15 August: The flooding of the Nile

The Assumption of Mary and the Flooding of the Nile: two feasts on the same day, can we connect them?

The Nile, of course, is life to Egypt, water and fertility. Here is Arthur Hughes, Missionary of Africa, just arrived in Cairo in 1942 after working in Ethiopia, then often called Abyssinia:

The heavy rains of Abyssinia run down from her mountains and hillsides in torrents and go to swell the River Nile as it flows out of Lake Tana. I thought how those Biblical years in the Old Testament – the seven years of thinness and famine in Egypt – were due of course to seven years of slight or no rains in Abyssinia. This year here at Cairo the River is very high: August the 17^th is Feast of the Nile and has been for thousands of years, since for thousands of years the month of August brings down to the Nile Delta the torrential rains of Abyssinia and the Nile overflows its banks and waters the lands and forms that green belt of vegetation in the middle of the desert which is Egypt.

Mary provided an oasis of love where her son could grow into boyhood and manhood, for the first few years in Egypt, traditionally in the Cairo area. Imagine her in the market, buying food grown in the fertile soil of the delta, just as we do – though she would not have bought Egyptian potatoes or tomatoes, as we have done this Spring.

Let us be grateful for the food we receive from Egypt and around the world; let’s pray for true peace in Egypt and the Middle East; and let’s thank God for Mary’s loving care of her Son, and the true peace which he brings.

MMB.

I do not know why we have two slightly different dates for the Nile Feast! MMB.

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23 July: In the eye of the beholder?

Is a beach, a forest, a flower beautiful when nobody is looking at it? I remember such questions being laid before us at school to get us to think. 

The answer can be many layered, from ‘of course it is always beautiful’ to ‘God sees it, and everything he made is good’, to ‘We must train our eyes to see just as we must train our brains to think.’

When I first got to know the Mermaid rose it was in a pot in the garden centre, but just asking to be grown against our house wall. It is happy there, despite its being a dry spot; so happy I had to prune it quite heavily last autumn before it scratched too many passers-by. Mermaid has vicious thorns!

So the blossom is a little late this year, but plentiful. However, there is another beauty to be seen: the shoots of new growth where the bush wants to regain lost territory. What a beautiful red, but it will last no more than a few days.

The answer to the question?

Laudato Si’ !

MMB

July 10, 2017: Taking the risk to trust Jesus

 

Readings: Genesis.28:10-22, Psalm. 90. Gospel Matthew 9:18-26

Each day of our lives we take decisions that could change our lives forever.  Sometimes these decisions may not be right but we take responsibility for the outcome.

The woman in the gospel today decided to make a move, for she told herself ‘even if I could touch the fringe of his cloak, I will be well again’.

It takes me back to so many people I encounter every day, especially those who have been plagued with different illnesses. There are those whom doctors have told they have maybe days, weeks months or years to live. The woman in the gospel had her illness for twelve years. All hope has been lost but when Jesus appeared everything was made new again .It becomes important for me to say that there is no challenge or difficulty in this world that cannot be overcome with the help of Christ. The question is: will I be willing to decide today to hand him over all the activities and events of my life? God says in Genesis28:15 – “be sure that I am with you, I will keep you safe wherever you go…”

FMSL

 

An Invitation.

Kent’s answer to California: Margate, looking across to T’s apartment.

Dear Friends,

I had a message from our contributor Doug Woelke in California, inviting all Agnellus readers to join in the on-line summer school course organised by RCIA in his Mission.

It certainly looks worthwhile! Doug writes:

If you could be so kind and visit the web site, click on the Summer Bible Study Tab, and take a look around.  Although I have a schedule for the course, the timeline is more for me to meet than for participants to adhere to…the beauty of an online study is that folks can opt in at their leisure. click on the Summer Bible Study Tab, and take a look around. 

