Blue Eyed Ennis: Update Third Sunday Advent 2013 Gaudete Sunday

Update Third Sunday Advent 2013 Gaudete Sunday

The theme for today is Joy but as I was finishing this post I read of the awful news of another school shooting in Colorado, and the plight of the Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan- See here and here.

So much healing and action is needed and all I can do is pray for all those affected in their suffering tonight. My post today deals with the nature of joy and pain in the thick of the tragedies and sadnesses that are an inevitable part of life, and are found so deeply interwoven into the complexities of the Advent story too; the interplay of darkness and the light are ever present.

Tagged onto the end of this post is this link and another here by James Martin S.J. which captures some of the ever present tensions in these difficult situations.

Scripture readings for today's Mass are here

This Sunday is also known as Gaudete Sunday, from the ancient collect that began with the Latin word “Rejoice.”

Advent was once a season of repentance, like Lent, and this Sunday presented a break in the Advent fast. The third Advent candle is pink.

This is one of two occasions when the priest gets to wear rose pink vestments.
the other being on Laetare Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Lent.

I love this image below from today's first reading from the prophet Isaiah.

http://dwellingintheword.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/i35-streams.jpg

Source


Image of Christ and St John The Baptist Icon in the Sophia Hagia Istanbul.

UPDATE- POPE FRANCIS ADDRESS FOR GAUDETE SUNDAY - CLICK HERE

A reflection on the Nature of Joy from Fr. Ron Rolheiser here.

Reflections on the various readings from St Louis Centre for Liturgy here.


Source"He Must Increase. I Must Decrease"

John is often described as the forerunner of Christ and this image shows he was also a forerunner of his death. John died before Christ and the image shows the cup of suffering and salvation which he was to share in advance.

St John the Baptist in the Wilderness - Hieronymus Bosch -

An image that conveys the deep contentment and humility
of John The Baptist during his time in the wilderness.
Hieronymus Bosch Source

and another image of John in the wilderness is reflected on in this video commentary for today from Loyola Press.

The wonderful painting of St John The Baptist by Antonio Mancini 1850's Source

I have always felt a strange affinity towards John the Baptist. I love his passion and energy, his profound intimacy with God and his ability to tell it as it is. I grew up with a strong perception of his power and strength but I have always felt too that he was gentle and sensitive and the gospel readings today at the end of his life when he is in prison, show his vulnerability and maybe even self doubt.

Nobody knows for certain where John was buried. This 2012 article sheds some light on recent research.

Click here for a fine reflection from Fr. John Predmore at Ignatian Spirituality - Set The World Ablaze.

Image from here

The full prayer "Open Our Eyes" from the Iona Community is below

Open our eyes, Lord,
Especially if they are half shut
Because we are tired of looking,
Or half open
Because we fear to see too much,
Or blurred with tears
Because yesterday and today and tomorrow
Are filled with the same pain,
Or contracted
Because we only look at what we want to see.

Open our eyes, Lord,
To gently scan the life we lead,
The home we have, The world we inhabit,
And so to find,
Among the gremlins and the greyness,
Signs of hope we can fasten on and encourage.
Give us, whose eyes are dimmed by familiarity,
A bigger vision of what you can do
Even with hopeless cases and lost causes
And people of limited ability.

Show us the world as in your sight,
Riddled by debt, deceit and disbelief,
Yet also
Shot through with possibility
For recovery, renewal, redemption.
And lest we fail to distinguish vision from fantasy,
Today, tomorrow, this week,
Open our eyes to one person or one place,
Where we—being even for a moment prophetic—
Might identify and wean a potential in the waiting.

And with all this,
Open our eyes,
in yearning, for Jesus.
On the mountains,
In the cities,
Through the corridors of power
And streets of despair,
To help, to heal,
To confront, to convert,
O come, O come, Immanuel.
Amen.

The Catholic church of St. John the Baptist at Ein Karem, Jerusalem (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Inside Church of St John The Baptist Holy Land on left.

The images above are from the ancient village of Ein Kerem, the home of Elizabeth and Zechariah, now a neighbourhood of Jerusalem. Today, the Catholic church of St John the Baptist stands at the birthplace of John the Baptist, while the church of the Visitation on the right is said to be where Mary visited John's mother, her cousin Elizabeth, while the two women were both pregnant / © A. Fernandez de la Vega. More beautiful images from other places throughout the Holy Land, that figure in the original Christmas story, sites that lie at the very root of the modern-day celebrations can be seen in this gallery here.

