I ran across this wonderful insight about prayer in this month’s Give us This Day, the daily devotional published by Liturgical Press.  In the reflection posted for this weekend, Sister Miriam Pollard remarks that prayer is letting God in, so we can let ourselves be the prayer we already are.

I love that.  It makes me wonder what kind of prayer I am, or you are.  The prayer we are isn’t something we invent through discipline and fasting.  It’s our particular prayer DNA, the unique tapestry of our individual connection with the Divine.  It’s the information a stranger gets about us without either of us being aware of it—that unnamable grace that goes out from people that makes us feel safe in God’s love .

Thomas Merton once said, “There is no way of telling people they are walking around shining like the sun.”  I understand that now. There is no way of describing to people the prayer that they are, the prayer that they bring us to when we are in their presence.

Many years ago I met with a grieving widow as we planned her husband’s funeral.  We chose the hymns and the readings, and eventually I asked her if there was anyone in the parish whom she would like to ask to be the Eucharistic Minister at the Mass.  Her answer was illuminating.

“Do you know the woman who comes in the side door every Sunday, helping her husband in the wheelchair?  Could you ask her if she would serve at my husband’s funeral?  I don’t know her name.”

Who needs names when we can identify each other by the prayer we are?

How would people describe the kind of prayer you are?

Reflecting on Genesis 18” 1-10a, Luke 10: 38-42

This is funny.  Here come three visitors out of the blue, showing up in the desert, and Abraham begs them to come into his tent for “a little food”.  Then he sets Sarah to work kneading enough dough to fill a large bakery.  I wonder how long it took the servants to kill the steer (surely enough meat to feed the entire population of Beersheba for several years), cook it up and serve it.  I hope the three “strangers” weren’t too hungry when they arrived.

The point of such extravagant Bedouin hospitality is to feed and comfort the traveler in the desert, for the day may come when we too may find ourselves in the wilderness and may need the support of strangers.  Bottom line: the most important honor one can show a guest is to slave away in the kitchen in order to provide food.

So here is Jesus, eighteen hundred years later, in the home of Martha and Mary.  They must have been special friends of Jesus.  In other stories featuring them they also have a brother, Lazarus, whom John’s gospel tells us was raised from the dead.  But in Luke’s story today it is their home alone, and Jesus has come to spend time with them.

They both must love him and want to honor him.  Martha expresses this by preparing the roasted garlic hummus in the kitchen.  Mary sits at his feet.  And guess what: in the discipleship of equals that is the kingdom of God, she chooses the better part.  Once again, Jesus is obsessed with one thing: making sure the proclamation of the kingdom is heard by all.

Are you sometimes too “anxious about many things”?

Reflecting on Luke 10: 25-37

The astonishing thing about scripture is that it keeps smacking us in the face.  Every year I notice hidden gems in stories that have been hiding in plain sight my entire life.  The iconic parable of the Good Samaritan is a good example.

Recall that at the beginning of the story a lawyer asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life.  We know that he is well versed in the Law because he then quotes sections of both Deuteronomy (6:5) and Leviticus (19:18).  These crucial sections of the Law require that we love God with all our strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves.  But, asks the lawyer, who is my neighbor? At the time of Jesus some groups began suggesting that kindness should be extended not only to those who were in covenant with God (the Jews) but to those outside the covenant as well.  So when the  young man asks Jesus to weigh in on this important social justice issues, Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan.

But here’s where we get one of those great surprise endings that Jesus loves.  All these years I’ve been thinking that Jesus is telling the scholar of the Law that even the poor guy who gets assaulted and robbed should be considered his neighbor.  The loathsome Samaritan, well outside the accepted gene pool, understands that and helps the victim with heartwarming kindness.

Am I the only one who thought the neighbor in the story is the robbery victim, and the Samaritan is the one who acknowledges that and helps him?  How have I never realized that the neighbor is the Samaritan himself?  Jesus asks the lawyer which of the passers-by was the neighbor to the robber’s victim.  If we are the love our neighbor as ourselves, it appears that Jesus wants us to love the Samaritan (the neighbor in the story,) as we love ourselves. The one who acts with compassion is to be loved as much as we love ourselves.

Our neighbors, then, are the members of Project Hopeful, who adopt orphans from Ethiopia suffering from HIV.  Our neighbors are also those who move to Ethiopia in order to care for children whose mothers must work outside the home all day, but who desperately want to keep their children with them.

Our neighbor is four-year-old Hannah Turner, who, in 2004, gave her pink socks to a homeless man whose feet looked cold.  Today, Hannah’s Socks provides clothing and shelter to hundreds of needy people in Toledo every winter.

Who’s my neighbor? In this story it’s not the victim.  It’s the one who works for justice for the victim.  And that makes it, indeed, a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Have you ever encountered an unexpected “neighbor”?

Reflecting on Luke 10: 1-9

It’s been a beautiful summer holiday in Colorado.  Sometimes it takes two or three days to just wind down enough to notice you’re on vacation. We’ve spent every possible moment up in the mountains, or swimming at the neighborhood pool, or biking through any of Colorado’s refreshing bike paths.

