Mercy unbounded

Readings: Isaiah 56:1.6-7; Psalm 67:2-3.5-6.8; Romans 11:13-15.29-32; Matthew 15:21-28

An important aspect of today's Gospel that is often overlooked is that it is a Gentile, a Canaanite women no less, who recognizes Jesus for who he is: the "Lord, Son of David!" This is a messianic greeting. We can be quite certain that in the context of this passage, her greeting is not lost on the Lord. He knows that she knows who he is, even when many in Israel, perhaps even some of his disciples, did not.

In the Gospels, Jesus employs a variety of methods to teach. This pericope is an instance when he gives a powerful lesson using a tough technique. What is the lesson? The lesson is that God's care care and concern, his goodnes and mercy, extend beyond Israel, beyond the chosen people. In our day, this is as true of the Church as it was of Israel.

Many spend a lot of time and energy drawing lines to determine who is left out. But in the bizarro world of God's kingdom, there is only us, no them. You know what? This remains downright scandalous to many people.

Without a doubt, the most fundamental aspect of Pope Francis' pontificate was reminding us of the scandalous way God manifests his love. El amor de Dios es para todos, todo el tiempo. You can't earn God's love. This is not true because you're so bad and God is so good (that is true of me, however). It's because you can't earn what you not only always have, but what you already always have and cannot lose. What scripture reveals we need to take to heart: "God is love" (1 John 4:8.16).

Our epistle reading today harmonizes nicely with the Old Testament and Gospel readings. In this passage from his Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul lays out a great mystery. According to the apostle, it is because of Israel's disobedience that we, the Gentiles, have received God's mercy. You see, as Gentiles, we are unencumbered by the Law. For Paul, the Law exists to show us that we can't measure up to it. Only one perfectly observed the Law, Jesus.

Crumbs of Love, by Michael Cook, 2008

It is because of the mercy we have received, that Israel, whose "call is irrevocable," will receive mercy. This is what is means when you read, "For God delivered all to disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all." La misericordia de Dios es para todos.

Up until he says, "O woman, great is your faith!", including his blowing off her intial plea, the Lord's answers might seem a bit harsh. The lesson is that this Canannite woman, so desperate to find relief for her daughter, due to her persistent faith, is an example of faith even to Israel. Such expressions of faith by non-Jews is a constant throughout the Gospel narratives.

Sometimes our preconceptions, which easily and often become misconceptions, get in God's way. This not only affects us, but it can easily affect others- "Send her away." Heaven forbid!

According to the oracle from Isaiah, it is

The foreigners who join themselves to the LORD,
ministering to him,
loving the name of the LORD,
and becoming his servants

This why all the nations of the earth will praise God.

Being vulnerable

Once again this week I teetered on not posting. Maybe it's late summer malaise. If so, it is exacerbated by coming to grips with so many things that are happening.

I've been thinking a lot lately about vulnerability. Like a lot words, "vulnerability" has taken onboard a lot of added meaning. We talk about the need to protect vulnerable people, as we should. "Vulnerable" in that sense seems a straightforward use of the word.

We also talk about "being vulnerable," making ourselves vulnerable. This is almost always spoken about as if it's something ought or even need to do. This rather expands the word.

As to the encouragement to make one's self vulnerable, in the first place, I would say that to be alive is to be vulernable. It's easy to argue that is vulnerable enough! How much more vulnerable do you want to make yourself?

Well, to love is to make yourself vulnerable. I daresay most of us have had our hearts broken and not only by lovers but perhaps by parents, children, friends, fellow believers. Love is a risk. If the risk was removed, would it be, could it be, love?

All of this is a wind up to stating the reality that going into ministry, when done with proper awareness and discernment, is to make yourself quite vulnerable. Like marriage, this should scare you a bit. This is also why sometimes those in ministry can seem a little gun shy at times.

I sometimes think I try too hard to tie things up with neat little bows. I am going to do that today, on this penitential Friday.

Our very late traditio, which I had ready on Friday, is Colin Hays' cover of Stevie Winwood's "Can't Find My Way Home."

Year A Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: 1 Kings 19:9a.11-13a; Psalm 85:9-14; Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:22-33

Last week’s Gospel found Jesus trying to get away to spend time in prayer. His plan was altered when, upon his arrival on the far shore, he encountered a vast crowd. Being “moved with pity for them,” the Lord cured the sick among them. After this, he performed a miracle by feeding thousands.¹

Remember that what prompted the Lord to seek out a deserted place where he could be by himself was the death of John the Baptist. It was grief that led him to desire to be alone with the Father. Our Gospel today picks up where the feeding of the 5,000 left off.

