Sunday's Gospel Reading
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea--for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him. -Mark 1:14-20
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About This Week's Prompts for Meditation
The stark immediacy of Mark's account of the call of two sets of brothers reverberates with silence and lack of detail. Within that resonant silence, however, lies everything that will happen to them, and every Christian's response to their own calls and subsequent stories.
At first the call is like a love story changing the very patterns of daily life (meditation one). But a deeper knowledge follows, and the realization that these changes are not merely superficial, but deeply transformative (meditation two). And this love as strong as death (Song of Songs 8:6) fosters a practice of justice, and a peace which passeth all understanding.
-Peace,
Suzanne
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Meditation One (introit)
falling in love
Nothing is more practical than
finding God, than
falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in Love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything.
-Attributed to Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ (1907–1991)
Finding God in All Things: A Marquette Prayer Book
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Miscellany 1
Darest thou now O soul,
Walk out with me toward the unknown region,
Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?
No map there, nor guide,
Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,
Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.
I know it not O soul,
Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us,
All waits undream’d of in that region, that inaccessible land.
Till when the ties loosen,
All but the ties eternal, Time and Space,
Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us.
Then we burst forth, we float,
In Time and Space O soul, prepared for them,
Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil O soul.
– Walt Whitman 1819-1892
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| The Calling of Peter and Andrew, Duccio, 1308-11 |
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Meditation Two (insight)
transformative shift
The Sacred Call is transformative. It is an invitation to our souls, a mysterious voice reverberating within, a tug on our hearts that can neither be ignored nor denied. It contains, by definition, the purest message and promise of essential freedom. It touches us at the center of our awareness. When such a call occurs and we hear it – really hear it – our shift to higher consciousness is assured.
-David A. Cooper
Parabola, Volume XIX, Number 1, February, 1994, The Call p.11
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Meditation Three (integration)
"the Peace of God"
The followers of Christ have been called to peace. … And they must not only have peace but also make it. And to that end they renounce all violence and tumult. In the cause of Christ nothing is to be gained by such methods. … His disciples keep the peace by choosing to endure suffering themselves rather than inflict it on others. They maintain fellowship where others would break it off. They renounce hatred and wrong. In so doing they over-come evil with good, and establish the peace of God in the midst of a world of war and hate.
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945
The Cost of Discipleship
The peace of God, it is no peace,
but strife closed in the sod.
Yet let us pray for but one thing-
the marvelous peace of God.
-William Alexander Percy (1885-1942)
from the hymn "They cast their nets in Galilee"
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding...
-Philippians 4:7, and the opening words of a traditional blessing
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The Last Word
O Lord, this my soul is wider than the world, its longing from depths deeper than any valley, the pain of desire is more troubling than the faint lost bell notes. Only thyself canst fill so vast an emptiness.
–Romano Guardini 1885-1968
Sacred Signs
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Miscellany 2
This first stage of the mythological journey – which we have designated the “call to adventure” – signifies the destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of his society to a zone unknown. This fateful region of both treasure and danger may be variously represented; as a distant land, a forest, a kingdom underground, beneath the waves, or above the sky, a secret island, lofty mountaintop, or profound dream state; but it is always a place of strangely fluid and polymorphous beings, unimaginable torments, superhuman deeds, and impossible delight.
– Joseph Campbell 1904-1987
The Hero With A Thousand Faces p.48
But whether small or great, and no matter what the stage or grade of life, the call rings up the curtain, always, on a mystery of transfiguration – a rite, or moment, of spiritual passage, which, when complete, amounts to a dying and a birth. The familiar life horizon has been outgrown; the old concepts, ideals, and emotional patterns no longer fit; the time for the passing of a threshold is at hand.
– Ibid., p.43
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