Sink into Rest

Sink into Rest

Peace, troubled soul, thou need’st not fear!
Thy great Provider still is near;
Who fed thee last, will feed thee still;
Be calm, and sink into his will.

The Lord, who built the earth and sky,
In mercy stoops to hear thy cry;
His promise all may freely claim,
Ask and receive in Jesus’ name.

His stores are open all, and free
To such as truly upright be;
Water and bread he’ll give for food,
With all things else which he sees good.

Your sacred hairs, which are so small,
By God himself are numbered all;
This truth he’s published all abroad,
That men may learn to trust the Lord.

(The Great Provider by Samuel Ecking)

What Matters?

What Matters?

I don’t believe that God looks on sons and daughters, however wayward, with contempt or condescension because he sees them as somehow too morally compromised. And I certainly don’t believe in nonsense like, “God cannot even bear to look at us in our sin, God can only look at Jesus.” The primary function of the story of Jesus of Nazareth is to show us that we in fact have a God who looks us eyeball-to-eyeball. The remarkable proclamation of the gospel, is that God looks at us with the same perfect love and delight with which the Father looks at Jesus. So in this regard, humans are not mere worms or wretches. Love has already dignified us too much for that.

(Jonathan Martin)

Our Savior, the Refugee & Neighbor

Our Savior, the Refugee & Neighbor

After they were gone, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Get up! Take the child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. For Herod is about to search for the child to destroy Him.” So he got up, took the child and His mother during the night, and escaped to Egypt. He stayed there until Herod’s death, so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled: Out of Egypt I called My Son.

(Matthew 2:13-15)

Give Up

Give Up

If the Catholicism that I was raised in had a fault, and it did, it was precisely that it did not allow for mistakes. It demanded that you get it right the first time. There was supposed to be no need for a second chance. If you made a mistake, you lived with it and, like the rich young man, were doomed to be sad, at least for the rest of your life. A serious mistake was a permanent stigmatization, a mark that you wore like Cain. I have seen that mark on all kinds of people: divorcees, ex-priests, ex-religious, people who have had abortions, married people who have had affairs, people who have had children outside of marriage, parents who have made serious mistakes with their children, and countless others who have made serious mistakes. There is too little around to help them. We need a theology of brokenness. We need a theology which teaches us that even though we cannot unscramble an egg, God’s grace lets us live happily and with renewed innocence far beyond any egg we may have scrambled. We need a theology that teaches us that God does not just give us one chance, but that every time we close a door, he opens another one for us.

(Ronald Rohlheiser)