THE FRIEND -- Daily Images of God--Lent 2022 Day 30 March 31

 

 

Daily Images of God--Lent 2022

Day 30

March 31

THE FRIEND

 

This is my commandment: love each other as I love you. There is no greater love than laying down your life for your friends. If you follow this commandment, you are indeed my friends. “Slaves” is what you once were called, but I can’t use that word for you. Slaves know nothing of what their master is up to. Isn’t it obvious you are my friends? I have hidden nothing from you of what my Father has confided to me! (John 15:12-15, TAB)

THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING -- Daily Images of God--Lent 2022 Day 29 March 30

Daily Images of God--Lent 2022

Day 29

March 30

THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING 

 

The anonymous 14th-century author of “The Cloud of Unknowing” says that the fathomless mystery of God cannot be objectified and reduced to something we can talk or even think about. God can be perceived and felt only in relationship, only in contemplation of loving presence and beauty.

“God can be loved, but not thought.” –St. John of the Cross 

 

“No matter how sacred, no thought can ever promise to help you in the work of contemplative prayer, because only love—not knowledge—can help us reach God… When we reach the end of what we know, that’s where we find God. That’s why St. Dionysius said that the best, most divine knowledge of God is that which is known by not-knowing.” -Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM

 

“Whoever says 'You' does not have something; he has nothing. But he stands in relation.” ― Martin Buber, I and Thou 

 

“One of the religious scholars, when he came forward and heard them disputing and saw how well Jesus had answered them, asked him, “Which commandment is the first among all ?” Jesus replied, “The first is this: ‘Hear, O Isra’el! The Noble One is our God; the Noble One alone! You shall love the Noble One your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength’” (Mark 12:28-30, The Ashland Bible). Note: Jesus did NOT say “you shall subscribe to the proposition that God exists,” or “you shall hold correct opinions about God.” Rather, Jesus said, “you shall LOVE God.” When he did speak of God, it was in relational terms, words like “Abba” (“Papa”).

YEARNING -- Daily Images of God--Lent 2022 Day 28 March 29

 

Daily Images of God--Lent 2022

Day 28

March 29

YEARNING

 

God is yearning, and we are in God’s image. 

 

When Jesus, back from the dead, appears to his friends, he asks them if they have something for him to eat (Luke 24:41). After the torments of the cross, death, and the harrowing of hell itself, Jesus is hungry! Physical hunger here is a touchstone for what it is to be fully human and alive; Luke includes the detail as evidence that the risen Jesus was not some ethereal ghost, but truly alive.

To be human is to hunger. To be human is to yearn. 

 

We are hungry creatures. St. Augustine, in his Confessions, writes of a need in the heart of every human being. Addressing God in prayer, he says, “For you created us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until we find our rest in you.” In this view, all our hungers are rooted in a single hunger of the creature for creator, a hunger only the creator can satisfy. There is an empty hole in the middle of each human heart, and that hole has the shape of God. 

 

This most basic and important need, according to traditional Christian teaching, can be satisfied only by the enjoyment of the presence of God made known to us, whether in the end time, or in glimpses through God’s indwelling spirit here and now. In sacramental theology, it is re-presented by bread and wine. In most of our day-to-day lives, it is manifested by an urge to have close personal connection, love, with others. In talk about final things, it is the souls of the blessed simply viewing, taking in, the presence of God. 

 

This beatific vision is the Christian doctrine analogous to Buddhist enlightenment and nirvana. It is the Christian doctrine closest to the idea of gratifying desire in secular hedonism. But in Buddhism, enlightenment comes through abandonment of all attachments and eradication the feeling of any need, through the negation of what it seems to mean to be human. And in hedonism, the sating of desire means its end, at least for the moment. (Don’t take that as a recommendation to follow Oscar Wilde’s bon mot about giving in to temptation as the quickest way to end it!) But in Christianity, the conscious enjoyment of God’s beauty satisfies all want, fills every need, even while it stimulates ever-intensifying desire. The presence of God both satisfies our hunger while it stimulates our appetite.

 

The idea is expressed well in a line in one of my favorite hymns: 

 

"Joy and triumph everlasting

Hath the heav’nly Church on high;

For that pure immortal gladness

All our feast days mourn and sigh.

... There the body hath no torment,

There the mind is free from care,

There is every voice rejoicing,

Every heart is loving there.

