a consideration of duties toward God. (Is 58:9B-14) In our fast-paced and diverse society, there seems to be too much work to do to take a whole day each week for rest and attention to inner work – the traditional meaning of the word Sabbath, at least in the Judeo-Christian understanding. I found an interesting and comforting thought in an alternate translation of the psalm that followed Isaiah’s words, a more personalized possibility of a way to conceptualize a Sabbath. Here is how Psalm 86, named by Lynn Bauman God’s Secret Inner Comfort, speaks to God:

My God, stoop down to me, and putting close your ear, let me speak my poverty, my misery of life to you, and then, I beg you, whisper back your answer clear. I am your faithful servant, and I trust you, Lord, to keep a watchful eye upon my path of life. Treat me with greatest mercy and most tender care, for you, O God, are all I have; there is no one else but you to whom I speak throughout the day. So I lift my soul to you, that you would flood my heart with secret joy. For in your presence goodness flows as constant as a stream, forgiving me. This is the essence of your love for anyone who calls to you. O listen, Lord; I speak these inner words. (vs.1-6)

Having that kind of trusting relationship, I can imagine Sabbath being an every day event. That way of turning to God brings an immediate feeling of rest, like an enfolding hug, so could be instantaneous respite from the work of any day. I think I’ll try it once every little while today, just calling God to “bend an ear to me” that I might feel the closeness and then, the peace of resting in God.

Saturday

20 Saturday Aug 2016

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24/7, balance, housework, justice, landscape of the soul, mercy, Peace, psalm 85, Sabbath, salvation, Saturday, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, truth, work week

alandscapeThis morning for some reason I was thrown back into thoughts of “Saturday in the convent,” my early days in the novitiate when Saturday was the day for housework. It made (and probably still makes) sense for people who worked a “regular work week” to consider Saturday that way. Now, in our country, there seems to be little that is “regular.” A recent addition to our shorthand is 24/7, a concept that sometimes seems less than advisable or even possible. Grocery stores, pharmacies and fast-food restaurants are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week – necessary perhaps because there are three shifts now in many businesses. People are always “on the go” and even “Sabbath” – that concept of a holy rest day – has become a thing of the past. For me there’s still something in the feeling of waking up on Saturday that seems possible, some sense of putting things aright that comes from cleaning house and straightening things out. Whether it’s paying bills or washing windows, the inner renewal that is a by-product of such activities sometimes sets us on a more balanced course for the week to come.

Psalm 85 was obviously written about bigger things but feels right to repeat here, just as a call to the daily tasks of this Saturday. Here are two ways it is said as a starter for those of us who can only take one step at a time but long to see the big picture fulfilled.

I will hear what God proclaims: the Lord – for he proclaims peace. Near indeed is his salvation to those who fear him, glory dwelling in our land. Kindness and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss. Truth shall spring out of the earth, and justice shall look down from heaven. The Lord himself will give his benefits; our land shall yield its increase. Justice shall walk before him, and salvation along the way of his steps.   

To every one who turns their face toward you, you come so close and glory floods the landscape of the soul. And in the secret places of the heart your mercy and your truth shall meet at last in full embrace, and right-relationship and peace kiss one another there. So truth is finally born in full; it springs from earth full grown, and heaven reaches out restoring balances to all. And from that marriage, prosperity unmeasured fills the lands, and yields a harvest of unimagined good, and makes the path of justice smooth between all peoples everywhere, for everything in you knows perfect peace.

 

 

 

 

 

Be Merciful

23 Thursday Jun 2016

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compassion, giving back, joy, Jubilee Year of Mercy, Leviticus, mercy, Peace, Pope Francis, Sabbath, serenity, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Trinity, wellspring

amercyyearWithin the next 48 hours, I will spend time reflecting with about 100 people on the topic of mercy. In his short time as pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis has electrified the world with his bold statements and writings on many topics and has manifested in his person and actions the love that runs as a theme through all that he proclaims. On December 8th of last year, Francis proclaimed a Jubilee Year of Mercy. The biblical understanding of sabbath stated that every seven years the land should lie fallow (resting the soil from the depletion caused by the crops)  and after seven such cycles, the 50th year – jubilee – when people would also rest, “giving back” during which land was to be returned to original owner and captives were to be set free, the underlying intent being to restore right relationships and ensure that everyone had the means to live a productive life.

Although a complicated concept from the Book of Leviticus that bears some study to comprehend, the remains of the practice of jubilee in most cases – far beyond Jewish law – is the sense of restoring right relationships: with God, among people and with the earth. It is in this sense that Pope Francis speaks of Mercy, a concept that has lost a sense of fullness in our time and culture and needs to be restored. Here is a portion of his proclamation:

We need constantly to contemplate the mystery of mercy. It is a wellspring of joy, serenity and peace. Mercy: the word reveals the very mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. Mercy: the ultimate and supreme act by which God comes to meet us. Mercy: the fundamental law that dwells in the heart of every person who looks sincerely into the eyes of his brothers and sisters on the path of life. Mercy: the bridge that connects God and humans, opening our hearts to the hope of being loved forever despite our sinfulness.

We are at the halfway point in this jubilee year, past time to begin interiorizing the words – the deeds – contained in the above paragraph. One small act of compassion would be a good start (or conscious continuation) for our “mission of mercy” – something we would do or say to someone in need, even perhaps if that someone were ourselves.

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