You can visit the website here: www.missionbiblestudy.com I have copied the course syllabus below; as Doug says, you can take your time to get the taste of what the Scripture is about by concentrating on small extracts. I urge you to take a closer look.

Creation – Course Syllabus

• At the start of each session, you will be given a few short questions or ideas to consider when reading, pondering, and studying the source reading for each weekly session.
• TAKE YOUR TIME…you have all week to read and reread the references…ponder, meditate, and pray on the readings.

Course Outline

Week 1 (11 – 17 June 2017) Introduction to the Creation of the World (Gen 1:1-2:3)
Week 2 (18 – 24 June 2017) Creation:  Day One  (Gen 1:1-5)
Week 3 (25 June – 1 July 2017) Creation:  Day Two (Gen 1:6-8)

02-08 July 2017 – No Session (Holiday Week)

Week 4 (09 – 15 July 2017)  Creation:  Day Three (Gen 1:9-13)
Week 5 (16 – 22 July 2017)  Creation:  Day Four (Gen 1:14-19)
Week 6 (23 – 29 July 2017)  Creation:  Day Five (Gen 1:20-23)
Week 7 (30 July – 05 August 2015)  Creation:  Day Six (Gen 1:24-31)
Week 8 ( 06 – 12 August 2017) Creation:  Day Seven (Gen 2:1-3)
Week 9 (13 – 19 August 2017)  Review of the Creation Story (Gen 1:1-2:3)

Doug sent this picture of the Holy Door at his church, the Mission of San Luis Rey. The door is open, you are welcome to enter!

30 May: Sunrises

I love watching for sunrises

I mean surprises

proclaiming without fanfare that

we are not selfish

pre-determined muddles but have

at least a sky’s worth

of space in us just waiting for

that warm sunrise of

empathy and so here is one

 

Mister Darwin sir

 

fossils prove Neandertals cared

for the weakest ones

in their tribe and didn’t leave them

to die oh surprise

for love loved the most fragile and

not just the fittest

and survives from barely biped

to barely upright

humans God I love sunrises

 

Sister Johanna sees more sunrises than most of us. If I got up as early as she does, with a ladder and some glasses I could see to Minster marshes – if it wasn’t for the houses in between. Let’s enjoy her sharing the blessings of sunrise. An appropriate image to ponder when we have the feast of Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth tomorrow, a truly ‘warm sunrise of empathy’ and a neat challenge to Darwin.

Will.

8 May: In the place of God’s presence

Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it

…this is the house of God, the gate of heaven.

Genesis 28: 16-17

Every place is the house of God, the gate of heaven. Often, when pushed and pulled by noise and movement, it seems God is nowhere – but break the word open and you have the truth: God is now – here.

How do we become awake and receptive to this presence? We might try two things:

The first: To find or create a physical space in our home or environment where we purposefully [and regularly] go to be open to God.

This is likely to be somewhere where we feel at home or comfortable. It could be a corner of a room in the house, where a chair waits, a candle just sitting there invites you to light it and a bible rests ready to restore your soul. Such a space works in a similar way that a church building does. A church is made of bricks and mortar like so many other buildings but you know when you enter why you are going there. Walking in, sitting down, you become open to God who is in that place. The dedicated space in your home becomes your ‘church’; through daily practice you have only to go there to begin the act of prayer.

Your ‘holy’ place could also be a garden shed, a bench in the park where you sit in your lunchbreak, or a place where you regularly walk. What helps is to make your going to whatever space you choose intentional, in just the same way that you choose to visit a friend or family member.

The second: Each day to purposefully seek God in a place that up to now we have found uncomfortable and that seems to work against any sense of God’s presence.

