Pax et Bonum

The Online worship resource for St. James Parish

June 10, 2009

Joy is prayer - Joy is strength - Joy is love - Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.
---Mother Teresa---
Lord, put courage into my heart, and take away all that may hinder me serving you.
Free my tongue to proclaim your goodness, that all may understand me.
Give me friends to advise and help me, that by working together our efforts may bear abundant fruit.
And, above all, let me constantly remember that all my actions are in vain unless they are guided by your hand.
---The Royal Military College of Canada---

Seeing Clearly

This week I have been reading a fascinating book about Theodore Roosevelt, a man that I find interesting and inspiring. Apparently early in Teedie’s life, he began to study natural history, collecting all types of specimens of animals and birds, so that he could identify them with their proper names, and study their anatomy, etc. During this time, he couldn’t figure out why some people around him could see things that he never saw. His father figured out that Teedie needed glasses – and when those spectacles went over his eyes for the first time, he discovered a whole new world. It is thought that he was unable to see beyond about 30 feet without his glasses. But with them, he saw birds he never knew existed, and discovered a new beauty to the world around him.

Teedie never knew that he wasn’t seeing clearly, until he was helped to do so. As I read this account, it reminded me of the many times that we as Christians fail to see the things around us that speak of God’s work in the world. We are often short-sighted, caught up in our own small worlds, unable to see beyond our own needs. We need our Heavenly Father to place upon our noses the spectacles of the Spirit – the ability to see into the mystery of God’s work all around us – to see our part in it, small or great, recognizing that faith opens up a world of both opportunity and responsibility, if only we will allow God to open our eyes.

Day by day, dear Lord of you
Three things I pray:
To see you more clearly,
To love you more dearly,
To follow you more nearly,
Day by day.
---St. Richard of Chichester---
The Promise of Healing
A Series on the Healing Stories in the Gospel Narratives

Healing Touch

"As he went, the crowds pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years; and though she had spent all she had on physicians, no one could cure her. She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his clothes, and immediately her hemorrhage stopped. Then Jesus asked, ‘Who touched me?’ When all denied it, Peter said, ‘Master, the crowds surround you and press in on you.’ But Jesus said, ‘Someone touched me; for I noticed that power had gone out from me.’ When the woman saw that she could not remain hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before him, she declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.’"
Luke 8:42-48

Chapter 8, in the Gospel of Luke, is a busy series of teaching and healing for Jesus. In the midst of moving from a request for healing of Jairus' daughter, to the place where he found her, Jesus is surrounded by a crowd, milling about him and pressing against him as they try to get close.

A woman, who has been ill for twelve years, winds her way through the crowds and is close enough to Jesus to touch his garment. She is desperate and she is determined.

She is not unlike the woman who anointed Jesus' feet with oil in another scene from this Gospel. That woman was so fixed upon gratitude and love that she ignored the others who would make her move into the darkness.

Last week I offered an image for us of a cross made of intention. Along the side of the road, Bartimaeus calls out for healing and Jesus answer him. Their exchange creates a cross of energy, need and love.

The healing story of the woman with the hemorrhages contains that same element of arching desire met by the compassionate answer of Christ. Just like Bartimaeus, the woman must make her pleas known to Christ, which will differentiate them from the others. She does this with touch.

Her touch contains within it all the despair and longing of 12 years of illness, uncleanness and sorrow. Her touch is electric-shot through with the charge of need and faith.

We have before us then, an example of crying out and an example of reaching out. In each of these examples, the one who longs to be healed acknowledges their need.

We are born crying out, in fact, that is our first way of letting someone know what we need. And we find, often, that words fail us, and the only communication we can employ is that of silent reaching out.

The woman in the crowd reminds me to come to Christ using that ancient language of touch, believing in His power and desire to heal me. I am inspired to present myself as I am.

Your touch has still its ancient power,
No word from You can fruitless fall;
Hear, in this solemn evening hour,
And in Your mercy heal us all.
"At Even, Ere The Sun Was Set", last verse, by Henry Twells

Blessings,
Debra

Daily Morning Prayer

Daily Morning Prayer

This Week at St. James

Prayers Etc.

For those on our prayer list:

For Matt Rogers, Postulant in the Diocese of Maryland.

For those who are deployed and their families.

In Closing:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
 
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
 
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginably You?
 
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
---e. e. cummings---

Pax et Bonum,
Loree+

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