The Surest Sign

Our readings for Sunday of 2025 are here, and the traditional Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle C are here from 2022.

[A brief apology for the belatedness of these next few entries — the trip to Europe, covid, and trying to get a used car have been pretty time-consuming!]

This Sunday, September 14, 2025, is a little unusual because the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross replaces the Sunday of Ordinary Time observance.

In the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle B, these readings are used, and I copied in the notes from Fr Dennis’ homily of that particular Sunday.

In the Gospel of John there is a pattern (not a logical construction, but a pattern):

I have left the regular Sunday notes and poem because this was another good one by D2! **********

These are the poem, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis’ homily from the

• September 15, 2013 8:30AM Mass

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The poem and writing Fr Dennis references this year are:

• 2013 homily — Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen and A Prayer to the Good Shepherd by John Shea.

In 2013, we reflected on —

• In John Shea’s introduction to The God Who Fell From Heaven, he writes of three things lost, three things found, ==> three parties! (p 20)
• The Parable of the Prodigal Son has had so much written about it, it can become too familiar.  Dennis read an excerpt from Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen, pp 42-44.  rl’s favorite quote “I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.”
• “What more can be said of the gospel reading?” and, he asked us if there was a word or phrase that stuck with us and encouraged us to stay with it, reflect, and pray.
• On my (rl’s) 8-day silent retreat this year, one of my passages was the Prodigal Son.  My spiritual director/companion, Fr Peter Fennessy, SJ often uses art to help his directees engage their imaginations with the passages.  This time, he showed me Two Sons by James Janknegt (2002).
• He noted that in this image, the artist equated eating the pigs’ acorns with the dehumanization of a corporate fast food job and the seething resentment of the older brother with a snapped-in-two guitar.  What do you see?
• In commemoration of 9/11, in 2014 (I think) Fr Dennis offered the recording of Rabbi Irwin Kula, who had transformed the final voicemails of some people in the Towers and United Airlines Flight 93 into the form of a Jewish lament.  You can listen to it here.  It is how I commemorate that day in grief for lives lost and celebrate that so many chose love to be their final words.  Then, perhaps in 2012, he played “No One Is Alone” from Into the Woods by Barbara Cook.

Our readings for Sunday are here. 

These are the poems, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis’ homilies from the Masses of

• September 4, 2016
• September 8, 2013

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The poems Fr Dennis references in these years are:

• 2016 homily — The Skylight by Seamus Heaney and Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn by Wu Men (Hui-k’ai)
• 2013 homily — Goldenrod by Mary Oliver

In 2016, we reflected on —

• Generally, the Sunday readings are created by selecting the gospel reading (fitting to the liturgical calendar and the story of Jesus), then the 1st Reading (usually a selection from Hebrew Scripture but the Acts of the Apostles or Revelation during Easter), and the 2nd Reading may or may not fit with the other two.
• This Sunday, in the 1st Reading, a colloquial summary might be: We don’t know nothing.
• The 2nd Reading today, Paul’s Letter to Philemon?  A homily in and of itself!  Paul is talking about sending Onesimus, a slave, back to his owner, in part because he doesn’t want to take property without permission.  But in part because the Spirit is moving him to see Onesimus as a brother, and he encourages Philemon to do the same.  Nowadays?  Georgetown University is one of the many trying, however poorly — even at $100 million goal for the Descendants Truth and Reconciliation Foundation — to atone for Jesuit slaveholding in the North American continent.
• In the Gospel, this is a hard gift, a challenge to all of us, to not focus on ourselves.  But there’s always that small voice of “me … me … me .. don’t forget about me.”  That voice keeps us from being completely free for Jesus.  (rl whimsically remembers a yoga magazine likening ego to toast popping up half-done to ask if it is done.)
• But, for D2, the most interesting thing about Jesus in today’s gospel is how he teaches.  Compare his manner to the rabbis who teach by quoting Hebrew Scripture.  Jesus rarely does so, and even then it is often the gospel writer saying “Jesus was referring to ____ [of Hebrew Scripture].”
• In today’s gospel, “building a tower”?, “a king against another king”?  Jesus is using examples from people’s every day experience to share his point, to illuminate a shared experience for others.
• This is why he/Fr Dennis uses poetry … an old truth in a new way.
• In Seamus Heaney’s The Skylight, a sonnet, the poem shares a sudden sense of light and an “ah, yes!” moment when we experience a new way of looking at the healing of the paralytic (a different gospel reading).  A sonnet is a 14 line poem with several different rhyming and meter schemes available.  In The Skylight, 9 to 11 syllable lines are offered in a mixed rhyming scheme.
• Zen Master Wu Men, in “Ten thousand flowers in spring …” — if we can somehow not have our minds clouded with focus on ourselves we can see all times as the best of times in our lives.  So not just in thought, word, feeling do we follow Jesus but in action.
• We can be grateful for the challenge of Jesus Christ in the gospel and receive the Spirit to do so; and may we do so in Joy.

