why we must pray for reverence

 

“I think you have much ‘compassion and understanding’ but it is limited at present by the natural. You tend to expect others to see as you see, and to feel impatient when they don’t.  And if people sense that one feels dismissive, their hackles rise and, in fear, they can’t listen. We must pray for reverence, that deep acceptance of the difference of others that lets us show them what we are saying. Once people really ‘hear,’ they nearly always respond. But nothing to be sad about. Having difficulties is a way of growing. It opens us up to him.  

Am I mistaken in detecting a slight note of despondency? Living as we do in Jesus, with all sorrow, failure, and disappointment primarily just ways of receiving him more deeply, life is infinitely lovely. It may not appear so, but it is. Our happiness, even if happiness of pure faith, is a duty we owe to the sad world where frustrations are not, as are ours, gateways into love. Happiness is a willed thing, therefore we choose to let Jesus be our joy, our confidence, and to ignore our poor little fumbles. If we really want him and want to live in Love, it will most surely happen.”

 ~Sister Wendy Beckett in “Spiritual Letters”

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“In every life we have some trouble
When you worry you make it double
Don’t worry, be happy”

~ Bobby McFerrin, “Don’t Worry Be Happy”

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“The Christian does not know through speculations that God, the absolute Being, is wholly love: he knows this through the fact that God gave his Son up for the world that he loved so much, and not only for the totality en bloc, but for each individual one of us. I have been rescued in my sin and lovelessness by the Son of God, who suffered and died on the cross for my guilt and who wishes, in his Resurrection to the Father, to bring me back into the eternal triune love. If one grants that this is true, then, according to the view of the Apostles who bear witness to this message and proclaim it, there can be only one decent answer on the part of man, and once again it is Paul who formulates it: I have been crucified with Christ. I live, yet it is not really I who live: Christ lives in me.”

~Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar , 

as quoted in Magnificat Magazine 

(February 17, 2017)

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"Hands, 

touching hands

                                                         Reaching out, 

touching me, 

touching you"

~Neil Diamond, "Sweet Caroline"

touch

“And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, ‘Ephphaltha!’ (that is, ‘Be opened!’).” [Mark 7:33]

There are many stories of healing and cures in the Gospels. My pastor likes to remind us to pay attention to the details of a story because it will help us to better understand Jesus. As I read this passage from the Gospel of Mark, I am profoundly struck by the way Jesus physically touched the deaf man with the speech impediment. Since St. Mark doesn’t tell us the deaf man’s name, I’m going to call him David.

We’ve all heard the importance of touch, how babies who are given food but not touch or affection will literally fade and die, and how hospitals use therapy dogs to heighten the healing of patients, especially those with long-term conditions. 

When recovering from surgery I was perplexed by how much I craved physical touch—and how physically distant people became. It felt like a direct correlation—the more I desired the gentle touch of another human being, the more that well-meaning person would step back and say, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Jesus knew how much David craved this physical contact. He took him aside, away from the crowd, to give him his full attention. I can imagine Jesus holding his hand, looking into David’s eyes with compassion and love. I picture him giving David a reassuring hug to communicate his intent, and waiting until David nodded his consent. Jesus didn’t need to touch David to cure his deafness or his speech impediment, but he did! He put his fingers into David’s ears. He spit. He touched David’s tongue. He went out of his way to touch him, and by doing so, he nursed David’s emotional and spiritual needs as well. David was cured of all his physical impediments, but above all, David was touched by Love.

Let me be your healing hands today, Lord, in how I touch and reach out to others.