The Good and The Bad at the Table of the Lord

On Sunday’s celebration of Corpus Christi, I was struck by a line in the Lauda Sion sequence recited at Mass:  “Bad and good the feast are sharing.”

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how God seems to have a preference for imperfect people.  Read a few pages of Scripture and you discover a murderer was the greatest prophet of the Old Testament (Moses), and one who was at least complicit in murder was the greatest missionary of the New Testament (Paul).  King David was an adulterer but also a man after God’s own heart.  Peter betrayed his best friend and his Lord but in the eyes of that same Lord, he was a Rock.

Bad and good this feast are sharing – this Eucharistic feast, this feast of life, feast of divine love that seeps in and around us.  If we had to be “good” before we could come to the feast, what would be the point?  It is this feast that heals the bad in all of us. 

When it comes to human beings, God prefers transformation to perfection.  This is what his friendship and his table are all about.

“Very bread, good shepherd, tend us,
Jesus, of your love befriend us,
You refresh us, you defend us,
Your eternal goodness send us
In the land of life to see.”

— Lauda Sion Sequence, Corpus Christi

The Table by Julie Delton.  Originally published on the cover of The Christian Century magazine and published here with permission.  Click on the image for more of Julie's artwork (www.juliedelton.weebly.com).

Friends

“What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth.  They share it.”

 -- C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)

Our Forest Is Burning

This week I would like to publish another poem by Scott Eagan, farmer and poet in residence at Madonna House, Combermere, Ontario, the community of prayer and service established by Servant of God Catherine Doherty.  His poem “Dry Lightning” was inspired by the recent Canadian wildfires, but as I’m sure you will see, the poem resonates with the fires that rage within.

“DRY LIGHTNING

The air is charged
overfull with heat and smoke and ash
our forest is burning
beast of a wildfire bearing down
torching the houses, the place where we live
we can only pray for rain.

Try as we may, no tears
it is all consuming, nothing left unscorched
flashes from heaven to earth
and from earth to heaven explode as they meet
thunder rolls round the heart
we watch, we wait, we run
while the flames rage in their course
and inside us, the rains pour.

©2016 Scott Eagan”

A Prayer for Mothers

This year, Mother’s Day and Pentecost Sunday are just a week apart.  Here’s a prayer to the Holy Spirit that you can say for your mom.  You could even say it for nine days and give her the gift of a novena!  (If you don’t remember what a novena is, ask your mom!)  If your mom has entered eternal life, you can still pray it – she may not need the prayers, but the love you offer by saying it is not without value! 

I based this prayer on St. Paul’s description of the fruit of the Spirit:  “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23).

Come, Holy Spirit, pour into the heart of my mother the fullness of your life.  Breathe into her your Spirit of love, enliven her with your joy, comfort her with your peace, impart to her your patience, and wrap her in your kindness.  May she grow in your generosity, abide in your faithfulness and be renewed every day by your gentleness.  Fill every emptiness in her heart and in her life with the power of your presence and the quiet of your healing love.  As a mother bonds with her child, may my mother be bound to you in the depths of God’s own heart, O Spirit of wisdom, Spirit of love, Spirit of Jesus, Spirit of joy.  Amen.

Mary Cassatt, The Banjo Lesson, 1893

Walk the Walk

“Whoever says, ‘I abide in him,’ ought to walk just as he walked.”

-- 1 Jn. 2:6

Rembrandt's Head of Christ (1648)