In 2013, we reflected on —

• While the readings tend to flow in different directions, the common theme is we lack understanding unless God’s Spirit is in us.
  • The Wisdom reading (1st reading) is very much direct in saying so. Paul, in the Letter to Philemon (2nd reading), is not commanding Philemon to free Onesimus as if Paul had freed him (i.e., Philemon doing the same in an act of a superior to an inferior / item of property) but to look and be with Onesimus as if he were free.  And, Philemon can only do that if he receives Onesimus in God’s Spirit.
  • Luke, the gospel reading, is about carrying the cross.  We tend to think, “If I’m good, everything will be fine.” But that’s just not true as we follow our vocation.
    • We have our interior understanding and the skills and gifts given by God
    • We have our exterior sense of God calling us
• In A Man for All Seasons, Robert Bolt’s depicts Thomas More’s final goodbye to his family while he is imprisoned in the basement cells of the Tower of London. There is an exchange that captures this gospel understanding (p 83).  His family was only allowed to see him on their vow to the king’s agents that they would try to convince More to sign the Oath to the King, the one that all this time he had refused to sign out of conscience:
  • MEG (Margaret, nicknamed Meg, his daughter from his first marriage, unusual in that More educated his daughters like sons, nearly unheard of in his day):  Then if you elect to suffer [for the good you’ve done already], you elect yourself a hero.
  
  
  • MORE:  But since we see how [vice] commonly profits beyond [virtue], and have to choose, to be human at all … why then perhaps we must stand fast a little – even at the risk of being heroes.
  
  
  • MEG:  But in reason!  Haven’t you done as much as God can reasonably want?
  • MORE:  Well … finally … it isn’t a matter of reason; finally, it’s a matter of love.
• One year at the parish, D2 viewed the film as part of the summer film series and the next night gathered about ten of us to read the play together (seated reading).  Quite interesting how both work in you, similarly yet differently as well.
• For Mary Oliver’s Goldenrod, D2 noted goldenrod flowers are so often considered weeds, but Mary Oliver finds the celebration in them.  The final stanza has them doing naturally what God wants us all to do (bend when we should bend, and rise) and ultimately, give our gold away.

And our entry photo for this Sunday’s reflection is a monarch on some goldenrod, photo by Michael Barrick on Unsplash.

Our readings for Sunday are here. 

These are the poem, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis’ homily from the

• August 21, 2016 10AM Mass

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The poem Fr Dennis references this year is:

• Singapore by Mary Oliver

In 2016, we reflected on —

• Somehow, the readings seem appropriate with the start of the school year and the theme of “discipline,” as our summer season of adventures winds down.
• D2 reminded us that each Cycle (A – Mark, B – Matthew, or C – Luke) is based primarily on one gospel (and the Gospel of John is used during Triduum and to fill in on other liturgical seasons).  The gospel passage is chosen for an appropriate liturgical theme (e.g., the summery Eastertide readings are an unlikely match as Lenten readings).  Once the gospel passage for a Sunday is selected, the first reading (generally Hebrew Scriptures) is chosen to match it; and then the 2nd reading (generally a progression through one of the epistles).  As a result, the 2nd reading may or may not match the gospel & first reading.
• First reading, Isaiah — the prophecy is God’s glory going out to all nations.  As the Jewish community spread out across the globe/lands; God is going to be active there, too; and they will come from East and West to Jerusalem (not just Jews) … as equals to Jews … and some will be called / taken as priests and Levites.  What?!?!?  At the time, this was an unfathomable notion, as the Jews (and Jews alone) were God’s chosen people.
• All world religions face this challenge:  How can God be my God .. and everybody’s God?  It’s human nature, we each need to establish God’s Love for me, and then we are more open to God loving everyone else, too.  In the Consecration, the 2011 text changed from “My blood will be poured out for you and everyone” to “blood poured out for you and for many.”  “Many” in Hebrew means “everyone” as ancient languages often counted “1, 2, many.”
• Jesus is someone his disciples (then and us now) must hold in the mystery of being a remarkable personal friend and savior of the world.
• Our poem this Sunday is Mary Oliver’s Singapore.  D2 prepped us that he would physically be moving from one place in front of the sanctuary to another (say, four feet away) and back to model the structure of the written poem, in which the new experience she is having is on the left side of the page and her experience of nature & poetry to that point on the right side of the page.  Her final stanza is in the middle, her new center after this epiphany. (Alas, the online link rl found does not match the formatting of the 1990 House of Light version reprinted in New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1. that Fr Dennis found and used.)
• “A darkness was ripped from my eyes” — Mary Oliver’s is a paraphrase of God being not just for me but for everyone.  Her poem clearly states how she doesn’t like the idea of this woman’s work, of a life compelling this sort of work, or the lack of nature’s beauty in this setting (and thus, this poem she is writing).
• But the woman’s smile convinces her that light can be in such a job, a light that can shine out of such a life … with the result that the poem is filled with trees and birds .. they are just in a new form.
• God is not a matter of head knowledge but in experience of all forms of our God and my God.

