As every Sunday Mass at my home parish is a three-ring-circus of performances and calling attention to the laity (today was no exception), I was dreading going. I considered going to another parish to which our former Parochial Vicar had invited me, but I wasn't looking forward to three hours in the van. I have had a very productive week and was torn as to as to what was going to best refuel me for another busy week. What I really wanted was a quiet, God-focused Mass, but perhaps not at the expense of a day in the van. Finally, I chose to just stick it out at our home parish. As such, I knew that I would really need to recollect myself and put all I could into Mass. Sometimes you can come and just receive and sometimes you have to seek God. As Mass began, I prayed to God that the Holy Spirit would be with me and guide me as I needed. I always find that He comes to me when I ask, but that it is a bit like falling asleep, He comes so peacefully, you don't know it until you know it, just as you may not know you were falling asleep until something jerks you awake.
Today in Mass, I was offering up a past wound, a betrayal of sorts. Just as I started to do so the thought came to my head:
Alleluia, of Aggeus and Zacharias.
Praise the Lord, O my soul, in my life I will praise the Lord:
I will sing to my God as long as I shall be.
Put not your trust in princes:
in the children of men, in whom there is no salvation.
His spirit shall go forth, and he shall return into his earth: in that day all their thoughts shall perish.
Blessed is he who hath the God of Jacob for his helper, whose hope is in the Lord his God:
who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all things that are in them.
Who keepeth truth for ever: who executeth judgment for them that suffer wrong: who giveth food to the hungry. The Lord looseth them that are fettered:
the Lord enlighteneth the blind. The Lord lifteth up them that are cast down: the Lord loveth the just.
The Lord keepeth the strangers, he will support the fatherless and the widow: and the ways of sinners he will destroy.
The Lord shall reign for ever: thy God, O Sion, unto generation and generation.
Psalm 146
And then a few minutes later, I tuned in to hear this:
I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God,
to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,
holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.
Do not conform yourselves to this age
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,
that you may discern what is the will of God,
what is good and pleasing and perfect.
Romans 12:1-2
And then...
Jesus began to show his disciples
that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly
from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.
Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him,
"God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you."
He turned and said to Peter,
"Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me.
You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do."
Then Jesus said to his disciples
"Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world
and forfeit his life"
Or what can one give in exchange for his life?
For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father's glory,
and then he will repay all according to his conduct."
Matthew 16:21-27
