Creative action to express Love

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today suggest that we explore our relationship with God in prayer and experience that goes beyond the ability of words to adequately communicate.

Place to contemplate creativity

The Second Letter to Timothy warns the Christian Community of useless disputes about mere words.

* [2:14–19] For those who dispute about mere words (cf. 2 Tm 2:23–24) and indulge in irreligious talk to the detriment of their listeners (2 Tm 2:16–19), see notes on 1 Tm 1:3–7; 6:20–21.

In the Gospel from Mark, Jesus, declares a scribe who connects Jesus to the ancient Jewish Shema as being close to the Kingdom of Heaven.

* [12:13–34] In the ensuing conflicts (cf. also Mk 2:1–3:6) Jesus vanquishes his adversaries by his responses to their questions and reduces them to silence (Mk 12:34).

Maureen McCann Waldron asks how much of our hearts are free to love as expansively as God loves us?  She suggests that maybe not all of our heart and soul is available to love because it is previously occupied – or pre-occupied.

Pope Francis calls these many preoccupations the “hidden idols” in our lives; the things which capture our hearts and attention.  Rather than connect with God or neighbor, I think of my own needs, and what others think of me. Maybe I can’t love with all of my heart because a large segment of my heart is filled with resentments or judgements of others. Perhaps I use the space in my heart and mind to nurse my grudges or tend past wounds.  How much anger fills my heart with those I refuse to forgive?

Don Schwager shares a prayer of St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109).

"We love you, O our God; and we desire to love you more and more. Grant to us that we may love you as much as we desire, and as much as we ought. O dearest friend, who has so loved and saved us, the thought of whom is so sweet and always growing sweeter, come with Christ and dwell in our hearts; that you keep a watch over our lips, our steps, our deeds, and we shall not need to be anxious either for our souls or our bodies. Give us love, sweetest of all gifts, which knows no enemy. Give us in our hearts pure love, born of your love to us, that we may love others as you love us. O most loving Father of Jesus Christ, from whom flows all love, let our hearts, frozen in sin, cold to you and cold to others, be warmed by this divine fire. So help and bless us in your Son."

The Word Among Us Meditation on Mark 12:28-34 encourages that before we leave home, and again as you get ready for bed tonight, we pray the Shema. As we make this prayer, we remind ourself that we only have one God. We consider his greatness and the mercy he has shown us, and we acknowledge him as Lord. We tell him that we want to love and serve him with all of our heart and soul, mind and strength.  (Deuteronomy 6:5-9).

Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. (Mark 12:29-30)

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, introduces Theologian John Haught who reflects on Jesuit priest, mystic, and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) contributions to Christianity: ( and to the Royal Wedding of https://youtu.be/q8e28pqNXJ4  Prince Harry and Meghan Markel ).

Throughout Teilhard’s lifetime, Catholicism still adhered to the picture of an essentially static and unchanging cosmos. During the last century, however, Teilhard became one of the very few Christian thinkers to acknowledge that the Darwinian revolution and contemporary cosmology . . . [have] important implications for theology. In the first place, . . .  the sciences have shown beyond any doubt that the universe could not literally have come into being in a state of finished perfection. Second, the figure of Christ and the meaning of redemption must now be understood as having something to do with the fulfillment of the earth and the whole universe, and not just the healing of persons or the harvesting of souls from the material world. And third, after Darwin, Christian hope gets a whole new horizon, not one of expiating [atoning for] an ancestral sin and nostalgically returning to an imagined paradisal past, but one of supporting the adventure of life, of expanding the domain of consciousness, of building the earth, and of participating in the ongoing creation of the universe in whatever small ways are available to each of us. . . .

As Teilhard writes, “To worship was formerly to prefer God to things, relating them to him [sic] and sacrificing them for him. To worship is now becoming to devote oneself body and soul to the creative act, associating oneself with that act in order to fulfill the world by hard work and intellectual exploration.”

References


(n.d.). 2 Timothy, chapter 2 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved June 7, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/2timothy/2

(n.d.). Mark, chapter 12 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved June 7, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/mark/12

(n.d.). Creighton U Daily Reflections .... Retrieved June 7, 2018, from http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html

(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved June 7, 2018, from http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/

(n.d.). 9th Week in Ordinary Time - Mass Readings and Catholic Daily .... Retrieved June 7, 2018, from https://wau.org/meditations/

(n.d.). Daily Meditations Archive - Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved June 7, 2018, from https://cac.org/richard-rohr/daily-meditations/daily-meditations-archive/