America the Beautiful was written here.  I look to the west and see the purple mountain majesties that have brought me to prayer every morning of my life.

It’s hard to live in a constant state of gratitude and awe.  My sister is the best you’ve ever seen.  We’ll be driving along the San Diego harbor―she lives in that spectacular city――and she’ll stop the car to make sure we are all thanking God for the water, and the ships, and the seagulls.  And it turns out we are.

This land is our land, from the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters. How blessed we are.  How grateful we are.

Our back yard, blessedly taken over by Farmyard, CSA. several years ago, is already bursting with onions.  The tomatoes will be ready for spaghetti sauce in about five weeks.  I may have to escape sometime in September if the three rows of zucchini get organized enough to break down our back door.

I notice that the volunteers who garden the twenty yards that produce the food that feeds over one hundred people a week are growing older, slower, a bit more tired.  The harvest is astonishing, overwhelming, more than enough to feed the world.  The laborers are few.  I guess it’s time for me to go pull some weeds.

I hope everyone had a blessed Independence Day.

How did you celebrating the holiday?

Reflecting on Luke 9: 51-62

There is a theory in some circles that the name Nazir—set apart—was purposefully chosen by a clan of Jews, tracing their ancestry to King David himself, who settled in a region twenty miles south of the Sea of Galilee a few years before the birth of Jesus. They named their tiny city Nazareth because they believed that they were royalty, set apart, and that the Messiah would come from their family line.

And of course he did.  But perhaps Jesus was different from what they thought the Messiah would be. The earlier gospels (but not John) reveal an underlying misapprehension of the mission of Jesus on the part of some of his family members.

At the age of twelve he stayed behind in Jerusalem after the festival of Passover while his family left for home.  When his anxious parents returned and found him in the Temple he was astounded that they didn’t know that he must be about his Father’s business (Lk. 2: 41-52).

Around the age of 30 “he left Nazareth and made his home by the sea” (Matt: 4:13).   The gospel of Mark recounts his many miracles there, and that his relatives “set out to seize him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind’” (3:21).  Later in that chapter, when they arrive and ask to see him, Jesus looks at the crowd and says, “Here are my mother and brothers. Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother” (3: 34, 35).

And now, in today’s gospel, he tells the young man to forfeit his most important family duty and “let the dead bury the dead”.  Jesus relentlessly shocks us with his obsessive desire for each of us to get to heaven, even if it means not fulfilling what our families may see as our more important roles. His mother Mary, who stood at the foot of the cross, understands that perfectly.

What are you leaving behind in order to be fit for the kingdom?

Who do you say I am? We’d like to ask that question, wouldn’t we?  We long to hear “beloved friend”, “adored spouse”, “precious family member”, and “irreplaceable, much-admired co-worker”.  Nothing stings more than when people answer that sacred question by naming our faults.  Our sins are not who we are.  At least not to God.

Who do you say the people in your life are? I have friends who have held me up when I couldn’t stand, who have carried me when I couldn’t walk.  And here’s the great truth: once someone has loved you in your helplessness, he or she will always be everything to you.  It won’t matter that their kids don’t go to church, that they never got the family photo albums digitalized, that they brought take-out to the Christmas dinner.  The person who catches you during the free falls of your life is everything to you, and you are theirs forever.

The crazy thing is that the ones who see us in our vulnerability love us as much as we love them.  I think it’s because, in our emptiness, they have entered the broken heart of God.  And that’s a very sacred place, indeed.

Jesus, the God-with-flesh-on, longs to hear from his friends who they think he is.  But I think what he is really asking for is their hearts, their lives, their very selves.  Who do you say I am? It wasn’t until the resurrection, the ascension and the sending of the Spirit that they finally figured it out.

Who do I say he is? The One who catches me every day.  I am his.

Who do you say he is?

Last week my husband Ben invited me to join him in the Corpus Christi procession at Denver’s historic Annunciation Church.  As the curious neighbors came out to watch, Ben (with me reluctantly in tow) approached them and asked if they attended church anywhere, and, if not, if they’d ever considered joining Annunciation parish.

It was a wonderful, affirming experience to speak with the warm and kind-hearted people who welcomed us.  One man, however, shocked us.  He waved his hand in the direction of a dilapidated apartment building and said, “Look around you. The Catholic Church doesn’t care about the poor.”

We did look around, and observed three things. At least eighty houses in the neighborhood were renovated in the ‘90s by Annuciation Partners to help low-income families buy their own homes.  Archdiocesan Housing funds the nearby Humboldt Apartments.  And the Sr. Mary Lucy Downey Computer Lab provides free, after-school tutoring space.

That “sinful woman” in today’s gospel got it right.  If you want to show someone how grateful you are to have been forgiven, give water for cleansing, a kiss for greeting, and oil for anointing.  That is, provide a way for working families to buy their own houses, have affordable apartments for those who are poor, and have after-school care tutoring for their kids.

Paul’s words today will always ring true.  We are fit for heaven because our faith in Jesus shapes us for heaven.  But it’s the daily hospitality shown to those who are homeless, struggling, or need help with their math homework that reveals the depth of our gratitude that it is no longer us, but Christ who lives in us.

