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Daily Scripture

+ 4th Week in Ordinary Time

Everyone needs a bit of ‘pocket time’

Readings: 1 Kings 3:4-13 Psalm 119:9-14 Mark 6:30-34

The apostles rejoined Jesus and told him all they had done and taught. Then he said to them, “You must come away to some lonely place all by ourselves and rest for a while.” [Mark 6:30]

The notion of Sabbath rest is rooted in the third of the Ten Commandments, “Keep holy the Lord’s day.” For Christians, Sunday is our Sabbath because it was the day on which the Lord rose from the dead. Holiness is the state of being whole, i.e., fully integrated, mind, soul and body. It is the acknowledgment of God as the ground of our being.

In truth, God doesn’t need the Sabbath; we do!

However, I am of the mind that we need to build into our daily routine, a mini-Sabbath or two. I call it ‘pocket time’ or time out from the pressure of our daily schedule. Some folks call it down time.

Of course, there are different strokes for different folks. A good power walk also can be a great opportunity for conversation with God. It’s an easy script. God talks and I listen.

All of us, married or single and whatever our call and career need pocket time every day and in that way we learn to live in the present moment. As my cousin frequently reminds me, “Yesterday is a cancelled check; tomorrow may never come; the present is a gift.” How true. I’m still a neophyte.

Feast of Mary Mother of God

Friday December 31, 2010

Where do we go from here?

Readings: Numbers 6:22-27 Psalm 67 Galatians 4:4-7 Luke 2:16-21

May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you! May God bless us, and may all the ends of the earth reverence God! [Psalm 67:5-6]

At the ‘sign of peace’ at Mass, I invite the congregation to “extend to one another and to the world through one another, some sign of peace and blessing.” I don’t recall what occasioned that phraseology but I believe it makes a great deal of sense. Our weekly or daily participation at Eucharist is a privilege that is not just for our own spiritual wellbeing. We participate in order to be sent forth. The word “Mass” is rooted in the old Latin words sending forth the congregants back into the world: “Ite, missa est.” Go, be sent…”

On this first day of 2010, we honor Mary as the Mother of God. Strange title, for sure. How can Mary be the Mother of the infinite God who exists from all eternity? It is a title based on theological reasoning that if Mary was the mother of Jesus and Jesus was the Son of God, then Mary must also be the Mother of God.

Why not honor Joseph as ‘foster father of God?’ After all, it was through Joseph that Jesus was born “in the line of David.”

And if Paul’s letter to the Galatians be theologically sound, then as ‘coheirs’ with Christ, we must also be sons and daughters of God. Awesome thought, isn’t it?

But today is also New Years Day and the readings are also appropriate for new beginnings. I like new beginnings because they provide an opportunity to put the past to rest.

Today I will clean my refrigerator and cabinet and dispose of ‘junk foods’ that have accumulated over the holidays, scan the closets, bookshelves and storage areas of my apartment and dispose of items that have outlived their usefulness. It’s a therapeutic exercise, to be sure but with spiritual ramifications.

Would that we could scan the globe and cast away words of hate, weapons of war and engage one another—person-to-person, nation-to-nation, religion-to-religion—in a dialogue that would lead to a new truth that all might accept. God is truth!