I can think of a few: For example, I rarely enjoy walking along Borough High Street, near London Bridge, where I sometimes work. There is no green of tree or plant to soften the concrete. The pavements are thronged with people walking against the flow of wherever it is I want to get to. The traffic is noisy. Why even try to seek God here? Because God is here and now. So as I walk along I breathe out my hurry and worry, and breathe in God with me. I pause long enough to see the faces that pass me, the cars moving by, the sky framed by the buildings and ask the Lord to help me see well, with an open mind and heart. Perhaps I will hold the line of a psalm as I walk along, dodging those who cannot see because their eyes are trained on the screen of their mobiles.

Where is such a place for you – somewhere that is a regular part of your life? Or perhaps it will be a time of day more than a physical place: perhaps the time when you first get in from work and all the emails are awaiting you, or the commute home on a busy train.

Seek God there, and you will find. It may not be anything dramatic or immediate. God inhabits the ordinary, and moves within the waiting heart.

CC.

17 April, Easter Monday: “Do not be afraid…Go and tell…”

Image from http://breakopenword.blogspot.co.uk/

“Do not be afraid…Go and tell…”

Matthew 28:8-15

These are usually God’s instructions to the prophets. Jesus is giving the women a mission as the first prophets of the Resurrection. These women looked after him in Galilee and followed him to Judea to continue caring for him. They were the ones who stayed closest to Jesus in His darkest hour and even prepared him for burial. Now, by God’s design, they are the first to see Jesus after his Resurrection.

In the Garden of Eden, the serpent taught the woman a lesson that she passed on to the man – to trust her own will more than her Creator. That message caused both man and woman to separate themselves from God. So, from Genesis onward, generations of people blamed woman for the Fall of humanity. She was treated as inferior to man, who dominated her.

In the garden of the Resurrection, God entrusts to women a message for men that will save all humans and reunite us with our Creator: Jesus has undone death and is coming to be with you again.

Later, Jesus will have to reproach the apostles for refusing to believe his chosen messengers.

I pray that I, like those women, may remain faithful to Jesus, trusting in his will and eager to carry it out.

FMSL

15 April, Vigil of Easter : O Living Water!

Holy Name Church, Manchester

Water is everywhere at the Easter Vigil, from Creation (Genesis 1) to the Exodus (Chapter 14) and the rain making the land fertile in Isaiah (35:1-11) to Paul’s ‘When we were baptised in Christ Jesus we were baptised in his death … so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glory, we too might live a new life. (Romans 6:3-11)

The water is blessed by immersing the Paschal Candle in it, as we pray that all who are buried with Christ in the death of baptism may rise to new life with him. New Christians are baptised; we are all sprinkled with holy water.

The Church is serious about death, the church is serious about the Resurrection. As you enter the Holy Name church in Manchester you cannot avoid their magnificent holy water fonts: this particular church is very serious about the death of baptism.

If we are to be raised from the dead, then despite all our trials and troubles, everything is basically all right. All will be well, all manner of things will be well. If you cannot quite believe in Easter and everlasting life, ask yourself, if this story were indeed true, what difference would it make to me today? How would it change my life? Then try starting that change in behaviour, and see if it makes sense.

WT

3 April: Adam and Eve and Immigration to the Promised Land.

Yesterday we heard in Ezekiel’s prophecy how God would bring his people back to the Holy Land of Israel. Doug’s reflections on migration follow on very well from that reading.

Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will open your graves, and will bring you out of your sepulchres, O my people: and will bring you into the land of Israel.

Ezekiel 37:12

A cultural battle has been waged on both sides of “the pond”, playing itself out in politics.  First, in the U.K. there was Brexit, and in the U.S. there was the Executive Order of the newly elected President halting immigration of refugees from seven specific nations.

British and Americans proudly view their homelands as the Promised Land, if you will.  While many contend the common factor shared by Brexit and the Muslim Ban, is xenophobia, the bad feelings towards foreigners may not be based in fear, but in the belief that natural born citizens have rights that should not be, but are being, unfairly usurped by newcomers.

Place of birth does not guarantee virtuousness nor righteousness.  In Saint Ambrose’s writings on Paradise, he uses scripture to validate this claim.

