Sunday Meditation: The End and New Beginning of the World

This week brings the readings to the end of the Sunday lectionary of Mark’s Gospel, and we get part of Jesus’s Eschatological Discourse, the discourse on the end times.  The reading only gives us nine verses from Chapter 13 of Mark’s Gospel, but the entire chapter is the full discourse.  I recommend you pull out your Bible and read the entire chapter.  Here is what is given as the Sunday Gospel reading, a middle section from the chapter.

 

Jesus said to his disciples:

"In those days after that tribulation

the sun will be darkened,

and the moon will not give its light,

and the stars will be falling from the sky,

and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

 

"And then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in the clouds'

with great power and glory,

and then he will send out the angels

and gather his elect from the four winds,

from the end of the earth to the end of the sky.

 

"Learn a lesson from the fig tree.

When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves,

you know that summer is near.

In the same way, when you see these things happening,

know that he is near, at the gates.

Amen, I say to you,

this generation will not pass away

until all these things have taken place.

Heaven and earth will pass away,

but my words will not pass away.

 

"But of that day or hour, no one knows,

neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

~Mk 13:24-32

Bishop Barron has given some great homilies, but this on today’s Gospel is one of his best.

Most other homilies will see only the end of times in this reading, but Bishop Barron regards this reading as unveiling Jesus’s time through His resurrection, unveiling the radical transformation of our lives today, and, yes, unveiling the future end.  With the unveiling, we come to a new beginning.  Bishop Barron’s scope in this homily is breathtaking.

 

Sunday Meditation: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." 

 

For a hymn, let’s go with this Gospel song, "The End of Time is Drawing Nigh" by Charles Johnson & the Revivers. 

 

I know nothing of Charles Johnson and his group but that was just wonderful.  This is the best little bio I could find on the Gospel singer.  

Notable Quote: “Prayer is Already Love” by Madeleine Delbrêl

I have seen Madeleine Delbrêl’s name come up in the meditations in the Magnificat magazine before, but I was not aware who she was.  The Vatican declared her as Venerable, which means she might one day be a saint.  She is sometimes called the French Dorothy Day, and indeed there are quite a few parallels.  Delbrêl grew up in an agnostic home, and famously wrote an atheist manifesto at the age of seventeen and lived a Bohemian lifestyle.  When her also atheist boyfriend broke up with her to join the Dominican Order—that must have been some discussion—she started to re-evaluate her beliefs and ultimately had a religious experience and conversion.  I’m not going to get any more biographical but if you wish to learn more you can read from Catholic World Report, “Madeleine Delbrêl’s “writing reenchants everyday life….through Christ’s love” and from America, ”Who is MadeleineDelbrêl—the “French Dorothy Day” Pope Francis made venerable this weekend?”  

 

Now for her magnificent quote on prayer.

 

Praying is establishing normal relations between God and ourselves.  It is converting, returning our spirit, our heart, our will towards God who is constantly our Father and Creator.  Prayer is already love.  It asks for love; it receives love.  But because we are sinners it will always be at times heavy-going, painful, and disconcerting.  From one angle it is already love.  From another it is a kind of necessary but voluntary virtue.

          ~Venerable Madeleine Delbrêl

 

I have taken the quote from Magnificat’s October 2024 issue.  “Prayer is already love,” that knocks my socks off!  “It asks for love; it receives love.”  When I’m deeply praying, I am feeling that.  I know that’s true. 

 

One definitely needs to seek her books out.

 

Matthew Monday: Height

It’s Veterans Day today, and I’m off from work and Matthew is off from school.  This morning he passed me in the upstairs hall and did a double take.  “Am I taller than you now?” he said.  I looked at him and he did look ganglier than usual.  He stood by my side and I felt the top of our heads, and his head did ever so, lightly peak above mine.  I hated to admit it but he was now taller. 

So on the eleventh day of the eleventh month but not the eleventh hour—I would estimate the ninth hour—Matthew was officially taller than his father.  (Here, if you don’t know what that’s a reference to.)   