Michael D O'Brien's image of JohnThe Baptist in prison

He reaches out to the Holy Spirit which is able to penetrate through the dark bounds of the prison walls. So too do I believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to release us from the shackles of oppression.

From the archives

My Reflections from 2011 are here

Gaudete But Not Just For Advent here

Reflections from 2010 on the First Reading and the Gospel are here.

Another 2010 reflection for Gaudete Sunday here

For Advent 2010, Brother Mickey McGrath, Father Jeff Putthoff and some youth and staff at Hopeworks ' in Camden New Jersey put together a few video Advent reflections. They used some of Brother Mickeys paintings as a starting point and asked people who live or work in Camden to talk about the painting, Camden, and the meaning of the Advent Season. This one features Bruce Main, President of Urban Promise in Camden and two students, Jeffery and Joshua.

The Mystic Rose of Advent and Mary

Time for some music...

On Jordan's Stormy Bank
Jars of Clay

On Jordan's stormy banks I stand
And cast a wishful eye
To Canaan's fair and happy land
Where my possessions lie

All o'er those wide extended plains
Shines one eternal day
There God, the Son forever reigns
And scatters night away.

I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the Promised Land
I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the Promised Land

No chilling wind nor poisonous breath
Can reach that healthful shore
Where sickness, sorrow, pain and death
Are felt and feared no more

I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the Promised Land
I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the Promised Land

When shall I see that happy place
And be forever blessed
When shall I see my Father's face
And in His bosom rest

I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the Promised Land
I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the Promised Land

Below a lovely version of On Jordan's Bank
Click on arrow

Lyrics to above
On Jordan's bank the Baptist's cry
announces that the Lord is nigh;
awake and hearken, for he brings
glad tidings of the King of kings.

Then cleansed be every breast from sin;
make straight the way for God within,
prepare we in our hearts a home
where such a mighty Guest may come.

For thou art our salvation, Lord,
our refuge and our great reward;
without thy grace we waste away
like flowers that wither and decay.

To heal the sick stretch out thine hand,
and bid the fallen sinner stand;
shine forth and let thy light restore
earth's own true loveliness once more.

All praise, eternal Son, to thee,
whose advent doth thy people free;
whom with the Father we adore
and Holy Ghost for evermore.

Let's hope and pray that the Syrian refugees get some much needed help.

This was a first performance at Choral Evensong in Holy Trinity, Dunoon, Argyll, December 2011.

Lyrics below

Look, God, look
in the vastness of your dark
hear this song
in the chorus of the world
where I sing
for the glory of your coming
held by love
as the music pours from me
a flame within
as the night falls around me
hear my prayer
and come through the darkness
hold me waiting
as you wait to be born.

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More from Seamus Heaney

“History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave,
But then, once in a lifetime,
The longest-for tidal wave of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea change
On the far side of revenge
Believe in miracles....”

“The aim of poetry and the poet is finally to be of service, to ply the effort of the individual into the larger work of the community as a whole.” ―

“I can't think of a case where poems changed the world, but what they do is they change people's understanding of what's going on in the world.”

and five more......

On his inspiration: 'The completely solitary self: that's where poetry comes from, and it gets isolated by crisis”

On which animal he'd prefer to be: "I might enjoy being an albatross, being able to glide for days and daydream for hundreds of miles along the thermals. And then being able to hang like an affliction round some people's necks."

On fame: "The gift of writing is to be self-forgetful, to get a surge of inner life or inner supply or unexpected sense of empowerment, to be afloat, to be out of yourself. The prizes can’t help you at all.”

On becoming a poet: "My quest for precision and definition, while it may lead backward, is conducted in the living speech of a landscape and a language that I was born with. If you like, I began as a poet when my roots were crossed with my reading."

