Pentecost in action

What we would like to do is change the world -- make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended for them to do.

-- Dorothy Day

Pentecost and change

Every time we say, "I believe in the Holy Spirit," we mean that we believe that there is a living God able and willing to enter human personality and change it.

-- J. B. Phillips

Pentecost

I know I've blogged before on the sermons of Lutheran pastor, The Rev. Dr. Barbara K. Lundblad who teaches at Union Theological Seminary in New York. I'm very, very impressed with her. Here's an excerpt from one of her Pentecost sermons:

Pentecost often ends too soon. The first part of the story is thrilling. The sound of a mighty wind. The tongues of fire. People from all over the Roman Empire hearing their own languages spoken by ordinary Galileans. The promise of the Spirit poured out on young and old, including slaves, both women and men. Pentecost means all of that. As the story goes on, Peter stands up to preach, and he preaches such a powerful sermon that over 3,000 people are baptized. Pentecost means all of that too. But Pentecost ends too soon if it has nothing to do with possessions, with wealth and poverty, with what we call economics. Economics is from the Greek word oikos, which means household. How do we live together in God's household? Well, I know economics is a subject so complicated that our eyes glaze over at the mention of the word. But God is very interested in economics, about what we do with our possessions and portfolios.

* A Pentecost church will reach out to people of every language and tongue.

* A Pentecost church will call young and old, women and men to prophesy.

* A Pentecost church will preach and baptize, but the story always ends too soon if a Pentecost church isn't concerned about economics.

A few years ago I talked with a friend of mine who's a pastor in New England. "How's your building program going?" I asked. "Oh, we ran out of money before we got to the worship space," she said. I thought to myself, "What could be more important than the worship space?" But I kept my thoughts to myself. "We renovated the basement," she said. "You know, we have a shelter there for homeless men. We put in new showers and renovated the old kitchen. The basement was so drab, and the showers-well, there was only one shower and it was lousy. On the Sunday before the shelter opened, the worship service began as usual in the sanctuary. When it came time for communion, the people carried the bread and the cup downstairs to the basement. The whole congregation gathered around the empty beds. They passed the bread and the cup around the circle. The body of Christ given for you. That night the shelter beds were full, and the worship space still needed a lot of work." The church calendar still said it was the first Sunday of Advent. But people in that congregation knew that Pentecost wasn't over. Pentecost shaped their life together, and it had everything to do with economics.

Finding what is real

Artist: Alyce Grunt

The first thing people do when restoring old chairs is strip — strip right down to the bare wood. They do this to see what the original might have looked like and to determine if the thing is worth doing over. They strip away all the years of grime, the garish coats of paint piled one on top of the other. They get rid of all the junk that's been tacked on through the years and try to find the solid, simple thing that's underneath.

I'm like an old chair needing that stripping process. Every now and then I have to take a really hard look at the illusions I've built up in myself and my society, see what I've gotten myself into. Illusions? Yes, illusions; the excess baggage I carry around, the unnecessary, the socially expected, all that keeps me living off center too long. Stripping myself of all this is an intentional letting go of these illusions. It is a spiritual act of personal forgiveness. God lets us let go.

It's hard work to let God forgive me. I have to discover the original under all these coats I've added, strip away all the cynicism and anger I've build up, get rid of the junk I've taken on, defy my disappointments, and find what is real again.

-- Donna Schaper from Stripping down: The Art of Spiritual Restoration

Lady Julian

Today is the feast of Julian of Norwich. Here's something about her:

Julian of Norwich was most likely a Benedictine nun who lived a life of seclusion in Norwich, England during the later part of the 14th century. She is thought to be one the greatest of English mystics. At the age of thirty, suffering from a servere illness and believing she was at the point of death, Julian passed into a trance and had a series of intense visions in which she was led to contemplate the nature of Divine Love. These revelations brought her great peace and joy. For twenty years she meditated on her visions in a small cell close to a church in Norwich, where she devoted her life to prayer and contemplation. She wrote the results of her meditations in a book called 'Revelations of Divine Love'. During her life many sought her advice in spiritual matters. Since her death, many more have found help in her writings.

