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- Each Hour a Miracle
More thought on the gospel passage, though from a different angle….
extrapolating from the condition of blindness. The Pharisees were blinded by their own satisfaction while the blind Mann could be cured because he knew he was blind. Spiritual illness is the worse handicap. Yet we are obsessed in our culture with physical illness and big big medical centers to assuage our fear of death. In medieval times, it was more important to make peace with Gid and others before death, not preventing death itself, at any cost. In the service of that living faith, Notre Dame and Charted were built. Now it’s not cathedrals. It’s medical centers.
this has knocked my socks off for the last 24 hours. I did a deep dive into the Girardian lectionary for this moving reflection. It certainly is a corrective to the fear of physical death.
this faith is the truth of God as God is in Godself and not as God is in ‘my’ self; Bernadette Roberts
As long as I am in this body, it is a living, breathing, sensate faith. It is BEING and all that is inside me and outside me, the whole universe. It is that longing in my heart. Yet there is also knowing, beyond thought. It is awareness but the object of awareness is everything and everybody, everywhere, at all times.
The truth of God and being with God in godself, well, that is on the other side of the veil….I stand on this side of the veil, waiting.
All of a sudden I realize how god must feel, wanting to wash love over people and then so many who are unable to accept….I crawl back to him for. Comfort. And sustenance.
Revelation continues, and that is why these gospel stories deliver over and over to us during our contemplative prayer, and our daily life. Actually, though I did study the woman at the well reading on Sunday, yesterday, as I was sitting with a situation within, up the story popped with all the nuances I needed.
It just amazes me how scripture feeds me every single day. There is something about it that sets it apart from all other spiritual texts. I never tire of it.
This passage is so alive for me today. Jesus knew there was something different about her in that she was alone in the heat of mid day. The truth was likely that she was an outcast among the other women , since she had been married 5 times , and lived with someone not her husband. Jesus must have known that her history would yield many problems for her. yet he didn’t condemn her. in fact he treated her as having full dignity and humanity. He asked for a drink.
can you imagine us going around doing good with people who are outcasts , in “irregular “ relationships, who have a myriad of disgusting problems? The last thing we would do is treat them as if we were the ones in need.what a lesson Jesus provides for us. He treated the woman at the well as the equal she was. More importantly (for me) , he didn’t analyze or try to “fix” her like she was some kind of object. He was honest with her without condemning. He befriended her and her community of Samaritans (outsiders for Jews). He persisted when criticized by his apostles.
her gratitude must have lifted his heart as he made his way to the mountain top to talk to his father at day.’s end.
at the end of the online prayer, section session, I was moved to share and will now. I am an introvert and realize that when I spend a lot of time with people or crowded areas, I develop a debilitating headache, and need to sleep to make it go away. I pictured myself, generally, not just then, as having an electric current going directly to my brain. It gets so strong, it feels like it could explode if I didn’t do something. So, I walk or, better, do art. Some judge, inside or outside, will say, I feel too much, I think too much, I care too much (my mother’s words). Well, that is the dark side of a lot of good. But, in my minds eye, I see myself turning. down the current, like on a dimmer switch. I Say to my poor mind: It’s OK, Please rest (in MY arms, says God).
Glad I am not alone on this freakin journey!
Prayers for ourselves, friends and relatives with their afflictions..may God ease our/ their worry and pain and grant a light to shine through just when we/they need it.(with faith, believing is seeing).
This helps. More and more, I am dropping into my body and giving that overused mind a break.
I read , I do lectio, I write in my journal. I used all the intellectual tools at my disposal to discern right thinking, fight action. then, I forget all and drop down into my heart space.can feel Christ in me, not so much in my messy life in which unconscious forces are revealing themselves, seemingly non stop, but in gracefilled moments. Yesterday, I walked into a clothing store and wondered aloud to a clerk about the amazing pallette the display served up. I told her about Henry, my late art teacher, and how the last time we were together, he was pointing out a landscape in the distance with layers of colors from front to back, cooling as they receded. The colors in the store as they were arranged were like that. The clerk beamed and told me she designed the whole store her self and arranged everything that was for sale. Christ showed up big time.
The other times are like the other night, when I was on my way to my neighbor’s house (bringing dinner). I don’t register God’s presence so much in the gift, although the neighbors were beside themselves with joy. It was the blowing snow from a blizzard we were in. I stood in wonderment. Such a thing I have never seen! Little tufts of snow rushing past, diamonds shining forth in the greyness. Wow. I am in my third day of trying to recreate this on paper.
When I first read the post, I couldn’t see how Christ manifested in me at all, because of recent negative interactions. Then it came to me that for me to maintain awareness of my faults and the roots of them going way back into childhood, is my way of being the crucified Christ.
Right now, I look out at the St. Lawrence River and Brockville across. Bright pink sky at the horizon, blue above and pink and blue water! Holy moly! Christ outdoing Christself!
I want to hear you rightly, Adeline. However, it can only be through the lens available to me…. Yet, in prayer we are together in this great upward climb, by turns with falling with no sense of bottom , no real handrails other than our God. may you be kind to yourself in this time.. we are all supporting you in prayer. Kathleen
Yesterday, while reading the Girardian Lectionary for Sunday’s readings, a portion grabbed my attention. It was about Zechariah being told to “embrace despair”. “then , you will be given a blessing” when I experience fully what is real within (my bodily experiencing), then, being fully present, I catch sight of God passing by….little blessings, big consequential blessings.
Oh ,yes, I am making an intention this week to see everyone as whole and complete, as they are. I was imagining people at mass today , that part of what I saw was missing . That I couldn’t see them as they fully are as God sees them.
Maybe what God saw in the Pharisee and in the publican were their reality , not what “people thought”.
Linda. Very profound thoughts . What book do you recommend to read more about A J Levine’s thought?. Fr jim martin refers to her every Friday in his Friday live bible study.
Hello, These readings just now hit me like a ton of bricks. The Pharisee in me is berating the tax collector in me for having these problems that only ignorant , low life people have. Part of it is because I have bought into cultural stereotypes: “people who have ____as a problem are at fault for not doing ____. “ “people who have ____happen to them are to blame because only ___people have that problem. “ Because ——told me this will bring untold suffering and I won’t be able to successfully deal with it, I believe that judgment. Who are they that I allow them to put such things in my head?
it seems to me that what is inside, is outside, what is local, is universal. What is valuable is what God values, what God tells me in scripture, in cp, in welcoming prayer, in guard of the heart….every single day.
I can’t reserve judgment of the other until I release the harsh judgment of myself within.This realization makes me feel like I just worked 12 hours carting rocks from one place to another!
Oh, Sue. I am so sorry for all of you out there!
going into the body is where truth lies for me. I found a sentence in an old journal: cognitive activity takes place in time, not space. I wonder If that is what Thomas Aquanais was alluding to when he rejected all the results of his thinking and formulations. To drop down into one’s body, all that we “know” falls into place and we know what is real in this moment. we know what is ours to do In this moment, and no other. Being consciously in the body is to know, in this moment, that I will die, and am not promised one other moment. I see everything from a great distance and I can be happy.
Have you experienced this to as I have recently?