As Saint Ambrose tells us, Adam was not native to the garden.  We see in Genesis 2:7-8 that it was after he was formed from the dust of the earth, then he was placed in the garden…making Adam the first refugee immigrating to a better place.

Eve on the other hand, was a native of Paradise, created from the rib of man (Genesis 2:22).

And, it was Eve, the native, who sinned first, and consummated the Fall of Man by deceiving Adam, the immigrant.

“You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you; you shall love the alien as yourself; for you too were once aliens in the land of Egypt “(Leviticus 19:34).

DW.

11 March, Human Will VII: The Will of God

 

 

What do we learn about the will of God for humanity when we ponder the sacred texts of scripture?  We find first in Genesis that we were created by God to share his life: this is his will for us.  We find that by sin we opposed God’s will and placed our will against God’s.  In consequence, we lost our closeness to God, we lost the harmony of our being, we became disordered within ourselves, and our relationships with each other became fraught and conflicted.  Our will, rather than being oriented toward God, turned in on itself.

Then began the long, long process by which God, without ever violating the freedom of our will, would lead humanity back to himself.  Scripture shows the stages in this process: the covenants with Noah and Abraham; the Exodus and journey to the Promised Land; the Law revealed to Moses; the growth of Israel’s identity as God’s chosen people, the organisation of Israel’s religious life, the building of the Temple.  In the midst of these stages, a theme emerges: God is faithful but the chosen people are wayward, contentious, fickle, heedless of God’s will, prone to idolatry.  The prophets and the psalms lament this.  Nevertheless, a new covenant is promised in which God will make possible a new depth of relationship with himself:

Look, the days are coming, Yahweh declares, when I shall make a new covenant with the House of Israel, but not like the covenant I made with their ancestors the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt, a covenant which they broke….  No this is the covenant I shall make with them, Yahweh declares.  Within them I shall plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. 

(Jeremiah. 31:31-34) 

 

The other great theme that emerges in tandem with this is the prophecy of an individual man who will inaugurate this new covenant in his very person.  He will be the messiah.  He will be a king, yet he will also be a servant who will suffer.  Above all, he will be the faithful son that Israel, in her sinfulness and waywardness, had not been.  He will come for the poor and humble of God, and will himself be gentle and humble (see Isaiah 11:1-9, 42:1-9, 61:1-9; Jeremiah 23:5-6; Psalm 72; Zephaniah 2:3).

Jesus himself said that he was the fulfilment of this hope in Luke 4:16-21:

 

Jesus came to Nazara… and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day as he usually did.  He stood up to read, and they handed him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah.  Unrolling the scroll he found the place where it is written:

            The spirit of the Lord is on me,

for he has anointed me

to bring the good news to the afflicted. 

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives,

sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord.

He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the assistant and sat down.  And all eyes in the synagogue were fixed on him.  Then he began to speak to them, ‘This text is being fulfilled today even while you are listening.’

Christianity is built on the belief that what Jesus said in the synagogue that day was true, that he was the anointed one of God who would be, in his very person, the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy, and indeed of all the prophecies.

Christians see that the truth of Jesus’ claim is subsequently borne out in his public ministry, in everything he said and did, in his death, resurrection and ascension.  Where Israel had been a faithless and fickle son, Jesus remained faithful to the will of God, even unto death.  He, and he alone in all history, did his Father’s will.  And his own will?  It was completely united with the Father’s will, so much so that Jesus could say, ‘My food is to do the will of the one who sent me’ (John 4.34).

Jesus, by his life and his very being, shows us the love with which he unites his will to the will of the Father.  Through his Spirit, we are able to enter into a personal relationship with Jesus, a relationship written on our hearts, by which we journey to the Father.  We cannot fully fathom Jesus’ love for us in this life, but we can love him in return.  We can strive to follow him.  We can give him our will.  To do this is to do the will of God.

SJC.