There was a good Charlie Brown & Snoopy image with friend and savior text … and probably all kinds of copyright violations, even by fair use standards. So, I went with the Salvadoran Good Shepherd crucifix …  🙂

Our readings for Sunday are here. 

These are the poems, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis’ homilies from the

• August 18, 2019 Noon Mass
• August 18, 2013 Noon Mass

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The poems Fr Dennis references in these years are:

• 2019 homily — Questionnaire by Wendell Berry and Almanac by Lois Parker Edstrom
• 2013 homily — For a Dying Tomcat Who’s Relinquished His Former Hissing and Predatory Nature by Mary Karr; paintings of the face of Jesus and The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16 October 1834 by Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, 1775-1851) at the Cleveland Art Museum

In 2019, we reflected on the juxtaposition of great desire and great suffering in the gospel passage.  We likely reflected on much more, but I have not the notes!  🙂  Sorry!

In 2013, we reflected on

• St Ignatius used “hearts on fire” and “set the world on fire” to describe the charism of the Jesuits. 
• (rl notes the Jesuit sense of humor, as Fr James Martin, S.J. in his book The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, pointed out that in the Jesuit Curiae in Rome, a statue of St Ignatius with the slogan of “Set the world on fire” on its pedestal is located right next to the fire extinguisher.)
• D2 continued — Our readings capture some of the deep desires of our faith, desires that help lead us on and through severe challenges:
  • In the 1st Reading, Jeremiah is subject to much suffering and trials
  • In the 2nd Reading, St Paul exhorts that Jesus endures the cross in obedience for the joy to come (not causal, but in faith)
  • In the gospel reading from Luke, “set against” could also be translated as “set apart” in Greek.  We’re unsure.  But Christ’s great desire to bring us to the Kin-dom, even though he had to pass through great suffering and death is our model of longing and desire for God’s Will, God’s Love.
• In the Cleveland Art Museum, there is a face of Jesus displaying … actually, there are lots of faces of Jesus in the Cleveland Art Museum!  So, rl found this one … In the Very Disk of the Sun Shines the Face of Jesus Christ, 1888.  But, I am wondering if this homily is one of the times that Fr Dennis mentioned St Peter Repentant (the blog image), one that shows Peter looking up to Christ in the Judgment Hall after his third denial of knowing him and meeting Mercy.  It looks like a face that has met and is meeting love and the realization that we are always already forgiven.
• Also, the painting of The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16 October 1834 captures how people are drawn to / compelled to gather around fire.
• In the poem For a Dying Tomcat,
  • Our offerings to Christ at the peak of our inner fire (the neighbor’s koi). Our offerings to Christ as our means to act in return to Christ’s offerings begins to fade until we begin …
  • Learning to rest in Christ’s arms (like a reverse pieta), as the fire now seeks to still me.
• Christ separating us from earthly family / communities to return us to God the family.

So … the Feast of the Transfiguration is … a Feast.  It is a biggie for the message it shares, however, liturgically — it is not a Holy Day of Obligation.  But it is pretty amazing!  So, since it was one of my favorite Fr Dennis homilies when it fell on a Thursday in 2014 (Cycle A), here we go / rachamuid!  His homily, shortened for daily mass sensibilities and kind consideration of the flock’s schedule, works for Cycle C.  

