REWARDING SUPERSTITION AND THEFT (Mark 5:21-43): 28 June 2009 (Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time)
Dear Lord Jesus,
We have not one but two healing stories in today’s Gospel passage, but the first–involving the woman afflicted with a twelve-year hemorrhage–strikes me. She fights her way through that crowd around you, and perhaps having no other way of connecting with you, reaches out to touch…your clothes.
WALK ON THEIR SEA OF GREEN (Mark 4:35-41): 21 June 2009 (Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time)
Today’s Readings
Dearest Lord Jesus,
“Do you not care that we are perishing?” Those words from your disciples as you lay sleeping in a storm-tossed boat that dark night make me think of the brewing turmoil in Iran.
WEARING OUR SKIN (Mark 14:12-16, 22-26): 14 June 2009 (Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ)
Dear Lord Jesus,
Today’s Solemnity of Your Body and Blood reminds us how much more seriously you take something we take so much for granted: what it means to “take flesh,” to “wear skin.” Sometimes, especially when our bodies fail us, we can’t help wishing them away. That was not the case with you, Lord. When you rose from the dead, you could have discarded your body, but didn’t. Instead you chose to keep it, complete with all its wounds, so much so that today, in your glory, you continue to wear our skin.
THE LOST ART OF REVERENCE (Matthew 28:16-20): 07 June 2009 (Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity)
Dear God–Father, Son, Holy Spirit:
Nothing reminds me more of Your divinity than the mystery of the Trinity that we celebrate today: You as the One True God, but revealed by the Lord Jesus as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Given such a truth, I can’t help but feel what the mystics have always known about You: Your transcendence and Your ineffability. As early as the 12th century, the Second Lateran Council has taught that any image or knowledge of God that we have is more unlike You than like You.
MISSING THE BURNING BUSH (John 15:26-27; 16:12-15): 31 May 2009 (Pentecost Sunday)
Today’s Readings
Dear Lord Jesus,
On Pentecost Sunday you keep your promise to send your Spirit to your disciples. If we take the account in the Acts of the Apostles literally, the scene unfolds quite dramatically–the sound of a mighty wind, a rain of fire, and a symphony of diverse languages. Because of Pentecost, we are told, your presence fills the world though often we fail to notice.