Im am so excited to be back and again connected with you.I love your comments.Keeps me going !!! Some people really read what is written so very attentively. It was brought to my attention that I started the last blog as grandpa and ended as great grandpa ???? You see that was how much effort went into the blog.The effort made an older man of me.I am now looked on as SENIOR SENIOR citizen. I am in deep gratitude that anybody is reading these efforts.My gratitude list is getting longer each day. Remember that old song "Let the good times roll"? Would love to have it as background music for this effort.
Bask in the mid '60s there was a book written by Eugene Kennedy, "Comfort My people". That has a serious effect on my approach to ministry.I have not, you all too well know, always been successful.My sincerest apologies to who have suffered from my woundedness. There has been some gradual healing over the many years.There is still a way to go. Patience patience !!!! Screw patience, I want recovery right now.Then on the other hand, anything that is instant is usually no good. Have you ever eaten, instant mash potatoes.Whoever invented them was definitely not an Irishman.
WOW !! it has sure taken Great grandpa Joe, a long time to get to what he wants to address this evening. Some saying fastidiously,just like his sermons. It has been a few years now since I listened to Fr.Rohr reflect on this gospel.His reflection changed my perspective on the spiritual.An understanding I have made a conscious effort to pass on to those who have been placed in my path. I am not going to quote the whole gospel hermit is sufficient for this effort to just use those very strange words "let them grow together until harvest time'.
The them are darnel and wheat. When they break out of the ground ,the young darnel and wheat look somewhat similar.So when the servants indicated they wanted to unroot the darnel, the master was not in agreement.The wise man offered the advice let them grow together until harvest time. Harvest time is toward the end of the year, Autumn. That is a long time to wait. How impatient those servants must have become.Who likes to wait on nature. Ask any expectant mother how she feels toward the end of her pregnancy.? Do not expect a very polite answer.Especially after a sleepless night. Duck !!!!We reap our harvest at the of our lives.In the Autumn of our lives and looking carefully at the harvest we are reaping.Around 35 things begin to change.Our spiritual perspective slowly changes.We are faced with the limitations of our wounded humanity.We are not the best at anything.Not the best husband wife son daughter employer or employee.We come up short all the way around. What is now needed compassionate understanding and mercy-full love.
I have written on my new understanding of mercy. The kind of mercy Pope Francis is so anxious for us to embrace and apply to our wounds.Wounds the appear to bleed all the time.The healing has not happened.do you remember the parable of the Good Samaritan? How he poured oil into the wounds of his sworn enemy, the Jew.Now think back to the chanting of The Lord Have Mercy, the Kyrie Eleison. The Greek word for oil is to be found in Eleison. So we are actually praying that the oil of mercy may be poured down on us. What does oil dot it, heals,sooths,comforts,strengthens,and because it is, Gods Love in action, it transfigures and transforms us. The Prodigal's Father's Mercy then is so so much more that just about the forgiveness of our transgressions. ( This is long enough, so I will have mercy on you all.)
So may the blessings of mercy-full be yours, as you face the challenge of being not "a human being having a spiritual experience, but a spiritual being, immersed, in the human condition".Word written be deChardin many many moons ago. Our collective human reality is sure taking a hammering, and where are the proactive efforts to advert, the sixth annihilation? Great great great grandpa Joe.
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