June 16th 2011 Friday Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time Mass and Reflections

Mass readings for today are here

Gospel Matthew 6 : 19-23

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal.

But store up treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.

“The lamp of the body is the eye.
If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light;

but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness.

And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be.”







Image above from Dave Perry's beautiful Visual theology blog. Check it out !!

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
- Carl Jung

For Light

Light cannot see inside things.

That is what the dark is for.

Minding the interior,

Nurturing the draw of growth

Through places where death

In its own way turns into life.

In the glare of neon times,

Let our eyes not be worn

By surfaces that shine

With hunger made attractive.

That our thoughts may be true light,

Finding their way into words

Which have the weight of shadow

To hold the layers of truth.

That we never place our trust

In minds claimed by empty light,

Where one-sided certainties

Are driven by false desire.

When we look into the heart,

May our eyes have the kindness

And reverence of candlelight.

John O’Donohue, Benedictus

WHEN I AM AMONG TREES

by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks, and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

 

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,”

they say, “and you, too, have come
into the world to do this, to go easy,
to be filled with light, and to shine.”

Let's see the very thing and nothing else.
Let's see it with the hottest fire of sight.
Burn everything not part of it to ash.

Wallace Stevens, 1946