Our readings for Transfiguration are here. 

This is the link to the dance, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis Dillon SJ’s homily from the

• Thursday, August 6, 2014 5:10 Daily Mass

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The art Fr Dennis references is:

• Alvin Ailey’s Revelations, a dance suite now considered a quintessential American dance choreography, created by Alvin Ailey. 

In 2014, we reflected on —

• That August 6 is the anniversary date of the Hiroshima bombing by United States Air Forces in 1945. 
• (rl notes, to be clear, Fr Dennis was not saying nuclear detonations are emblematic of the Transfiguration!  As one of the generation growing up during WWII and devoted to life, he found it important to remember the anniversary of one of the two days human settlements were subject to nuclear attack on that scale. A very complex time of history — best not to judge but to stay in the vulnerable heart of its complexity.)
• (but … back to Transfiguration!)
• Transfiguration contains readings, and the gospel most particularly, of resplendence.
• We might imagine this moment of Transfiguration akin to the Irish engagement with “thin spaces” in which the resplendent world abides closely with ours.  D2 imagine-prayed that the Transfiguration (Peter, John, and James abiding with Jesus transfigured, Moses and Elijah) might feel like a thin space to Peter, John, and James.
• In his life, a rare personal interlude in a homily, he recounted that when he was missioned to NYC for his PhD in Film History and Criticism at NYU, he did his best to experience the city.  He and others from his Jesuit community would serve at the same Catholic Worker House that Dorothy Day served.  (He recounts one encounter in a different homily.)  But also, they would engage with the arts — the hallmark of NYC.
• He had an experience of being so Beloved, so transfigured after watching a performance of Alvin Ailey’s Revelations for the first time, that he wanted to walk rather than take the enclosed limiting subway home.  So he near bounced up the stairs out of the subway to street level.  It felt like he was walking 1/2 foot off the ground the whole way home, feeling like — yes! he could move like the dancers moved!  Of course, as he noted — he wasn’t moving like the dancers and couldn’t, but that sense of possibility arising out of our Belovedness is the gift given to us by God through Jesus and lived in the Spirit.
• When I (rl) heard his homily and watched youtube, I was infected with the Transfiguration, too!  The next day my old legs and I dashed out on my bicycle and found myself laughing joyously as I pedaled a furious pace to slowly grind “full speed” up one of Ann Arbor’s steep hills.  It came when I walked into the Heathdale, the closest thing to a sacred grove in Ann Arbor, and was surrounded by butterflies.  It was present when my high school friends and I overlooked the night lights of “Spaceport Billings” a là STAR WARS and pledged what we were going to do.  But that chatter was immediately outshone by turning to the night sky filled with the shining backbone of the Milky Way and sharing who we are.  We are Beloved. 
• Thanks, D2.

Apologies for the Featured Image quality … but that’s what Transfiguration, a deep moment of Belovedness felt like for me … based on how resonant Fr Dennis’ description of Transfiguration moments feel.

Leaf Quidditch by Lorraine Lamey

The chlorophyll has left the leaves.
A zephyr sets the branches waving farewell
to their bright or brown denizens.
The road ahead drops just right
for the tilted pitch of a Seeker’s two-wheeler.
My bicycle and I take flight coasting downhill
at a hearty speed and with precarious leanings
but not so precarious as in years past.
We sail among the drifting leaves dancing
like sunbeams in and out of my outstretched fingers.

I am transfigured with each ascension
though my pace and joints evoke the rickety-clickety clack
of an early wooden rollercoaster
hauling a full load to its peak height.
The ten minute ascent garners scarcely a two minute ride.
Push off, pedal a bit, brakes ready for the all-stop intersection,
clear?
Then pedal furiously to make up for caution.
During each descent, the leaves and wind stream by
and slough off another decade from my heart and soul.
Weight, worry, and weariness whip behind me.
By the fourth ascent, I am ten-years-old again
and playing leaf quidditch on my bicycle.
In that moment of refulgent joy,
a wee brightest yellow sugar maple leaf
finds me.

Our readings for Sunday are here.  In 2016, Fr Dennis discussed St Ignatius of Loyola, as a Jesuit parish, we may observe his Memorial.

