Give Jesus all for He has loved us & gave all His Body & Blood and set the Eucharist us
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus offers himself as food for the soul. There is a great truth revealed in the bread of life discourse: it is the law of the gift. This personal, incarnating God wants to be eaten and drunk, to be radically and fully for the other.
Why were the gods of the ancient world so popular? Because they were projections of ourselves—vain, arrogant, resentful, violent. This means that they put little moral pressure on us. They were frightening but not morally demanding.
But this God who shows that he is totally love, and who wants us to eat and drink him, is the God who wants us to be like him. As he is food and drink for the world, so we must be food and drink for the world. As he gave himself away utterly, so we must give ourselves away utterly.
We’re not to cling to the goods, honors, and values of the world—all those things that aggrandize the ego—but rather give ourselves away. That’s what we learn from the God of the gift.
You have to choose to be loving. You have to deliberately, consciously, intentionally choose to stay connected through your practice to the Source of Love, which is the heart of God.
believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
(1Cor.13:7 NASB) 3/19/2016 & 2/22/2017 Mercy Center (Richard Rohr’s Meditation)
This love—whose source is God’s very self—is an open-heartedness. You can tell when you’re in that space, and once you get it, you’re not satisfied with anything less. When you’re in that open-hearted space, your energy flows out. When you’re not in that space, your energy sucks inward. It’s all about who did me wrong and why I don’t like “those people”. Any time you fee like you deserve something, it’s an indication you may be hoarding love rather than letting it come and go freely.
True spirituality is about keeping your heart space open. It is daily, constant work. The temptation is to close down: to judge and dismiss and hate and fear. If you don’t have some spiritual practice that keeps your heart open, even in the midst of suffering and “hell”, it’s easy to end up grumpy and filled with fear and negativity. You have to work to live in love, to have a generosity of spirit, a readiness to smile, a willingness to serve.
Regularly check in with yourself, asking, “Is my heart open? Is love flowing from me? Or am I constricted?” For some reason, much of our American culture seems to have been sucked into a world of un-love, just the opposite of what Paul is describing in 1 Corinthians Chapter 13. We seem prone to feeling entitled and to blaming and projecting our negativity on others. Never has there been a people on this earth who have so much; yet we complain about how little we have!
We live some of the easiest lives of anyone in history or in the present, but still it isn’t enough. It’s as if we’ve been blinded by an illusion, or delusion, of scarcity. But love is all about abundance! We need an awakening like Paul’s conversion experience where the scales fell from his eyes and he was finally able to see the Really Real.
A consistent, chosen spiritual practice like contemplation gradually allow such an awakening. By daily practicing “a long, loving look at the real,” sooner or later, you fall into the Real, into Love; and then you live your life from that Source. And this Source is infinite. Once you plug into Love and stay connected, you’ll find the energy always flows out; it’s never sucking in. Living in God’s abundance—in this diffusive, excessive, infinite Love—you find you always have plenty to share.
As we journey through the year
No matter what it holds,
There will be a light to lead us
as each week unfolds.
Through the wonder of the seasons
And the beauty too,
God will always walk beside us
Guiding all we do.
In the springtime and the winter
As we travel on our way,
God will plant new hope within us
Growing day by day.
The little things we pass up daily,
the challenges we refuse for fear of failing,
the loves we take for granted and so ignore,
the moments we forego for the sake of money or work or power
are all the shards of a life never lived.
It is one thing to be given life by God.
It is another thing to live in a way that is a tribute to the possible of life.
Let the life in you radiate today.
It doesn't matter if you don't feel like doing that.
What matters is that there is someone whose life you will touch today
who needs the energy and wisdom that is in you.
Joan Chittister, OSB
Some seem to be born with a nearly completed puzzle.
And so it goes.
Souls going this way and that
Trying to assemble the myriad parts.
