Thanksgiving Blessings to you and your family!
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Category Archives: Musings
Remembering the Roots of Thanksgiving
I am grateful for a day in which we, as a people, pause to give thanks. And who do we have to thank for this holiday? Your answer is likely “The Pilgrims.” You would not be wrong, but then not completely correct, either. Certainly, Thanksgiving and the religious response of giving thanks to God is as old as time. When one considers enduring cultures, one always finds men and women working out their relationship to God. There is almost always a fourfold purpose to our acts of worship: adoration, petition, atonement, thanksgiving. Such worship is part and parcel of life. And yet, there is still a very human need to specially celebrate and offer thanksgiving on key occasions and anniversaries. Since medieval times, we have very detailed records of celebrations marking the end of an epidemic, liberation from sure and certain doom, the signing of a peace treaty, and more. Continue reading
Resolution D Passes Critical Vote
I know you have been waiting on pins and needles for the Resolution D vote by International Bureau of Weights and Measures. Resolution D was a vote to abolish the “leap second”, an adjustment has 50 years ago that was devised as a way to align the international atomic time scale, in use since 1967 and derived from the vibration of cesium atoms, with the slightly slower time that Earth keeps as it rotates. In effect, whenever atomic time is one second ahead, it stops for a second to allow Earth to catch up. Ten leap seconds were inserted into the atomic time scale when the fudge was unveiled in 1972. Twenty-seven more have been added since. Continue reading
Our digital mites
Today’s Gospel is traditionally called “The Widow’s Mite.” The mite, also known as a lepton, was a Jewish coin made of copper and the smallest currency described in the New Testament. In Jesus’ day, it was worth 1/64 of a denarius. A denarius was a day’s wage for a common worker. In today’s terms, it would be worth about 1/8 of a cent. Continue reading
Laodicea
In today’s first reading we again read from the Revelation. It is an early section in the scripture referred to as Letters to the Churches of Asia (1:4–3:22). Part of today’s text is the Letter to the community of Laodicea. The city was founded by Antiochus II Seleucid and named for his wife Laodice sometime prior to 240 BC. It was principally known as an agricultural and marketing center, but also known for banking, large manufacturing and its textile industry. The city was home to a prestigious medical center which discovered a well-known eye salve. There is ample testimony to a large, influential Jewish community in the city (cf. Josephus, Antiquities 14.241-243) for in 61 AD the Jewish community gave 22 lbs of gold to the Temple in Jerusalem and archeological discoveries have uncovered inscriptions regarding the feast of unleavened bread and Pentecost. Continue reading
Divine Mercy and Compassion
The gospel today is Luke’s account of the blind man on the roadside who cries out: “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” The underlying word is eléos – I don’t know why they translate it as “pity” – the meaning is “to show mercy,” indicating a response roused by an undeserved affliction in others. It denotes a kindness resulting from a relationship.
In our penitential rite we pray “Kyrie Eleison.” Lord have mercy. Eléos is the mercy that the Good Samaritan shows to the wounded, robbed person he had never met. Eléos is the word used to describe the Hebrew hesed – the mercy of God, divine mercy. In its original use, mercy/hesed/eléos was associated with requests of essential, vital help which the person is unable to attain by themselves. The one to whom the request is addressed is able to assist and must make the free moral choice to commit – not the action – but to the person in need – the willingness to enter into a relationship. Such is divine mercy, divine compassion – it is fundamentally about relationships.
A relationship of mercy that is so much more than pity. Allowing some poetic license …there is no pity in God …there is only merciful compassion. A mercy which forgives – not because we are good, but because God is good. A mercy which loves – because God is good. A mercy which is not limited, not a scarce resource, but a mercy which is infinite – a fountain fullness, overflowing of grace into our world, into our lives.
The suffering, troubled and poor of Prince William County, our state, our nation and our world do not need our pity. They need the divine, merciful compassion Jesus bestows on Bartimeus. In this time and place, we are the conduits of that Divine Mercy and Compassion into this world.
Image Credit: BibleProject.com, Public Domain
A little more…
Please take a moment to watch this wonderful 5-minute video on the Compassion of God from the good folks at BibleProject.com. While the above reflection focused on the Greek of the New Testament, this video looks at the Hebrew Scriptures to explore the Divine Mercy and Compassion of God. It begins with a description of the character of God expressed in Exodus 34:6 in which rakhum, “compassion” is the first attribute given – a word related to the Hebrew word for “womb,” rekhem conveying the deep love of mother for child.
Crucible
Today’s “Word of the Day” from Merriam-Webster is “crucible.” I like to see if I can guess at the etymological origin of the words. My guess for “crucible” was founded on the Latin cruc (“cross”). Alas it was not. It is based on the Medieval Latin crucibulum, a noun for an earthen pot used to melt metals, and in English it first referred to a vessel made of a very heat-resistant material (such as porcelain) used for melting a substance that requires a high degree of heat. But It’s possible that the resemblance between cruc- and crucible encouraged people to start using crucible to mean “a severe trial,” as that sense is synonymous with one meaning of cross.
Both And
One of the hallmarks of Catholic theology is that is rarely falls into the dynamic of it must be this or be that. Most often the true Catholic expression is a “both-and” position. When that perspective carries out into the modern landscape of life in secular America is will inevitably face push back or rejection from a world that is increasingly this or that. There are two options and no middle ground. Sound familiar? A friend of mine was recently called a CHINO (Catholic in name only) because they expressed frustration with their political choices in that they wanted a candidate the was pro-life, fully pro-life, and a candidate that has a social agenda of charity and compassion. When my friend was telling me the story my thought was that we as Catholic Christians and not shaping the world, but the world is shaping us. Continue reading
Self-sufficient
The first reading for today is from St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians he mentions one of the value: self-sufficiency: “I have learned, in whatever situation I find myself, to be self-sufficient. I know indeed how to live in humble circumstances; I know also how to live with abundance. In every circumstance and in all things I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need.” (Philippians 4:11-12) Continue reading
Blessings
Once we have honored our dearly departed with a funeral, a heart-felt eulogy and a gathering of friends, we settled into our on-going lives. For many that means finding a new normal. In time, stories arise that were not part of the eulogy. When I was growing up, these later stories were told on the porch, in the small gatherings of family and friends. They were told on benches, told to the rhythm of a rocking chair, told in love, and sometimes ending with “God bless their heart.” Continue reading
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