So what do you think he did?  Do you think he quietly just went to the bathroom as he was about to do?  Or go back to bed to sleep the morning?  Of went downstairs to have something for breakfast?  He ran downstairs screaming, “Mommy, mommy, I’m now taller than Daddy.  I’m now taller than Daddy.”

The little ….%*^$$

Here is a picture of us taken back on August 7 at an Orioles game in Baltimore.

 

As you can see I was still a hair taller.

I don’t have a picture of us side by side now but here is Matthew in Costco trying out a new coat.

 

God bless him.  God bless his growth.  May God continue to bless him.

 

Sunday Meditation: The Widow’s Mite

Last week Jesus spoke about loving God with everything, but this week He highlights someone who does, a poor widow who gives to the Temple her two only coins.  There’s more.  Last week he also praised a scribe.  This week He condemns scribes for their rapacious behavior.

 

In the course of his teaching Jesus said to the crowds,

"Beware of the scribes, who like to go around in long robes

and accept greetings in the marketplaces,

seats of honor in synagogues,

and places of honor at banquets.

They devour the houses of widows and, as a pretext

recite lengthy prayers.

They will receive a very severe condemnation."

 

He sat down opposite the treasury

and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury.

Many rich people put in large sums.

A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents.

Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them,

"Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more

than all the other contributors to the treasury.

For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth,

but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had,

her whole livelihood."

~Mk 12:38-44

 

Dr. Brant Pitre gives a gives a quick overview of the scene.

Just about all the exegesis of the Widow’s Mite passage runs along that line, but I did find someone who grasped it even further.  Fr. William Nicholas, who seems to have his own podcast which I will now stop by, finds a common theme with the widow in the first reading.

That's very insightful.  I have not come across that observation.  The widows are donating to the institutions, the prophet and the Temple, not to any specific charity, not to any good deed.  They are in essence donating to donating to an entity representing God. 

What exactly is a “mite”?  I did not really know.  From Webster’s, the second definition.  

mite

noun (2)

1: a small coin or sum of money

2a: a very little : bit

b: a very small object or creature

 

 

Sunday Meditation: “She, from her poverty, has contributed all she had,

her whole livelihood."

Returning to John Michael Talbot this Sunday, his “My God and My All” is most appropriate.

 

Poetry Analysis: “To A Mouse” by Robert Burns

The occasion of thinking on this poem has to do with a recent event in our household that has, as it turns out, some correspondence to the event that inspired the poem.  In the wee hours of Monday morning (overnight Sunday into Monday) I heard a big crash and ruckus in the hallway outside my bedroom.  I initially thought that Matthew had gotten up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and stumbled into something.  Then I heard another crash and ruckus.  I got out of bed to investigate.  Tiger, our cat, was chasing a mouse that had gotten inside the house.  He was swiping and lunging at him with incredible violence, and at one point got him under his paw.  The mouse played dead—he was motionless and I thought he was killed—but when Tiger lifted up his paw the mouse scooted away.   This was all on the upstairs bedroom floor.

For the next day and a half Tiger was on the hunt trying to sniff him out and wait for him to come out.  When my wife got home Wednesday afternoon at about one o’clock she found him just inside the vestibule on the main floor, downstairs from the bedrooms, lying dead.  There must have been a battle.  I guess he ran to try to get out but Tiger caught him.  Here’s a picture.

Poor little mouse. I thought him cute.  I put the body across the street at an unkempt yard where feral cats live.  Tiger as a kitten came from there, nine and a half years ago.  

This made me recall the Robert Burns’ poem, “To a Mouse,” where the poet felt a compassion for a field mouse he had disturbed.

 

To a Mouse

By Robert Burns

On Turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785.

 

Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,

O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!

Thou need na start awa sae hasty,

          Wi’ bickerin brattle!

I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee

          Wi’ murd’ring pattle!

 

I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion

Has broken Nature’s social union,

An’ justifies that ill opinion,

          Which makes thee startle,

At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,

          An’ fellow-mortal!

 

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;

What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!