The precise date of her death is uncertain.

And here is something she said:

Truth sees God, and wisdom contemplates God. From these two comes the third, which is a holy, marvellous delight in God, who is love. Where truth and wisdom are, in truth, there is love, coming in reality from both of them, and all are of God's making. For he is endless sovereign truth, endless sovereign wisdom and endless sovereign love, all of them uncreated.

And let us not forget that she kept a cat!

Make friends with the angels

Make friends with the angels, who though invisible are always with you. Often invoke them, constantly praise them, and make good use of their help and assistance in all your temporal and spiritual affairs.

--Saint Francis de Sales

The real reason for persisting in prayer

Artist: Gerard Menzel

I've admired Frederick Buechner for a long time but only today have I come across this:

According to Jesus, by far the most important thing about praying is to keep at it... Be importunate, Jesus says -- not, one assumes, because you have to beat a path to God's door before he'll open it, but because until you beat the path maybe there's no way of getting to your door.

Some sweet lyrics

Cultural Unity Wreath

Jesus’ hands were kind hands,
Doing good for all.
Healing pain and sickness,
Blessing children small.
Washing tired feet
And saving those who fall.
Jesus’ hands were kind hands,
Doing good for all.

Take my hands, Lord Jesus,
Let them work for you.
Make them strong and gentle,
Kind in all I do.
Let me watch you, Jesus,
‘Til I’m gentle, too,
‘Til my hands are kind hands,
Quick to work for you.

— Margaret Cropper (1886–1980)

I found this on Susan Russell's site. This was sung by children in her parish.

William Byrd - Ave verum corpus

Hail, true body,
Born of the Virgin Mary,
Truly suffered, sacrificed
On the Cross for mankind,
Whose pierced side
Flowed with water and blood,
Be for us a foretaste
In the trial of death.

The Lord is present and living

The announcement is the great joy that the Lord is present and living in the world: that the Lord is with us. Dominus vobiscum, the Lord be with you. This is what we are constantly announcing in the liturgy, that the Lord is present in the world.

— Thomas Merton

The Ascension of our Lord

The following is an excerpt from an Ascensiontide sermon by The Rev. Dr. Barbara K. Lundblad:

Not long ago I saw a wonderful picture of Jesus' ascension. It was a black and white woodcut print finely etched. In the picture Jesus is rising up as the disciples watch him disappear into the clouds. If you look closely at the picture, not in the clouds, but on the ground, you can see footprints on the earth. The artist has carefully etched Jesus' footprints down on the level where the disciples are standing with their mouths open. Perhaps the artist was simply imagining a homey detail that isn't in the text. Or, perhaps, the artist is pressing us with the old question, "Why do you stand looking up into heaven? Look at these footprints here on the earth." Jesus' muddy footprints are all over the pages of the gospels.

* Can you see Jesus' footprints in the wilderness? Each time he was tempted to claim earthly power and glory, he reached up and touched the words of Torah. One does not live by bread alone. Worship the Lord your God and serve only God.
* Can you see Jesus walking on the wrong side of the street with the wrong people?
* Can you see Jesus walking up to a sycamore tree, then looking up at Zachaeus, the tax collector, perched in the branches? "Come down, Zachaeus," Jesus said, "let's walk over to your house for dinner."
* Can you see Jesus walking, then riding, into Jerusalem?
* Can you see him stumbling toward Golgotha, loving us to the very end?

The book of Ephesians poses an interesting question: "What does it mean that Christ is ascended but that he also descended... and now fills the whole universe?" So this doctrine is really a teaching about the ubiquity of Christ. Christ is everywhere at all times. Christ cannot be limited. Ever. That's what this day is all about.