Angels in that city dwell;

Them their King delighteth well:

Still they joy and weary never,

More and more desiring ever."

 

“Do you have anything to eat?” Hungry Jesus asks for food, and invites his followers to share bread with him, be his “companions.” Jesus is hungry for us to share with him. God yearns for us. Creator seeks creature just as we creatures have a yearning for God.

 

The great neo-Platonist theologian known to tradition as Dionysius the Areopagite, the proto-mystic of the church who inspired the desert fathers and mothers and the Benedictines later on, in his writing On the Names of God, at one point gives God the name, “Yearning.”

 

Italian mystic Bianco da Siena put it this way:

 

"Come down, O love divine, seek Thou this soul of mine,

And visit it with Thine own ardor glowing.

O Comforter, draw near, within my heart appear,

And kindle it, Thy holy flame bestowing.

O let it freely burn, ‘til earthly passions turn

To dust and ashes in its heat consuming;

And let Thy glorious light shine ever on my sight,

And clothe me round, the while my path illuming. …

And so the yearning strong, with which the soul will long,

Shall far outpass the power of human telling;

For none can guess its grace, till he become the place

Wherein the Holy Spirit makes His dwelling."

 

God is yearning, and we are in God’s image. 

 

Image: Supper at Emmaus, Carravagio.

THE PRISONER IN THE CELL NEXT DOOR -- Daily Images of God--Lent 2022 Day 27 March 28

 

Daily Images of God--Lent 2022

Day 27

March 28

THE PRISONER IN THE CELL NEXT DOOR 

 

In Gravity and Grace, Simone Weil tells the story of two prisoners in solitary confinement whose cells are next to each other. A stone wall separates them and they never have seen the other. But over years, they discover each other’s existence and learn to communicate using taps and scratches. The very wall that separates them is their sole means of communicating. “It is the same with us and God,” she says. “Every separation is a link.”

LADY WISDOM -- Daily Images of God--Lent 2022 Day 26 March 27

 

Daily Images of God--Lent 2022

Day 26

March 27

LADY WISDOM 

 

“Does not Wisdom call,

and Understanding raise her voice? …

“To you, O people, I call;

my appeal is to you mortals.

You naive ones, gain prudence,

you fools, gain sense.

Listen! for noble things I speak;

my lips proclaim honest words.

Indeed, my mouth utters truth,

and my lips abhor wickedness.

All the words of my mouth are sincere,

none of them wily or crooked;

All of them are straightforward to the intelligent,

and right to those who attain knowledge.

Take my instruction instead of silver,

and knowledge rather than choice gold…

Pride, arrogance, the evil way,

and the perverse mouth I hate.

14Mine are counsel and advice;

Mine is strength; I am understanding

By me kings reign,

and rulers enact justice;

By me princes govern,

and nobles, all the judges of the earth.

Those who love me I also love,

and those who seek me find me.

With me are riches and honor,

wealth that endures, and righteousness.

My fruit is better than gold, even pure gold,

and my yield than choice silver.

On the way of righteousness I walk,

along the paths of justice,

Granting wealth to those who love me,

and filling their treasuries.

The LORD begot me, the beginning of his works,

the forerunner of his deeds of long ago;

From of old I was formed,

at the first, before the earth.

When there were no deeps I was brought forth,

when there were no fountains or springs of water;

Before the mountains were settled into place,

before the hills, I was brought forth;

When the earth and the fields were not yet made,

nor the first clods of the world.

When he established the heavens, there was I,

when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep;

When he made firm the skies above,

when he fixed fast the springs of the deep;

When he set for the sea its limit,

so that the waters should not transgress his command;

When he fixed the foundations of earth,

then was I beside him as artisan;

I was his delight day by day,

playing before him all the while,

Playing over the whole of his earth,

having my delight with human beings.

Now, children, listen to me;

happy are they who keep my ways.

Listen to instruction and grow wise,

do not reject it!

Happy the one who listens to me,

attending daily at my gates,

keeping watch at my doorposts;

For whoever finds me finds life,

and wins favor from the LORD;

But those who pass me by do violence to themselves;

all who hate me love death.” (Prov 8:1-36) 

 

Image, Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.