A daimen-icker in a thrave

          ’S a sma’ request:

I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,

          An’ never miss ’t!

 

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!

It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!

An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,

          O’ foggage green!

An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,

          Baith snell an’ keen!

 

Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,

An’ weary Winter comin fast,

An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,

          Thou thought to dwell,

Till crash! the cruel coulter past

          Out thro’ thy cell.

 

That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble

Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!

Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,

          But house or hald,

To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,

          An’ cranreuch cauld!

 

But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men

          Gang aft agley,

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,

          For promis’d joy!

 

Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!

The present only toucheth thee:

But Och! I backward cast my e’e,

          On prospects drear!

An’ forward tho’ I canna see,

          I guess an’ fear!

 

The occasion of the poem was said to be Robert Burns overturning a mouse’s nest while plowing a field.  Both Burns’s event and my event disturb a mouse’s life in November.  His mouse I think lived, unlike the unfortunate end of the mouse in my house.  Both Burns and I connected with the mouse on a compassionate level.  We both meditated on our own mortality from a poor mouse’s life and fate.  If Burns’ mouse lived after the scene, she will probably not survive the winter given the disruption of the nest.

Some of Burns’ diction is a bit hard to grasp.  One can almost make out the Scots words but it would be helpful with annotations of the Scottish.  I don’t know if the Scots used here is considered its own language, a slang, a dialect, or a creole (probably a dialect), but it does mix English words with what I take are Scottish versions of English words.  Some words seem to be purely Scotts Gaelic (“cranreuch,” “daimen”) and some are English words transcribed from a Scottish dialect (“sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie”).  Wikipedia has what it calls an English translation of the original Scots,  which I’ll post here.

 

Little, sleek, cowering, timorous beast,

Oh, what a panic is in your breast!

You need not start away so hasty

With bickering prattle!

I would be loath to run and chase you,

With murdering paddle!

 

I'm truly sorry man's dominion

Has broken Nature's social union,

And justifies that ill opinion

Which makes you startle

At me, your poor, earth-born companion

And fellow mortal!

 

I doubt not, sometimes, that you may thieve;

What then? Poor beast, you must live!

An odd ear in twenty-four sheaves

Is a small request;

I will get a blessing with what is left,

And never miss it.

 

Your small house, too, in ruin!

Its feeble walls the winds are scattering!

And nothing now, to build a new one,

Of coarse green foliage!

And bleak December's winds ensuing,

Both bitter and piercing!

 

You saw the fields laid bare and empty,

And weary winter coming fast,

And cozy here, beneath the blast,

You thought to dwell,

Till crash! The cruel coulter passed

Out through your cell.

 

That small heap of leaves and stubble,

Has cost you many a weary nibble!

Now you are turned out, for all your trouble,

Without house or holding,

To endure the winter's sleety dribble,

And hoar-frost cold!

 

But Mouse, you are not alone,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best-laid schemes of mice and men

Go oft awry,

And leave us nothing but grief and pain,

For promised joy!

 

Still you are blessed, compared with me!

The present only touches you:

But oh! I backward cast my eye,

On prospects dreary!

And forward, though I cannot see,

I guess and fear!

 

Like most translations of poetry, the beauty of the sounds of the language is lost in translation.  Still it helps.  Let’s analyze the poem, but I won’t go into the social and economic context of the times in which the poem was written.  You can find that online if you want to.  I’ll stick with the immediate poem. 

There are eight stanzas of six lines of iambic tetrameter, each stanza with an unusual rhyme scheme of A/A/A/B/A/B.  The fourth and sixth lines—the lines with the “B” rhyme—do not have eight syllables of a tetrameter line but either five syllables or four syllables.  Why sometimes five syllables and other times four?  I can’t see a pattern, so perhaps for oral articulation or perhaps just out of convenience.  Nonetheless, I really like this stanza form.

The divisions of the poem I see in this way. 

Stanzas one and two provide situation of the event.  The poor mouse is in a panic, jabbering at the person who disrupted his modest home, and scooting hastily about.  The second stanza I would say is the statement of the poem’s theme, the breaking of some sort of an unspoken agreement between man and nature.