These are the poems, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis’ homilies from the Masses of

• July 31, 2016 8:30AM, and
• August 4, 2013

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The poems Fr Dennis references in these years are:

• 2016 homily — First Things First by W.H. Auden
• 2013 homily — NYTimes Magazine article on “Ignatius of Loyola: The Saintly Boss”

In 2016, we reflected on —

• In the readings, Deuteronomy is death and doom; Corinthians is about the glory of God; and the Gospel of John selection is “Come and see!”
• D2 referred back to a late 1990s NYTimes Magazine that had a series on the Me Millenium (us).
• From 0 to 1000 CE humans built large organizations and communities, 1000-2000 CE became much more about individual identity, particularly in western civilizations.
• This NYTimes May series explored archetypal personalities, e.g., Heloise, Faust, Jane Austen, and also … Ignatius of Loyola: The Saintly Boss.
• He was an admirable leader who regularly danced for the younger Jesuits.
• He was a saintly boss for his flexibility, concern for inner and outer lives of organizational members, and his heartfelt connection with people from all walks of life. (rl notes St Ignatius was one of the first religious leaders to acknowledge that women did not engage in prostitution for moral reasons but for economic reasons, and act and serve from that faith foundation.)
• As a leader he embraced diversity, teaching, and the Spiritual Exercises (based on the insight that God is present in our imaginations.
• He gave up the incredible joy of celebrating Mass when it began to interfere with his ability to respond and be in communion with the Eucharist. 
• (rl took this as when our emotions of an activity undermine the very purpose of the activity, e.g., I might get so excited about toasty flannel sheets and a down comforter on a cold, snowing night, the giddiness of it all made sleep impossible.  St Ignatius’ tears and emotions took him out of the prayer space a priest needs to celebrate Mass; perhaps too much of a good thing.)

In 2013, we reflected on —

• Fr Dennis read Fr General Arturo Sosa S.J.’s Letter to the Jesuits — humble in tone, as we would hope, and grateful for Pope Francis celebrating a humble yet engaged Eucharist, in the mystery of the Sacrament at the Jesuit mothership, Gesu Church in downtown Rome.  Pope Francis then offered a votive candle to St Ignatius; prayed at the altar of Saint Francis Xavier across the way.  He ended with visiting the remains of Father General Pedro Arrupe, S.J.  In essence, he prayed his way through the history of the Society of Jesus since its founding.
• D2 ended with W.H. Auden’s First Things First poem.  A poem about being grateful for what we have and abiding in that gratitude.
• He also included a David Brooks op-ed column on THE SEARCHERS, a John Ford 1956 film which we had watched in the St Mary’s Summer Film series of that year (created and shepherded by guess who! That’s right — D2!)  The gist was that the film captured one generation’s story “about men who are caught on the wrong side of a historical transition” and used that as context for 1/5 of 25 to 54-year-old men are out of the work force (compared to 4% around 50 years ago). 
• rl notes that Mr. Brooks engaged with the impact of gender and race on these numbers in passing, if at all.  Still, a thoughtful piece of writing.

In the summers of 2017 and 2018 I took a class through Loyola University Chicago Institute of Pastoral Studies that had an intensive field study portion in Rome and environs for about ten days.  Both times I spent much of my free time with the masses and side chapels in the Church of Gesù, as well as the rooms of St Ignatius.  With the former, which also included a side chapel for Oscar Romero, including the Missal he was using when he was martyred, you feel and see the lived experience of the Jesuits through history attempting to walk with Jesus.  The regular display in the apse is the circumcision of Jesus, that “bloodletting” would have satisfied the sacrificial requirement … however, it is the Passion in which he shows how greatly God loves and humbles God’s self to witness Love.  Hence, a large statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is presented in the apse (replacing the circumcision).   While most of us will not be called to that sort of sacrifice and even fewer to answer it, we can all turn to the Sacred Heart to live more fully in God’s Love.  And that is the Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam the Society of Jesus kinship is formed of and to.

Our image today is a mural in El Paisnal, El Salvador, seen in this Jan. 29 photo by Rhina Guidos, that features Blessed Oscar Romero and town native Fr. Rutilio Grande, S.J. surrounded by rural men, women and children, the community the Jesuit Father Grande served from 1972 until his March 12, 1977, assassination. Fr. Grande spoke of his dream of a communal table where everyone, including the poor, had a place to eat and a right to have a say in matters that affected them. Catholic News Service photo by Rhina Guidos.

Our readings for Sunday are here. 