THE ALL-NURTURER -- Daily Images of God--Lent 2022 Day 25 March 26

 

Daily Images of God--Lent 2022

Day 25

March 26

THE ALL-NURTURER 

 

“And Jacob said to Joseph, “El Shaddai appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and He blessed me, and said to me, ‘I will make you fertile and numerous…’ And Shaddai who blesses you…blessings of the breast and womb.” Genesis 48:3-4; 49:25

 

“God also spoke to Moses and said to him: ‘I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them by my name Yahweh.” Exodus 6:3

 

One of the most ancient ways of referring to God in the Hebrew Scriptures is El Shaddai (אֵל שַׁדַּי), or just Shaddai. El means “God” or “El,” the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite pantheon. El Shaddai is often translated as “God Almighty” from how it shows up in the Latin Vulgate, Deus Omnipotens, understanding Shaddai as a form of the Semitic root sh-d-d (שדד) “to overpower, destroy, make desolate” and seeing God as something like Shiva the Destroyer in the Hindu pantheon. But El Shaddai occurs often in passages removed from martial imagery that speak of fertility and care of one’s offspring. A more likely reading sees Shaddai as coming from the two-letter Semitic root sh-d (שד) “mound, breast.” Hebrew, in addition to having a singular (for one) and plural (for many) form of a noun, also has a dual form (for two) that doubles the second letter of a two-letter root. Shaddai as a dual thus means “of the two mounds.” Though perhaps a local designation (El of the Two Mountains) from the Northern Mesopotamia from where Abram came, many scholars now agree that this very ancient nomen divinum probably goes back as far as the late stone age, when most of Europe and the Middle East shared a matriarchal cult of the Mother Goddess, known to us most graphically in the Venus of Willendorf. 

 

In its earliest form, El Shaddai meant God of the Two Breasts or The God who Suckles, i.e., The Nurturer. Male sky gods from the middle of the Eurasian continent would later come to dominate religion in the area; this included Hebrew worship of Yahweh. In Iron Age Palestine, the two breasted god was often seen as a consort or perhaps female avatar of El, Baal, or even Yahweh, going by the name Asherah. As Yahwism grew and became more monotheistic, the cult of Asherah was suppressed.

 

El Shaddai as a very ancient way of talking about God persisted through all this. It is probably best understood as “God the All Nurturing One,” not “God the Almighty.” The idea is not that God has the power to do anything, but rather that there is no situation, no matter how bad, where God cannot help and sustain us. The Greek equivalent, Θεός Παντοκράτωρ (theos pantokratōr), thus would be a combination of παντός pantos “all” not with κράτος kratos “strength/might,” but rather with κρατεῖν kratein “hold/ sustain.” 

 

Image: A Judean pillar figurine found in Lachish, Israel (modern Tell ed-Duweir) dating from the 8th-7th century BCE (Iron Age II), ceramic, 18.1 cm x 8.6 cm. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

THE ONE WHO WAITS FOR US -- DAILY IMAGES OF GOD-- LENT 2022 DAY 24 March 25

 

DAILY IMAGES OF GOD-- LENT 2022

DAY 24

March 25

 

THE ONE WHO WAITS FOR US 

 

Annunciation. -- Denise Levertov

 

We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,

almost always a lectern, a book; always

the tall lily.

Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,

the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,

whom she acknowledges, a guest.

But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions

courage.

The engendering Spirit

did not enter her without consent.

God waited.

She was free

to accept or to refuse, choice

integral to humanness.

____________________

Aren’t there annunciations

of one sort or another

in most lives?

Some unwillingly

undertake great destinies,

enact them in sullen pride,

uncomprehending.

More often

those moments

when roads of light and storm

open from darkness in a man or woman,

are turned away from

in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair

and with relief.

Ordinary lives continue.

God does not smite them.

But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.

____________________

She had been a child who played, ate, slept

like any other child–but unlike others,

wept only for pity, laughed

in joy not triumph.

Compassion and intelligence

fused in her, indivisible.

Called to a destiny more momentous

than any in all of Time,

she did not quail,

only asked

a simple, ‘How can this be?’

and gravely, courteously,

took to heart the angel’s reply,

the astounding ministry she was offered:

to bear in her womb

Infinite weight and lightness; to carry

in hidden, finite inwardness,

nine months of Eternity; to contain

in slender vase of being,

the sum of power–

in narrow flesh,

the sum of light.

Then bring to birth,

push out into air, a Man-child

needing, like any other,

milk and love–

but who was God.

This was the moment no one speaks of,

when she could still refuse.