But know this; No one has within themselves
All the pieces to their puzzle
Like before the days when they used to seal
Jigsaw puzzles in cellophane.
Insuring that all the pieces were there.
Everyone carries with them at least one and probably
Many pieces to someone else’s puzzle.
Sometimes they know it. Sometimes they don’t.
And when you present your piece
Which is worthless to you,
To another, whether you know it or now,
Whether they know it or now,
You are a messenger from the Most High
Lawrence Kushner in Honey from the Rock
Once when I was going through a difficult time, my husband touched his finger to the tears winding down my face, then, touched his wet finger to his own cheek. His gesture spoke volumes to me. It said: “Your tears run down my face too. Your suffering aches inside my heart as well. I share your wounded place.”
Sue Monk Kidd in Communion, Community, Commonwealth
A friend is one to whom on my pour out all the contents of one’s heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.
Arabian Proverb
It is possible to take our closest relationships and our best friends for granted. The heart cannot live without intimacy. We all need special people in our lives to whom we can show our souls. But relationships need to be nurtured, nourished, and celebrated. Friendships won’t last without food. How do you feed your friendships?
Macrina Wiederkehr in A Tree Full of Angels.
Jesus, you are filled with love for me just as you were for the rich young man who came to you. I, too, have riches, a wealth of love within me, that is meant to be shared. I yearn to love as you have loved. Jesus, you told a powerful story of a person who stopped on a risky road to care for someone’s wounds. Help me to stop at the unpleasant places in my like, to be present to those who need a touch of love. Help me to be less fearful of reaching out and walking with others who need a gesture of kindness and care. Jesus, you love your own, loved them to the end. You bent before them, smelled their dirty feet, and washed them tenderly. You then asked them to share that same great love with others. I am called to share my gifts with those who are a part of my life. I am called to be generous and humble with the deeds I do. Jesus, you called your disciples friends You recognized the great blessing they were for you on your journey. Thank you for the gift of my significant persons, for the privilege of walking through life with them. Remind me often of the strength and courage these loved ones give to me. May the joy I experience through them radiate love in my life to all who know me. Adapted from OUT OF THE ORDINAY, Joyce Rupp, @2000, Ave Maria Press. All rights reserved.
Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen.
Life is a thing of many stages and moving parts.
What we do with ease at one time of life we can hardly manage at another. What we could not fathom doing when we were young, we find great joy in when we are old.
Like the seasons through which we move, life itself is a never ending series of harvests, a different fruit for every time.
The skill of life, of course, lies in harvesting well and harvesting always, in taking the best that life has to give at any stage, in being patient with ourselves along our way.
The Sufi tell a story about what happens when we force things:
Once upon a time, the story goes, a seeker found a cocoon resting quietly. Intent on seeing the butterfly within, the seeker held the cocoon in loving hands, breathed warm breath upon it and watched with excitement as the butterfly emerged.
But hardly had the newly hatched beauty spread its wings then it died.
"Why did my butterfly die?" the seeker asked the Holy One.
"To teach you a lesson," the Holy One said.
"Everything can be born in due time; nothing can be rushed."
The secret of life is to let every segment of it produce its own yield at its own pace. Every period has something new to teach us: The harvest of youth is achievement; the harvest of middle age is perspective; the harvest of age is wisdom; the harvest of life is serenity.
The Rule of Benedict tells us to do all things with counsel, to learn from those around us who have gone the way before us, to ask the opinion of the entire community when making major decisions.
Those are all good lessons.
They can save us from ourselves. They can stop us from forcing butterflies before their time. They can make the harvest full.
--from A Monastery Almanac by Joan Chittister
I want to tend to my heart. Which means that there is a place I will choose to visit from time to time; a place called Enough. You know, that place where the heart finally slows, where gratitude spills, where we can touch the roots of inner wisdom (a taproot some call the soul), where we are not afraid or adversarial, where we do not need to shy away from sorrow or disappointment, where grace is alive.
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