“I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”

Jesus teaches with authority in today’s gospel. A man with an unclean spirit encounters the holiness of Jesus. It is the unclean spirit who recognizes Jesus.

In our lives, the suffering or the loneliness or the sin or the anguish is what recognizes Jesus. Our poverty proclaims what Jesus can do for us if we allow our true selves to encounter the beauty and mystery of Christ Jesus.

Today, the unclean spirit might be named mental illness. We still fear mental illness and we still blame people who suffer emotional disorders. We blame people so often for possessing what we fear. We must realize that even our diseases may recognize the healing power of Jesus.

I pray that we may hear the voice of Jesus that bears only hope for us. I pray for such healing for people who suffer any emotional disorder or mental illness.

This painting is to help us reflect on the chaotic lives of people who suffer emotional disorders. The frenzy of life, the inability to concentrate, the problems of living up to other’s expectations, are all ares of life to reflect upon for people marginalized by mental illness, brain injuries and various learning disabilities. I pray this painting may lead us to prayer and the assurance that we are united in Jesus.

Jesus, said, “Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place.” Luke 4

It takes courage to see the world differently. Imagination, creativity and awareness are often in short supply, especially within the Church. We desperately need new witnesses, new prophets to speak up and look out in our time and place. We need peace, harmony and the basics of food, housing and jobs.

A prophet’s place is simply to connect love with despair, compassion with hopelessness, courage with fear, all in new and unexpected ways. A prophet longs simply to make hope work for people.

So many people live in fear of the plight and desperation of others. We all fear letting go of the things that are most valuable to us, our health, our homes and especially our loved ones.

Last night our parish community hosted the Lord’s dinner, a weekly meal that is open to all people. The meal takes place every week at Sacred Heart Church and nine different churches provide food on a rotating basis. We seated 150 people in our parish center, many of whom were families looking to get by until their paycheck this week.

In many ways, serving people is a profound and prophetic act. However, the gratitude that emerges during an evening like last night truly lifts everyone’s spirits and makes life meaningful. A courageous act is simply to step out of our comfort to make the connection that we are all one. We are all in need of the basics of life, all longing to belong, to be loved and seen in the world. We all hunger for the same things.

A prophet of today longs to see the world differently, to recognize that we have an opportunity to reinvent how we relate to one another, to house people, to feed them, to offer them a cup of milk and to remain grateful. The prophet’s longing reflects the ache of every human heart.

Self-Portrait
August 29, 2015

“Humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you and is able to save your souls.” James: 1

A reading from the Letter of Saint James. (1:17-18,21b-22,27)

Dearest brothers and sisters: All good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no alteration or shadow caused by change. He willed to give us birth by the word of truth that we may be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. 

Humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you and is able to save your souls.

Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

(I am grateful for all my teachers who taught me to cherish the word within me, who taught me by example how to be doers of the word. For all who gave witness of service to orphans, widows and people in need. For all who remained unstained by the world.)

Click here to read an article from the Washington Post on the revival of creating art as meditation. This is article is very timely for my own life as well as our ministry of inviting people into self-expression, creativity, beauty, healing and faith.

Here is today’s visual meditation on Psalm 72

For he shall save the needy when they cry, the poor and those who are helpless. (Psalm 72)

Turn your ear, O Lord, and answer me; save the servant who trusts in you, my God. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I cry to you all the day long. (Psalm 86)

You have searched me and you know me, Lord. Psalm 139 

(From today’s Mass)

Collect from today’s Mass

Strengthen in us, O Lord, the faith, by which the blessed Apostle Bartholomew clung wholeheartedly to your Son, and grant that through the help of his prayers your Church may become for all the nations the sacrament of salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ you Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.

I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall ever be on my mouth. Let my soul glory in the Lord, the lowly will hear and be glad. (Psalm 34)

Gospel for the Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

“As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him. Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” Simeon Peter answered him.” Master, to whom shall we go?” (John 6:60-69)