A breath unbreathed,

Spirit,

suspended,

waiting.

____________________

She did not cry, ‘I cannot. I am not worthy,’

Nor, ‘I have not the strength.’

She did not submit with gritted teeth,

raging, coerced.

Bravest of all humans,

consent illumined her.

The room filled with its light,

the lily glowed in it,

and the iridescent wings.

Consent,

courage unparalleled,

opened her utterly.

 

Denise Levertov, daughter of an Anglican priest who had been raised a Hassidic Jew, was a poet and professor of English, anti-war and feminist political activist, and editor who before she died in 1997 had published 24 volumes of poetry and about 25 volumes of prose, translations, and anthologies. She said that “poetry is a form of prayer.” In 1984 Levertov converted to Christianity at the age of sixty. After moving to Seattle in 1989, she was received as a Roman Catholic. Her most remembered image for God is as a mountain, sometimes covered with clouds but all the same there, immense and immoveable. In her poem on the Annunciation, Levertov says that God sends messengers to us, but always waits for us to decide how to respond. Today, March 25, is the Feast of the Annunciation, nine months before Christmas Day.

Image: The Annunciation, Jan Van Eyck

THE HOST -- Daily Images of God--Lent 2022 Day 23 March 24

 

Daily Images of God--Lent 2022

Day 23

March 24

THE HOST

 

Love (III)

By George Herbert 

 

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back

Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,

If I lacked any thing.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here

Love said, You shall be he.

I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,

I cannot look on thee.

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame

Go where it doth deserve.

And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?

My dear, then I will serve.

You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:

So I did sit and eat.

THE LIBERATOR -- Daily Images of God--Lent 2022 Day 22 March 23

Daily Images of God--Lent 2022

Day 22

March 23

THE LIBERATOR 

 

“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

--John 14:6 

 

“You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free.”

--John 8:32 

 

Image--Jesus Christ: Liberator, an icon written by R. Lentz

THE BRIGHT ABYSS -- Daily Images of God--Lent 2022 Day 21 March 22

 

Daily Images of God--Lent 2022

Day 21

March 22

THE BRIGHT ABYSS

 

“My God my bright abyss

Into which all my longing will not go

Once more I come to the edge of all I know

And believing nothing I believe in this.” 

                   --Christian Wiman

 

Image: Thailand Lantern Festival

THE HEART -- Daily Images of God--Lent 2022 Day 20 March 21

Daily Images of God--Lent 2022

Day 20

March 21

 

THE HEART 

 

"I looked for God. I went to a temple and I didn't find him there. Then I went to a church and I didn't find him there. The I went to a mosque and I didn't find him there. Then finally I looked in my heart and there he was".

--- Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī

Ambiguous but Obvious (Lent 3C)

 

Ambiguous but Obvious

 

Lent 3C
20 March 2022 10 a.m. Said Eucharist

The Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

Mission Church of the Holy Spirit, Sutherlin (Oregon)

Exodus 3:1-15; Psalm 63:1-8; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9

 

 God, give us grace to feel and love. 

Take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

 

The unjust death of people at prayer is a shocking and horrible thing: the racist murder of black Christians at Mother Emmanuel Church Charleston SC in 2015, the anti-Semitic murder of Jews in a Pittsburgh Synagogue in 2018, the murder of Muslims in 2019 at Friday prayers in Christchurch New Zealand, the churches bombed in Ukraine in the last two weeks with civilian casualties inside them.  Probably the worst in history was not a murder, but a natural disaster that philosophers have since dubbed the start of the post “death of God” modern era: 40,000 people dead in the 1755 All Saints Day earthquake, many of them crushed when the Lisbon Cathedral collapsed on them as they worshipped.  Death is horrible, unexpected death at prayer doubly so.   

 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is asked about people at worship who die horribly.  “Did you hear that the Romans massacred those Galileans—countrymen of yours!—who  were worshiping in the Temple?  Their own blood was mixed with that of the animals they were sacrificing!  What spectacular evil did they commit for God to punish them this horrible way?” 

 

When faced with unexplainable horror, people often resort to the trope “God is punishing me” or “God is punishing them.”  Back in Spring 2010 a devastating earthquake struck Haiti.  Television Evangelist Pat Robertson quickly said that this was God’s punishment for the traditional animism practiced by many of its people, Voodoo.   Jerry Falwell blamed the 9-11 attacks in 2001 on homosexuals and women who sought abortions:  God was punishing America by knocking down the symbols of our pride, the Trade center and the Pentagon.    