These are the poem, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis’ homily from the

• July 28, 2019 Mass

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The poem Fr Dennis references in this year is:

• 2019 homily — Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins, on his 175th birthday

In 2019, we reflected simply on —

• God’s goodness
• God’s gifts
• and God’s good gifts

which D2 thought expressed particularly well in Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ’s poem, Pied Beauty on this the 175th birthday of GMH!

For those who may be unfamiliar with GMH, he was a Jesuit priest, a convert to Catholicism.  In this case, wiki pegs our attraction to his poetry:

His prosody – notably his concept of sprung rhythm – established him as an innovator, as did his praise of God through vivid use of imagery and nature.

The Poetry Foundation‘s description is really thorough.

And Natalie Merchant captures the mystery and enchantment of his Spring and Fall poem by setting it to music, in her album of children’s music.

This blog is brief, but the readings and the poem capture it all. 

In today’s (Monday’s) excerpt from Psalm 50, “[You who] offers praise as a sacrifice glorifies me; …”  Indeed, how absolutely wonderful, isn’t it?!? —

we can serve God with praise; praise of all that God gives, all that makes us alive, keeps us alive, and resurrects.  Whatta God!  🙂

Playing fox kits seems ample praise today!

Our readings for Sunday are here. 

These are the book referral, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis’ homily from

• July 21, 2013

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The book Fr Dennis references in 2013 (rather than a poem):

• 2013 homily — Martha Manning’s Undercurrents
• rl found Mary Oliver’s Why I Wake Early and Freshen the Flower, She Said a good fit

This must have been one of my early or lighter note-taking Sundays, perhaps one of my first.

In 2013, we reflected on such wonderful readings and good insights.  Thanks, D2!  —

• In the first reading,
  • Abraham and Sarah are hosting a trio of Angels, some think the Trinity.  (A quick biblical note, “the Trinity” is not mentioned in the Christian or Hebrew Scriptures; the Trinity is a theological understanding of God that developed over time and from the scriptures — including this one and the multiple “Trinitarian formulations” in Christian scripture, e.g., invocations of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.)
  • In Gen 18:1, “the Lord appeared to Abraham” and in Gen 18:2, “… Abraham saw three men standing nearby” and then addresses them as the singular “Sir” in 18:3.
  • But the emphasis of the first reading (and the other two) is hospitality and invitation.  Abraham portrays the urgency of presence and welcome, in accordance with custom of the time and echoed later in Christian scripture with “Do not neglect hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.” (Heb 13:2).

• In the gospel of Luke,
  • The story also emphasizes hospitality and prayer, with presence being the key to either ministry or engagement.  The acts of hospitality and the motions of prayer do not fulfill hospitality and prayer without our heartfelt or mindful presence in these efforts.
  • Martha is “anxious and worried about many things” (Lk 10:41), while Mary is present with Jesus in breaking open the scripture.
  • Mary could have been worried about violating social norms of women and religion, but she remained present to Love.  Martha could have been present to hospitality as Abraham was, who served his guests, and then “waited on them under the tree while they ate” (Gen 18:8).
• In Martha Manning’s book, Undercurrents: A Life Beneath the Surface, Fr Dennis thought that Martha Manning’s book captured the sense of balance for each of us in our inner Martha and Mary.
  • This is the memoir of an ordinary woman—a mother, a daughter, a psychologist, a wife—who tells the tale of her spiraling descent into a severe, debilitating depression. Undercurrents pioneers a new literature about women and depression that offers a vision of action instead of victimhood, hope instead of despair.
  • We need faith that nothing is “taken away” when we rest, that is part of the contemplative nature of the Kin-dom.

For myself (rl), in light of Abraham’s and Sarah’s challenges in Jewish culture of the day from wandering, being landless for so long, and childless — I found the enthusiasm of Abraham in offering hospitality captured in Mary Oliver’s poem Why I Wake Early, when she writes a poem of gratitude and ends, “Watch now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.”  These choices not only bless and uphold wandering angels, they bless and uphold us.

Similarly, for the gospel, the invitation to and teaching of presence by Jesus, was captured in Mary Oliver’s Freshen the Flowers, She Said, in which she ends a poem about being present to fluffing cut flowers in a vase with “… Fifteen minutes of music // with nothing playing.”  

Andrei Rublev’s Trinity is the image of this post, though I was sorely tempted to find another image of daisies to share. Ann Arbor is hosting its annual Art Fairs (3 large fairs for 3 days), and one of the artists had a beautiful, super high resolution of a firefly sitting on a daisy bloom and back-lighting one of its petals. Extraordinary.