What acts of hospitality do you perform to express your gratitude to God?

Reflecting on I Kings 17: 17-24; Luke 7:11-17

I read a good book last month.  Three Weeks with my Brother is a thoughtful and mesmerizing memoir written by Nicholas Sparks. His life story is far more harrowing than I imagined the author of The Notebook had lived.

At ages 37 and 38, Nicholas and his brother Micah took a trip around the world. Their conversation often turned to memories of their childhood.

Growing up in poverty with a sister and two wildly dysfunctional parents, Nicholas and Micah remained faithful Catholics into their early adult years, but the many tragedies that they endured led them to two different conclusions about God’s ability (or willingness) to answer prayer.  Listening to today’s readings, we could ask the same questions.

Why did God allow the widow of Zarepheth’ s only son to die, and then be resuscitated by Elijah? There must have been many grieving families in Israel, but the only son of the widow of Nain Jesus raised up and gave back to his mother.

I think that God wants us to engage in the mystery.  The creator of wonders beyond our galaxy desires that we pray to be healed, that we pray for others to be healed.  Some will be given more years of life, and others will go to God earlier than we so earnestly desire.  Michelangelo’s Pieta images Jesus himself, the only son of his widowed mother, in his mother’s arms after his crucifixion.  God did not save him from the cross.

But the empty tomb stands as an eternal witness that God has complete power over death.  We live as servants to the God who desires that we draw ever more near.

How do you “engage” with God?

When was the last time you read Charles Dickens?  My brother begged me to get reacquainted with him, and I’ve spent the last several months in reverent silence, listening to his stunning and shattering stories on audio tapes.

Hard Times is my latest find.  It was published in 1854, and reflects the soulless existence of the factory workers outside of London as the Industrial Revolution steals the health of the adults and the lives of the children.  Still in the throes of the 17^th century Enlightenment, the owners of the factories and the intellectual elite of the town preach a strict adherence to FACT and REASON.  “The Good
Samaritan was a poor economist,” they say.  “Jesus should have calculated the mathematical probability of being crucified,” they nod wryly.

In other words, there is no mystery in life, nothing sacred to our existence, no ocean teeming with fish waiting for us to lower our nets on the other side.  Jesus would have flunked The Enlightenment.

Isaiah, writing 700 years before Christ, tells of entering the Temple and seeing the Lord on a throne, and angels placing hot coals on Isaiah’s lips that he may be worthy to speak of such things.  He would have flunked The Enlightenment too.

As Paul relates in today’s second reading from I Corinthians 15, (the earliest account ever written on the resurrection, preceding even Mark’s gospel), Jesus appeared to many hundreds of people after the resurrection.  Those eyewitnesses went out to the ends of the earth, filled with the Holy Spirit, preaching the Risen Lord.  They would all have flunked The Enlightenment.

Oh Lord, I want to be in that number.

In what ways do you see mystery at work in the world?

What would YOU like to say about this question, or today’s readings, or any of the columns from the past year? The sacred conversations are setting a Pentecost fire! Register here today and join the conversation.

I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on I Corinthians 12:31-13:13

When I drift off to sleep at night I try to recall all the radical love that came in my direction that day.  It washes over me like a delicious warm ocean wave, and like the ocean it rocks me gently to sleep.

There’s something about love.  We might not be able to define it, but we sure know it when we get it.  And bringing it to mind makes it “really present” all over again.

And then this thought occurs to me:  Since God is love, might it be that the only thing God CANNOT do is withhold love?  Maybe God is restricted in only one thing: God can’t stop loving us, madly, unconditionally, eternally.

At a rosary for a friend’s dad the other night the deacon read from the Rites, “God takes all of our good works with us to heaven.”  Those tiny good works that we’ve forgotten minutes after we offered them?  It turns out God has remembered every single one of them and has them stored up for us to take into eternity.

That image brings to mind the proud parent who has kept all our pictures, and trophies, and—yikes!—even our report cards, and somehow sees a beautiful, brilliant athlete/scholar there, despite all evidence to the contrary.

It’s a delicious circle.  God is LOVE, and because love never fails, God’s love keeps circling around us in an eternal loop of patience and kindness, never brooding over our sins or rejoicing over our wrongdoing.

Huh.  So THAT’S why God takes our good works to heaven with us.  Loving others creates the perfect joy that is the DNA of eternity.  Or, as Victor Hugo wrote so beautifully in Les Miserables, “To love another person is the see the face of God.”

In what ways have you experienced, by giving or receiving, the kind of love in I Corinthians 12:31-13:13?

This column was inspired by the recent deaths of four beloved Christians, each of whom loved so magnificently that it’s wonderful to imagine heaven bursting at the seams as they entered it, so much love did they bring with them.  Wayne Hendrix, Angela DiMartini, Jimmy McNamee, and Wayne Easley have each gone home to God in the past two weeks.  Watch for miracles.

What would YOU like to say about this question, or today’s readings, or any of the columns from the past year? The sacred conversations are setting a Pentecost fire! Register here today and join the conversation.

I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).