Taking pride in prasie given to others.

From a letter from St. Cyprian to St. Cornelius:


“Why then should a priest not take pride in the praise given to a fellow priest as thought it were given to him? What brotherhood fails to rejoice in the happiness of its brothers wherever they are?”

Ah, if it were only so simple. Who would not agree that happiness found by another is shared by all who know of it? Shared joy is part of the Christian ideal. For many who struggle with egos run amuck, recognition of praise given to another can bring with it a vague sense of deprivation that could best be called jealousy. There is some irrational concept things like praise and happiness come in limited amounts and whatever is given to another reduces what is available. We KNOW this to be untrue. We read virtually every day whatever is done in the Lord’s name to betterment of another is also done to all of us. Happiness shared is happiness multiplied. We know this is true for we have witnessed it. When the senseless fear that God’s grace could in any way be diminished is pushed back into the darkest recesses to wither away, we can fully celebrate the beauty of shared praise. I recall from last week keeping turn our will over to the care of Lord will lead us to as much joy as can be conceived. Let us all join hands and hearts to see how much joy we can conceive of together.

From the Rule of St. Benedict

Chapter 4 – versus 22-28: “Not to gratify anger: not to harbor a desire of revenge…. Once again I reminded that resentments are poison for me. I can’t indulge in self righteous anger even if it might seem justified. The reflection on the rule fully illuminates the problem if we do give into anger. “At times of stress, I find myself enmeshed in a complex pattern of self denunciation, guilt, frustration and weariness that effectively blocks me from being aware of what is going on.” Anger blocks me from being able to communicate, to understand another’s perspective or from even being able to pray. It is not until I can focus on Christ again does the blockage give way to freedom.

Chose this day who you will serve

 Thoughts on the letter of the apostle Paul to Timothy concerning ministers.


Paul lays out a very precise description of the characteristics of bishops and deacons. I suspect that if Paul were talking to us from across the room instead of through the long tunnel of time, he would call for us to measure ourselves by the same values he set forth for the ordained. The challenge to keep our children under control without losing dignity is something to consider further. All of can think of examples of children who were being poorly managed and those who were well managed. There comes a time though when to attempt to control our children becomes a different kind of problem. At this stage, I really can’t even try to control them. At best, I can influence them but at the end of the day they will choose for themselves the path they will take. In the early days of our marriage we found a beautiful painting of flock of ducks rising into the air from a pond surrounded by cattails. The inscription inset in the border is from Joshua: “Choose this day whom you will serve but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Those of who us are parents of children seeking their own way in world should join together with a prayer that our children will chose this day to serve the Lord.

As a deer longs for streams of water

A morning or two ago, I looked out my window just after first light to find my backyard filled with deer, all of them fairly large bucks. We keep a birdbath filled with water near the deck and one of the bucks cautiously approached the birdbath and finally determined it was safe to drink. As I watched, the words of Psalm 42 that we read frequently in the Psalter came to mind. “As a deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God.”

My thought was that even though I have only been reading Liturgy of Hours for a few months, I have begun to see the prayers animated all around me. The Psalms were written hundreds of years before Christ walked the earth and yet if I let the imagery evoked by the words loose from the bondage of the written word, those images truly come to life.

A lantern always burning at night in the temple of my Lord

St. Columban touched in spot deep in my heart in this reading. He wrote:

“How I wish I might deserve to have my lantern always burning at night in the temple of my Lord, to give light to all who enter the house of my God.”

The imagery of light being from God has long appealed to me but the good Saint, an Irish monk born the year that St. Benedict died, has given me a new understanding of light from God. St. Columban’s prayer was to light the way of others – to help them find their way to God. Not in a literal way but in a spiritual way. When I turn on the lights in the Cathedral before morning mass, it is not to allow those who enter to see God or even to see their faith in God. The lights that respond to a flick of switch are real but have no real meaning of their own. It is what they shine on that is important. The lights illuminate the temple so that people who come to worship can see the holy images assembled there and be moved to consider the nature of God and His love for us. The lights enable us to see each other that we might share our faith or so our can read sacred text and so move closer to God. The light that St. Columban is talking about does not light up buildings. His lantern does not bring light to anything that is real but what is spiritual. Columban’s lantern does not allow us to see him. Any source of real light can do that. What we see is not just Columban but the Holy Spirit that has been sent forth to guide our way into the way of peace. What is it that the Holy Spirit brings us to see and know? It is the Love of God.

He concludes:

“So may your love pervade our whole being, possess us completely, and fill all our senses, that we may know no other love but love for you who are everlasting.”

This is what it is all about. Love from God so vast it is beyond our measure, understanding or imagination.

I will make you fishers of men.

Matthew 4:18-22

As Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen. He said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him. He walked along from there and saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They were in a boat, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him.

In this gospel reading, Jesus asked Peter and Andrew to follow him and he would make them fishers of men. He spoke to them in a language they would understand and they understood him and followed him immediately. I know Jesus is speaking to me now as he speaks to all of us but I usually don’t understand the language He is speaking to me. That is because I speak in a language of my own when I am not open to His will. My language is an “I” language because I can’t use it to do anything but define my own wants and desires or to express my own will. When I speak in that language it is impossible to hear Him much less understand Him. He understands me when I speak in the “I”, of course he understands me but it fills him with sadness because I have chosen to separate myself from him. My hope is to forget the “I” and focus on the “we” so that I can count myself as one of His people. So I can I count myself as one of you who know you are His people and that He is our God.

In him do our hearts find joy.

From Psalm 33


Our soul is waiting for the Lord.
The Lord is our help and our shield.
In him do our hearts find joy.
We trust in his holy name.

During the course of my reflection on the nature of piety, the words love and joy seem to keep turning up over and over again. A life of piety is intended to reveal the joy that comes as a consequence of a loving relationship with God. I have pondered how often we encounter the word “joy” when we consider the reward and result of our love for God and his perfect love for us. Consider how seldom we find any of the synonyms for love in sacred text. Happy pops up from time to time but pleasure almost never. There is, I don’t think, much difference between the dictionary meaning allocated to each word but to me there seems to be great difference things that bring me a pleasure and those that bring joy. It occurs to me that difference lies not only in the intensity or magnitude implied by each word but also differences in origin. For instance fishing or walking through a field brings me pleasure. A good book or a fine meal brings me pleasure. For years I chased things that brought me pleasure but then felt empty and unfilled by them. Turning a life dedicated to piety, even though I do so poorly, is where I have begun to experience joy. Reading the Canticle of Zechariah as day breaks brings me joy. An embrace from a brother or sister in Christ brings me joy. Sharing communion brings me joy.

Things that bring pleasure to me are derived from things of this world. Things that bring me joy are sent to me by the Holy Spirit through the grace of God. Such joy is not for me alone but must be shared. It has taken me a lifetime to understand which I prefer. Today I chose to take a path with all of you that will bring us to know and experience that in him our hearts do find joy.

Cornucopia

The days are marching toward Advent, a progression I am eagerly awaiting that I might see the mysteries of the season through the new set of glasses that have been shared with me. Cornucopia is one of the words we use during the Thanksgiving season and it word I would use to describe the bounty of the reading of this passage from St. Ambrose:

The law of our fallen nature is at war with the law of our reason and subjects the law of reason to the law of error. What is the remedy?
It is counterintuitive to think the solution to death is to die to ourselves and to live in Christ. The fact that we are sinners drives us to doubt the gift of the resurrection. Our insecurities whisper in our ears that we should abhor death. Reason tells us that death is the end and there is nothing we can see that will prove to the unfaithful that life exists beyond death. When we listen to reason, we risk true death because reason would lead us away from the path to our personal salvation. The remedy? We did not need to read into the next paragraph of the passage to find the answer to that question, the answer is written in our hearts and souls. The remedy is the Grace of Christ who, beyond our ability to reason, gave himself up to death to save us from true death.