 

But as much as such thinking may appear to explain the unexplainable, it leaves us with an ugly image:  God the Petulant, God the Punisher.  Not a pretty picture.

 

This question posed to Jesus has hefty scriptural authority behind it. The Book of Deuteronomy and all the books from Joshua through 2 Kings teach that if you do what is right, God will bless you and prosper your way.  If you do what is wrong, God will punish you and bring calamity upon you.   1-2 Chronicles take the idea further: if something bad happens to you, you clearly have done something wrong,  God is punishing you.”

 

But Jesus says no—God is not like that.   He replies:  “Those people did nothing any worse than anyone else.  And what about those Judeans—countrymen of yours, I think—who died in the Tower of Siloam when it collapsed?  They were no worse than anyone else.  The lesson we should take here is not that they were particularly bad, but that we all need to be better” (Luke 13:1-5).  

 

Jesus says that God is mystery, hard sometimes to figure out. But despite this ambiguity in God, there is certainty also:  the one thing we can be sure about is that God is compassionate. 

 

Jesus too is following scripture in this view.

 

The Book of Job tells of a man “perfect in all his ways,” yet who suffers horror.  Job’s friends urge him to confess whatever hidden sin he has committed that God is so obviously punishing him for.  But Job just can’t agree: what he has suffered just is not fair.  He won’t let God off the hook.  But he does not “curse God and die.”  When God at long last speaks to him from “out of the whirlwind,” it is all so overwhelming that all Job can do is mourn and sorrow, and yet bless God for his mysterious goodness.  

 

Mystery.  Ambiguity.  In today’s reading from Exodus, God is the one who is and brings all into being, the “I am” (Ehyeh) who “brings into being” (Yahweh).   God remains always somewhat hidden from us, speaking from a bush that burns, yet is not consumed.   The God whose name should not be said aloud is being itself that brings all things into existence.   This should cause us to stand in awe, and remove the shoes from our feet. 

 

Jesus says that you can’t explain the bad things in the world by chalking them up to God the Punisher.   Jesus invites us instead to keep confidence in God’s love, and embrace mystery.  He knows that throughout Hebrew Scripture, God is described as loving, compassionate, and patient. So you have to focus on God’s goodness and love, not on God’s justice, or, worse, what feels like God’s anger when you are not right with God.  Bad things happen even to good people.  Sometimes, the wicked prosper.  But God still loves us.  God is Ambiguous as an explanation, but Obvious as love.  Embrace that ambiguity by accepting that certainty.  Take off your shoes before the burning but unconsumed bush.  And keep your confidence in the love of God, despite things that go bad for those who do not deserve it. 

 

Accepting ambiguity is hard.  But it is easier when we focus on the things we are sure of.  Thus we can keep trying to be faithful to the tradition, continue to learn from the stories that have been handed down, and actually find them newly empowered to help us see good in life, more than we can ask or imagine.  Again, the key is focusing on what we truly know, not on how our expectations of what is fair have been crushed. 

 

The gospel stories of Jesus healing the sick tell us that the ultimate purpose of God does not include disease, suffering, and death. Jesus’ announcing the reign of God focused in large part in healing physical and mental suffering. This tells us that God doesn’t intend horror and disappointment for those he has made. 

 

When asked why a man had been born blind, “was it his parents’ sin or his?” he replied, “Neither, it wasn’t punishment for anything, but so that I would have the chance to heal him” (John 9:2-3).  They ask him why, on account of what, and he answers why, for what purpose.   Jesus’ shift between the two different kinds of ‘why’ is essential.   It forces us to turn away from the fruitless questioning of mystery that makes us lose sight of God’s love and instead look for opportunities to serve and help bring the ultimate loving intentions of God closer to what we see before us. 

 

The basic act of removing our shoes before the Holy is necessary if we are to keep faith and hope.  Embracing mystery means learning to live with uncertainty and ambiguity in an ongoing act of creativity and imagination, and doing so not reluctantly or because we are forced to by facts, but joyfully.  Incarnational acts showing God’s love to those in need and humble prayer that listens to God more than it asks of God—all these are the basic practices of faith in the face of ambiguity.   