 

I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion

Has broken Nature’s social union,

An’ justifies that ill opinion,

          Which makes thee startle,

At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,

          An’ fellow-mortal!

The last two lines characterizing the mouse as a “poor, earth-born companion/An’ fellow-mortal” lift the little mouse, one of the most insignificant and despised of animals, to an equality with humanity.

Stanzas three through six characterize the impact to the mouse of the overturning of her nest.  The mouse’s home is in ruin; she is now exposed to the winter elements; the plowed field has removed any source of food.

The seventh stanza connects the mouse’s futility with humanity’s, “In proving foresight may be vain,” giving us that great line that is truly a memorable quote, “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men/Gang aft agley” (“the best-laid schemes of mice and men often go awry”). 

The eighth and final stanza, Burns concludes with a distinction between man and beast.  The mouse is blessed because, as an animal, he can only live in the present.  He will move on from this event and forget about it.  The poet, on the other hand has memory that will bring back sorrow every time he remembers such a catastrophe and, disrupted, will live in constant fear of the future.  It is interesting that though not an overtly religious poem, a blessing is mentioned twice (third and eighth stanzas). 

This is ultimately a nature poem, with man as an agent for disrupting nature for his purposes.

There are some great lines in this poem.  I already mentioned “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men/Gang aft agley” from stanza seven.  I would say the first four lines are just so charming: “Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,/O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!/Thou need na start awa sae hasty,/Wi’ bickerin brattle!”  The first four lines of the fourth stanza are so musical: “Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!/It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!/An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,/O’ foggage green!”  As are the first four lines of the eight stanza: “Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!/The present only toucheth thee:/But Och! I backward cast my e’e,/On prospects drear!”

Such a lovely poem.  You can hear it read in both the Scot’s dialect and a modern translation on this clip.

 

What about my poor, little mousie?  Well, though I feel for his plight, I’m not exactly to blame.  He intruded my space, and he faced a natural enemy, Tiger!  Behold the mighty hunter!

 

I was wondering how I was going to get the mouse out.  Tiger saved me the trouble.

Sunday Meditation: The Love of God

Last week Jesus was at Jericho on His way to Jerusalem.  Today we find Him in Jerusalem, and it is during Holy Week.  Because we have split off the Gospel readings between Easter and Ordinary Time, we have already read Jesus’s triumphant Palm Sunday entrance into Jerusalem.  Now we pick up on events prior to the Last Supper, which we already read.

Today Jesus is questioned by a Scribe.

 

One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him,

"Which is the first of all the commandments?"

Jesus replied, "The first is this:

Hear, O Israel!

The Lord our God is Lord alone!

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,

with all your soul,

with all your mind,

and with all your strength.

The second is this:

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

There is no other commandment greater than these."

The scribe said to him, "Well said, teacher.

You are right in saying,

'He is One and there is no other than he.'

And 'to love him with all your heart,

with all your understanding,

with all your strength,

and to love your neighbor as yourself'

is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."

And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding,

he said to him,

"You are not far from the kingdom of God."

And no one dared to ask him any more questions.

~Mk 12:28-34

 

Fr. Geoffrey Plant gives one of his comprehensive explanations for this passage. 

If you didn’t know, Fr. Geoffrey tells us there are 613 commandments in  the Torah!  So you are way off if you think there are only the Ten Commandments.  I also thought the comment by Amy-Jill Levine (who is Jewish by the way, but a New Testament Scholar) observes that Jesus actually added to the Shema, “with all your mind.”  That is not there in Deuteronomy.  Look carefully at the first reading from today. 

Again, Jeff Cavins does another fine outline from a pastoral point of view. 

Sunday Meditation: "You are not far from the kingdom of God."

 

Why not far?  Why are you not yet in the Kingdom of God?  Something to meditate on. 

In lieu of a hymn this week, I want to give you the Shema in the Hebrew.  From a Rabbi at myjewishlearning: