Year of Saint Joseph
Year of the Family "Amoris Laetitia The Joy of Love"
National Back to School Month
In other years: Saint Dominic (1170-1221); Saint Mary of the Cross (1842-1909)
Readings of the Day
RB: Ch 55:15-22 Clothing and Footwear
Mass: 1 Kgs 19:4-8; Resp Ps 34; Eph 4:30-5:2; Jn 6:41-51
Glorify the Lord with me.
JESUS, THE BREAD OF LIFE,
HAVE MERCY ON US.
I have been reflecting on how often things just happen when they happen, at the right time, when they are supposed to, according to God's time. Early last evening, just before looking over the readings for today's Mass, a friend introduced me to a blessing by John O'Donohue (1956-2008), from his book Benedictus: A Book of Blessings (Bantam Press, 2007), published just two months before John's death. I read the blessing, then went to the readings for today's Mass. From all three readings, the antiphons, Responsorial Psalm, and all else, I heard God speaking to me the loudest through Saint Paul and his Letter to the Ephesians. It was there that Saint Paul writes this: "All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ" (Eph 4:31-32). I immediately went back to the blessing as I thought it to provide fitting commentary on Saint Paul's exhortation. Entitled "for love in time of conflict" (p. 50), the blessing goes like this:
When the gentleness between you hardens
And you fall out of your belonging with each other,
May the depths you have reached hold you still.
When no true word can be said, or heard,
And you mirror each other in the script of hurt,
When even the silence has become raw and torn,
May you hear again an echo of your first music.
When the weave of affection starts to unravel
And anger begins to sear the ground between you,
Before this weather of grief invites
The black seed of bitterness to find root,
May your souls come to kiss.
Now is the time for one of you to be gracious,
To allow a kindness beyond thought and hurt,
Reach out with sure hands
To take the chalice of your love,
And carry it carefully through this echoless waste
Until this winter pilgrimage leads you
Towards the gateway to spring.
We can turn too to today's Gospel, where Jesus reveals Himself as the Bread of Life (Jn 6:48). The Holy Father helps with his words. Jesus the Bread of Life, "He alone nourishes the soul; He alone forgives us from that evil that we cannot overcome on our own; He alone makes us feel loved even if everyone else disappoints us. He alone gives us the strength to love, and He alone gives us the strength to forgive in difficulties; He alone gives that peace to the heart that it is searching for, He alone gives eternal life when life here on earth ends. He is the essential bread of life" (Pope Francis, Angelus Address, August 8, 2021).
Jesus, the Bread of Life, Son of the Living God, help us to be gracious, kind, and compassionate, to reach out and forgive those who trespass against us, so that all bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, reviling, and malice be removed from our hearts. Saint Dominic, Saint Mary of the Cross, Saint Joseph, please intercede for us.
Dominic possessed such great integrity and was so strongly motivated by divine love, that without a doubt he proved to be a bearer of honor and grace. He was a man of great equanimity, except when moved to compassion and mercy. And since a joyful heart animates the face, he displayed the peaceful composure of a spiritual man in the kindness he manifested outwardly and by the cheerfulness of his countenance.
(From various writings on the history of the Order of Preachers, in Office of Readings, August 8)
SAINT DOMINIC,
SAINT MARY OF THE CROSS,
SAINT JOSEPH,
PRAY FOR US.
Today's photo: For brother James A., on his birthday. Setting sun, Lake Tippecanoe, Leesburg, IN.
© Gertrude Feick 2021
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