Assumption Holy Day

(For a better view of this work's beauty,
click on the image.)

Assumption of the Virgin
by Egid Quirin Asam 1725, marble and stucco
Pilgrimage-church, Rohr, Bavaria

Wednesday of this week (August 15) is the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven.

The scriptures we'll be hearing both on Tuesday night at the 7:00 p.m. Vigil Mass and on Wednesday morning at the 9:00 a.m. Ascension day Mass are these. Mass will also be celebrated on Wednesday at 7:00 a.m. in the chapel and the readings for that liturgy can be found here. To understand the first reading (at all three Masses), you might want to skip back to my post of August 2 for some background on the ark of the covenant. Reading the scriptures ahead of time is a great time to prepare for Mass.

(August 15 is also the wedding anniversary of my sister and brother-in-law. Every year my sister and I have a little contest to see if I will remember her wedding anniversary and if she will remember my ordination anniversary. Looks like I'm going to remember - as she did on May 19!)

Go forth and preach!

Those of you who worshipped at Holy Family this weekend heard my homily which included the only souvenir of my two week's vacation: a box of Jesus Band-Aids. After Mass I stopped to pick up the Sunday NY Times and ran into a dad and his daughter who had just been at the 10:30. Dad mentioned that another daughter had stayed at home and her sister and I joked about the good-daughter/not-so-good-daughter comparison. Having picked up the Times and a few other items I went out to my car and on the front seat was my box of Jesus band-aids.

IDEA!

I took out a band-aid and returned to the store and gave it to the young woman I'd just spoken to and told her, "Your job is to take this band-aid home and share my homily with your sister." She and her dad were thrilled and accepted the mission I had given them.

Well, I don't have a Jesus band-aid to give each of you (although the graphic is above!) but you are hereby commissioned to go share with someone else your experience of scripture and sacrament at Mass today. If you want to share with us what happens, come back here and click on COMMENTS.

Pondering Today's Word

Matthew 13:31-35

He spoke to them another parable.
“The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast
that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour
until the whole batch was leavened..."

Let us pray...

God of kitchen counters,
guide our hands as we mix the yeast of faith
with the ingredients of our lives...

Teach us to follow the Word of your recipe,
measuring carefully
everything you call for...

Leaven us with wisdom
and make us rise:
loaves of love, bread for others...

Pondering Today's Word

Exodus 20:1-17

In those days:
God delivered all these commandments:

“I, the LORD, am your God...
You shall not have other gods besides me...

“You shall not take the name of the LORD, your God, in vain...

“Remember to keep holy the sabbath day.
Six days you may labor and do all your work,
but the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD, your God...

“Honor your father and your mother,
that you may have a long life in the land
which the LORD, your God, is giving you.

“You shall not kill.

“You shall not commit adultery.

“You shall not steal.

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife,
nor his male or female slave, nor his ox or ass,
nor anything else that belongs to him.”

The first reading at Mass today includes the 10 Commandments. Whether the courts decide that the decalogue may be posted in government buildings or not, the Commandments will be the core theme of our parish Vacation Bible School at the end of August. (More info available on the parish website.) The title of this year's VBS is a simple one: GOD RULES! We who are beyond the enrollment age for this summertime lesson plan might do well to consider both the text above from Exodus and the simple VBS theme and ask ourselves: "Who rules my life? What rules my life? Whose rules do I play by? What rules do I ignore? What rules have I changed?" GOD RULES!

Pondering Today's Word

From the scriptures for today's Mass: 2 Cor 4:7-15

Brothers and sisters: We hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.

Sometimes we are surprised that good people suffer, perhaps thinking that faithfulness to the Lord and his Word should somehow shield us from life's difficulties. But if neither Jesus nor his Mother, Mary, were spared human suffering can we expect our lot to be different?

The "treasure" we hold in the fragile, earthen vessels of our lives is the presence of Jesus. If we follow in his footsteps the path will lead us to the Cross and if we stand at the foot of the Cross the Lord will lead us to new life in him. It is on account of such faith that we can say:

We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained;
perplexed, but not driven to despair;
persecuted, but not abandoned;
struck down, but not destroyed;
always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.

Do you remember the song, Earthen Vessels? Here's the refrain:

We hold a treasure, not made of gold,
in earthen vessels wealth untold:
one treasure only, the Lord, the Christ,
in earthen vessels...

Let us pray:

O God,
even when the fragile vessel of my life
is chipped and cracked,
help me to trust that you will mend
these broken shards and make me
healed and whole again
in your love.
Amen.

Pondering Today's Word

Exodus by Joseph Matar

From the scriptures for today's Mass: Exodus 14:21—15:1

Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the LORD swept the sea with a strong east wind throughout the night and so turned it into dry land. When the water was thus divided, the children of Israel marched into the midst of the sea on dry land, with the water like a wall to their right and to their left.

Let us pray...

O God,
so many of us stand before rough seas
storming with tempests and trials,
keeping us from the freedom we long for
in our flesh, our minds and our hearts.

Send the strong wind of your Spirit
throughout the dark nights of our souls
and sweep the teeming seas
with the power of your healing broom.

Lead us, your children,
through troubled waters
and be yourself the dry land
upon which our steps become sure
and our paths finds purpose.

Deliver us, Lord,
and be our deliverance.

Amen.

Pondering Today's Word

From today's scriptures
I am concerned about you
and about the way you are being treated in Egypt;
so I have decided to lead you up out of the misery of Egypt
into the land of the Canaanites...
a land flowing with milk and honey.
-Exodus 3:17-17

The Lord is concerned about every one of us -and all of us together- and his desire is to lead us out of misery and into that land flowing with milk and honey.

Eventually, the Israelites came to the promised land but the journey there was not an easy one. Still, the Lord accompanied them every step along their way, whether the people were faithful or unfaithful to his love and word.

Whatever might be my misery today, the Lord is leading me to a better place. The journey there might have its own difficulties but the Lord walks every step of it with me - when I'm confident in his presence as well as when I fear or think he has abandoned me.

The Lord walks with me in many guises... who walks with me in the Lord's name? whom does the Lord ask me to accompany in his name? One way of defining the Church is this: the people who walk together in the Lord's name and offer mutual support that together they may find and enter the land flowing with milk and honey. Who has the Lord put at my side to support me? Whom does the Lord ask me to walk with along the way?