 

After the Indonesian tsunami of 2004, Greek Orthodox theologian and Bible Translator David Hart wrote: “As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child, I do not see the face of God but the face of his enemy.”  William Pike, writing on the Haiti earthquake, said that he had been reminded of the story of Elijah’s flight to Mount Horeb in 1 Kings 19, where God spoke to Elijah not out of an earthquake, whirlwind, or fire, but out of the whispering of the still breeze.  Against Pat Robertson’s God the Punisher, Pike remembers the text’s words, “The Lord was not in the earthquake.” 

 

As Mister Rogers used to say, when faced with bad things in the world, always look for the helpers.  They show God’s intention and meaning better than the bad stuff itself.    And when it comes to trying to see God at work in the world about us, the popular internet meme says it well:  Don’t interpret love in light of scripture, but rather, interpret scripture in the light of love. 

 

Jesus showed us God. God is love. God is forgiveness.   A prayer Book Collect (p. 831) says it all: “O merciful Father, you have taught us in your holy Word that you do not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men:  Look with pity upon the sorrows of [us] your servant[s]… Remember [us] O Lord in mercy, nourish [our] soul with patience, (and notice this especially!)  comfort [us] with a sense of your goodness.  Lift up your countenance upon [us] and give [us] peace.”

God is a healer, not a punisher.  And so we too must be healers, helpers.   Not backseat drivers, or Monday morning quarterbacks ready to dish out blame by gladly trumpeting ugly pictures of God.   This is why we must, with Jesus, focus on the “for what purpose” why rather than the “on what account” why.  In this season of Lent, this means we look at our failings not so we can explain them away or beat ourselves up with them, but rather see them as occasions for seeking amendment of life. 

God indeed is not in the earthquake, not in the horror.  He is not in towers falling, massacres of people in places of worship, or sickness and suffering. These things show us how far the world is from God's intention, not God’s will.   Rather, God is in the efforts of people trying to help the victims of such things.  He, or should I say She, is a nurturer.  She is in reconciliation and service.  He is in efforts to build justice and peace, in caregiving.

 

And that is where we should be as well. 

Thanks be to God. Amen. 

 

THE SEEKER -- Daily Images of God--Lent 2022 Day 19 March 20

Daily Images of God--Lent 2022

Day 19

March 20

THE SEEKER

 

“So Jesus proposed to them this parable. ‘If any of you owned a hundred sheep and lost one of them, would you not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until you find it? … Or suppose a woman had ten coins and lost one. Would she not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?’” (Luke 15:3-4, 8-9, The Ashland Bible) 

 

“I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and strengthen the weak.” (Ezek 24:15-16) 

 

“For the Human Child has come to seek and to save what was lost.” (Luke 19:10, TAB).

 

Image: The Parable of the Lost Coin, stained glass window in St. Jacob’s Lutheran Church, Anna, Ohio

BREAD AND WINE -- Daily Images of God--Lent 2022 Day 18 March 19

 

Daily Images of God--Lent 2022

Day 18

March 19

 

BREAD AND WINE 

 

Fr. Francis Stanfield was an English Roman Catholic priest in the mid 1800s. Son of Clarkson Stanfield the artist, he was educated at St. Edmund's College, near Ware. His hymn for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, "Sweet Sacrament Divine,” is a meditation on the real presence of Christ in the consecrated Bread and Wine. Originally written for Roman Catholics, it quickly became a beloved and regular fixture in Anglo-catholic worship. 

 

Sweet sacrament divine

Hid in thine earthly home

Lo, round thy lowly shrine

With suppliant hearts we come

Jesu, to thee our voice we raise

In songs of love and heartfelt praise

Sweet sacrament divine

Sweet sacrament divine

 

Sweet sacrament of peace

Dear home of every heart

Where restless yearnings cease

And sorrows all depart

There in thine ear all trustfully

We tell our tale of misery

Sweet sacrament of peace

Sweet sacrament of peace

 

Sweet sacrament of rest

Ark from the ocean's roar

Within thy shelter blest

Soon may we reach the shore

Save us, for still the tempest raves

Save, lest we sink beneath the waves

Sweet sacrament of rest

Sweet sacrament of rest

 

Sweet sacrament divine

Earth's light and jubilee

In thy far depths doth shine

The Godhead's majesty

Sweet light, so shine on us, we pray

That earthly joys may fade away

Sweet sacrament divine

Sweet sacrament divine

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGnIguwoPDg

SILENCE -- Daily Images of God--Lent 2022 Day 17 March 18

 

Daily Images of God--Lent 2022

Day 17

March 18

SILENCE

 

“The priest shook his head wildly, putting both fingers into his ears. But the voice of Feirreira together with the groaning of the Christians broke mercifully in. Stop! Stop! Lord, it is now that you should break the silence. you must not remain silent. Prove that you are justice, that you are goodness, that you are love. You must say something to show that you are the august one.