On authority "At home in Ireland, there's a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure. "

Easter Hope All Year Round

Celestial spirit that doth roll
The heart's sepulchral stone away,
Be this our resurrection day,
The singing Easter of the soul -
O gentle Master of the Wise,
Teach us to say: "I will arise." ~
Richard Le Gallienne

"The great gift of Easter is hope - Christian hope which makes us have that confidence in God, in his ultimate triumph, and in his goodness and love, which nothing can shake."
-- Basil C. Hume

Celtic Christianity may offer us a lifeline in the form of an approach to faith which is rooted in the imagination...[Celts] excelled at expressing their faith in symbols, metaphors and images, both visual and poetic.
They had the ability to invest the ordinary and commonplace with sacramental significance, to find glimpses of God’s glory throughout creation and to paint pictures in words, signs and music that acted as icons opening windows on heaven and pathways to eternity
Ian Bradley The Celtic Way

Favourite Quotes from Pope Francis

“Thanks to magnanimity, we can always look at the horizon from the position where we are. That means being able to do the little things of every day with a big heart open to God and to others. That means being able to appreciate the small things inside large horizons, those of the kingdom of God.

This offers parameters to assume a correct position for discernment, in order to hear the things of God from God’s ‘point of view.’ … However the risk in seeking and finding God in all things, then, is the willingness to explain too much, to say with human certainty and arrogance: ‘God is here.’ We will find only a god that fits our measure. The correct attitude is that of St. Augustine: seek God to find him, and find God to keep searching for God forever.”

-- Pope Francis

Carlo Caretto's Love Letter to His Church

How much I much criticise you my church and yet how much I love you !

You have made me suffer more than anyone and yet I owe you more than I owe anyone. I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence.

You have given me much scandal and yet you alone have made me understand holiness. Never in the world have I seen anything more obscurantist, more compromised, more false, yet never have I touched anything more pure, more generous or more beautiful.

Countless times I have felt like slamming the door of my soul in your face – and yet, every night, I have prayed that I might die in your arms!

No, I cannot be free of you, for I am one with you, even if not completely you.
Then too – where should I go? To build another church?

But I cannot build another church without the same defects, for they are my own defects. And again, if I were to build another church, it would be my church, not Christ’s church. No, I am old enough. I know better!"

Did the Woman Say ?

Great Quotes

A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God.

Sidney Sheldon

There are things you can’t reach. But
you can reach out to them, and all day long.
The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of God.
And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier.

Mary Oliver

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"There is an Indian proverb or axiom that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional, and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but, unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person."

~Rumer Godden, A House with Four Rooms, 1989

“And

"
"You can get all A's and still flunk life."

"Lost in the mystery of finding myself alive."

Walker Percy

"The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom”

A tough life needs a tough language-and that's what poetry is. That's what literature offers- a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place.
Jeanette Winterson

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, “All right, then, have it your way.”

- C.S. Lewis

The independent hearts of Celtic descendents everywhere still yearn for the solitary place, still rejoice in the goodness of creation, still see the Lord beside them as they walk, still see Him in the face of friend and stranger. The gospel light with its eastern fire still gleams. The truth still lingers in the heart.
Pat Robson – The Celtic Heart

People are itchy and lost and bored and quick to jump at any fix. Why is there such a vast self-help industry in this country? Why do all these selves need help?

They have been deprived of something by our psychological culture. They have been deprived of the sense that there is something else in life, some purpose that has come with them into the world."

-- James Hillman

Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government only when it deserves it.
--Mark Twain

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
--George Orwell

We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice: - we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
-- George Orwell

Never for the sake of peace and quiet deny your own experience or convictions.
--Dag Hammarskjöld

If you want to build a ship don't herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

For what are we, without hope in our hearts, that someday we'll drink from God's blessed waters?"
-Bruce Springsteen

"Sometimes grace works like waterwings when you feel you are sinking."
-Anne Lamott

"A prayer may be a wordless inner longing, a sudden outpouring of love, a yearning within the soul to be for a moment united within the infinite and the good, a humbleness that needs no abasement or speech to express it, a cry in the darkness for help when all seems lost, a song, a poem, a kind deed, a reaching for beauty, or the strong, quiet inner reaffirmation of faith. A prayer in fact can be anything that is created by God that turns to God."

Paul Gallico

"God does not die when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illuminated by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason."

Dag Hammarskjold

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.”

― Paul Hawken

The greatest religious challenge of our age is to hold together social action and spiritual disciplines. This is not just a theological necessity, dictated by the need to integrate all of life around the reality of the living God. It is a matter of sheer survival. The evils we confront are so massive, so inhuman, so impervious to appeals and dead to compassion, that those who struggle against them face the real possibility of being overwhelmed by them.”

~ Theologian Walter Wink

One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours?
I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.

~ Khalil Gibran

Blue Eyed Ennis

Update Third Sunday Advent 2013 Gaudete Sunday

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