Waking up

Gallery Mandala

Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence. You know, all mystics - Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion -- are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare.

-- Anthony de Mello

You can read the rest of Fr. de Mello's short article right here.

About truth

Do you know about St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe? Here's part of his story:

On February 17, 1941 he was arrested by the German Gestapo and imprisoned in the Pawiak prison, and on May 25 was transferred to Auschwitz I as prisoner #16670.

In July 1941 a man from Kolbe's barracks vanished, prompting SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch, the deputy camp commander, to pick 10 men from the same barracks to be starved to death in Block 13 (notorious for torture), in order to deter further escape attempts. (The man who had disappeared was later found drowned in the camp latrine.) One of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, lamenting his family, and Kolbe volunteered to take his place.

During the time in the cell he led the men in songs and prayer. After three weeks of dehydration and starvation, only Kolbe and three others were still alive. Finally he was murdered with an injection of carbolic acid.

Here's something he said that I found very insightful and challenging:

No one in the world can alter truth. All we can do is seek it and live it.

It strikes me that many (if not most) of the conflicts of the world are due to people trying to alter truth. What would happen if we chose to live it instead?

Only...

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky.

--Ursula K. LeGuin

Seeing God in all things

Artist: MC Morley

I have just stumbled upon the website of a retreat center in Dublin run by the Dominicans. Here's a brief passage from a letter by one of the brothers to an inquirer about seeing God in everything:

Words can become idols, as believers have always known – even the word ‘God’. They are much more likely to be mistaken for the reality than a statue or a picture. “If one knows anything in God,” said Meister Eckhart, “and affixes any name to it, that is not God. God is above names.”

How then do we see God in all things? We search for God all our lives; but God is not lost. We are lost. God is always present, and when we become present God is present in that awareness. As long as we are present – to anything, even to a tree – we are present to God.

-- Donagh O’Shea OP

Oblation

"Sky and Cloud"

Artist: Craig Bisgeier

Even if I should be locked up in a narrow cell and a cloud should drift past my small barred window, then I shall bring you that cloud, Oh God, while there is still the strength in me to do so.

--Etty Hillesum from An Interrupted Life

Living Water

"Quiet Stream"

Artist: Katie Puenner

Jesus said, "And let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’"

-- John 7:38

I think this is beautiful

" The Joy of Life"

Artist: Rita Cappello

It's possible for a person to be created and live an entire lifetime just for the sake of uttering one word or making a single gesture that he performs for the Holy One.

— Pinchas of Koretz

Let us pray for peace

Earth Day

Here is an excerpt from an Earth Day sermon by Joseph C. Hough, Jr., President of Union Theological Seminary in New York:

Here is a fundamental compelling choice. It is the one choice that will determine all of the other choices we make. It is an absolutely bottom line, base line choice between life and death.

* Yet, despite the disappearance of the forests, the death of thousands of species and the pollution of air and water;

* despite the growing consensus that we have already done irreparable harm to our world;

* despite the fact that we are in danger of opening another nuclear arms race;

* despite the fact that a deteriorating ecosystem can seriously distort the genetic structure of those yet unborn;

Despite all of this that we now know, our national political leaders scorn the warnings of the world's top scientists and stand alone against all efforts of other nations to stem the tide of destruction.

This cannot go on. This is not a matter that we Christians can leave to habitual partisan politics. At this moment in history, our choices have to transcend our self-interests and our political loyalties. The care of the earth is a part of our covenant with our God that determines who we are and what we choose. So let the voice of the covenant people rise into a mighty and deafening roar so that all the world may hear:

This destruction of God's world cannot go on. The time is now and we cannot rest until we are heard. We choose life! We choose life! We choose life! -- a life that will ensure that we are working with our God as a covenant people to ensure a future of any life at all for our children and their world!

It is a powerful sermon, truly. I would like to urge you to click through and read it in its entirety.