“A great shadow passed over his soul like that of the wings of a bird flying over the mast of a ship. The wings of the bird now brought to his mind the memory of the various ways in which the Christians had died. At that time, too, God had been silent… Why is God continually silent while those groaning voices go on?” --From the novel Silence, by Shusako Endo. 

 

“Elijah came there to a cave, where he took shelter. But the word of Yahweh came to him: Why are you here, Elijah? He answered, “I have been most zealous for Yahweh, God of the heavenly armies. But the Israelites have abandoned your covenant. They have demolished your altars and murdered your prophets by the sword. I alone remain, and they are trying to kill me.” Then Yahweh said: Go out and stand on the mountain before Yahweh. Yahweh will pass by you. There arose a mighty, violent wind that broke the mountains and crushed the rocks in Yahweh’s presence—but Yahweh was no longer in the wind; after the wind, an earthquake—but Yahweh was no longer in the earthquake; after the earthquake, fire—but Yahweh was no longer in the fire; but after the fire, there was only the sound of sheer silence. When he heard it, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. A voice said to him, ‘Why are you here, Elijah?’” (1 Kings 19:9-13; The Ashland Bible) 

 

“Emptiness is only a disguise for an intimacy of God’s, that God’s silence, the eerie stillness, is filled by the Word without words, by Him who is above all names, by Him who is all in all. And his silence is telling us that He is here.”

— Karl Rahner, SJ

 

Image: Mount Horeb and Saint Catherine's Monastery.

THE SHAMROCK -- Daily Images of God--Lent 2022 Day 16 March 17

Daily Images of God--Lent 2022

Day 16

March 17

THE SHAMROCK 

 

Patrick, former slave and mythological driver of snakes, as a bishop wrote a caim prayer as a breastplate of protection from harm, underscoring our dependence, our total reliance, on the Three-in-One, which he legendarily explained by pointing to the shamrock so common on Ireland’s hills.

 

From St. Patrick's Breastplate

Kuno Meyer, trans.

 

I arise today

Through a mighty strength,

the invocation of the Trinity,

Through belief in the threeness,

Through confession of the oneness

Of the Creator of Creation.

 

I arise today

Through the strength of

Christ's birth with His baptism,

Through the strength of

His crucifixion with His burial,

Through the strength of

His resurrection with His ascension,

Through the strength of

His descent for the judgement of Doom.

 

I arise today

Through the strength of

the love of the Cherubim,

In the obedience of angels,

In the service of archangels,

In the hope of the resurrection

to meet with reward,

In the prayers of patriarchs,

In prediction of prophets,

In preaching of apostles,

In faith of confessors,

In innocence of holy virgins,

In deeds of righteous men.

 

I arise today

Through the strength of heaven;

Light of sun,

Radiance of moon,

Splendour of fire,

Speed of lightning,

Swiftness of wind,

Depth of sea,

Stability of earth,

Firmness of rock.

 

I arise today

Through God's strength to pilot me:

God's might to uphold me,

God's wisdom to guide me,

God's eye to look before me,

God's ear to hear me,

God's word to speak to me,

God's hand to guard me,

God's way to lie before me,

God's shield to protect me,

God's host to save me,

From snares of devils,

From temptation of vices,

From every one who shall wish me ill,

Afar and anear,

Alone and in a multitude.

I summon today all these powers

between me and those evils,

Against every cruel merciless

power that may oppose my body and soul...

 

Christ with me, Christ before me,

Christ behind me,

Christ in me, Christ beneath me,

Christ above me,

Christ on my right,

Christ on my left,

Christ when I lie down,

Christ when I sit down,

Christ when I arise,

Christ in the heart of

every man who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of

every one who speaks of me,

Christ in the eye of

every one who sees me,

Christ in every ear

that hears me.

 

I arise today

Through a mighty strength,

the invocation of the Trinity,

Through belief in the threeness,

Through confession of the oneness

Of the Creator of Creation.