After his interaction with the multitude, the Lord still deeply desired to be alone to pray. This time he was able to go up the mountain by himself. The inspired author of Matthew seems to indicate that Jesus was on the mountain praying for quite a while. He planned to pray for so long, in fact, that he sent his disciples on their way while he stayed behind to pray.

When faced with life’s unexpected twists and turns, especially when faced with inexplicable tragedies, unexpected disappointments, and unforeseen setbacks, which leave you grief-stricken and/or feeling vulnerable and powerless, where do you go? To whom do you turn?

We live in an age when, even among people of faith, prayer easily becomes the last resort- what one does when there is nothing else s/he can possibly do. But the Lord’s first impulse upon learning of the violent death of the Baptist at the hands of Herod was to find a deserted place where he could be alone with the Father. Yet, even in his grief, he took time to serve others, even though that meant delaying his own plans.

More than healing the sick among the vast crowd, Jesus gave thanks to God, blessed it, and then broke the bread before distributing the food. This reminds us of something we hear each week in the Preface of the Eucharistic Prayer: “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, holy Father. . .”²

Out of prudence, we normally tend to avoid absolutes like “always” and “everywhere.” Yet, when it comes to giving thanks to God, we are exhorted to have no such reluctance, no such reticence. Sometimes this is more of a provocation than it is a consolation. Yet, this is exactly what the Lord models for us.

Saint Paul sums this beautifully in his Second Letter to the Corinthians:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and God of all encouragement, who encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God. For as Christ’s sufferings overflow to us, so through Christ does our encouragement also overflow³

My dear friends, as hard as this can be at times, this is what living out our baptism, living the Paschal Mystery looks like! As our Collect for today indicates, it is through Christ and “taught by the Holy Spirit” that “we dare to call [God] our Father.”⁴

After his time in prayer, Jesus set out to join his disciples, who’d already set sail across the Sea of Galilee. As they made their way across the water in the dark of night, they saw Jesus approaching them, walking on the water. Understandably, this frightened them.

The Lord assured them that it was indeed him and exhorted them, “do not be afraid.”⁵ Looking at this allegorically, the sea becomes the great mystery of life, wide, deep, often unpredictable, and at times quite scary. The boat is what we build to keep ourselves provisionally safe from the vicissitudes of life. But even in the relative safety of the boat, we know the power of storms at sea.

As long as the waters are calm, the boat seems a safe place. Those in the boat accompany one another during this sometimes-perilous crossing. As the wind whips up and waves start to rise and crash, here comes the Lord, improbably walking toward us. It is Jesus who transforms the waters into the vastness of God's love and mercy. He says to you, "Come."

Peter’s stepping out is what Paul wrote about when he insisted that it is by receiving God’s encouragement in our afflictions that we are able to encourage others experiencing affliction. It is by sharing in Christ’s cross that you already share in his resurrection. You need not even fear death. God, who is love, is stronger than death!

Peter knows full well that he cannot walk on the water on his own. He needs the Lord's help to do so. Jesus is all too happy to say to his eager follower, “Come.”⁶ Lo and behold, Peter steps out of the boat and begins to make his way across the water to Jesus.

Losing his focus on Christ, Peter suddenly becomes all too aware of himself. He begins to sink. But even then, Jesus immediately stretched out his hand and caught Peter. Fear, which is so tied up with focus on self, is often what holds us back.

The Lord repeatedly says to his disciples, “Do not be afraid.” In Saint Matthew’s Gospel alone, he says it three times. Besides today’s passage, he says this to Peter, James, and John after his Transfiguration, when they saw Moses and Elijah and heard the Father’s voice.⁷ Finally, the Risen Lord tells the women who came to the tomb, “Do not be afraid! Go tell my brothers to leave for Galilee, and they will see me there.”⁸

True prayer, the kind of prayer Jesus no doubt engaged in while on the mountain, results in self-forgetting. The consolation we offer to those who are afflicted in the midst of our own afflictions also requires self-forgetting, which arises from true prayer.

The sea of life is wide, deep, and unpredictable. We never know what tomorrow may bring, good or bad. And so, like Peter stepping out of the boat, let us squarely face reality by making an act of faith. Let’s do it by borrowing words from a famous prayer of Thomas Merton:

I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone⁹

And so, with Peter, we implore: “Lord, save me!”¹⁰

---

1 See Matthew 14:13-21.^↩
2 Roman Missal. Preface VI of the Sundays in Ordinary Time, sec. 57.^↩
3 2 Corthinthians 1:3-5.^↩
4 Roman Missal. Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.^↩
5 Matthew 14:27.^↩
6 Matthew 14:29.^↩
7 See Matthew 17:1-8.^↩
8 See Matthew 28:1-10.^↩
9 Thomas Merton. “The Merton Prayer,” from Thoughts in Solitude.^↩
10 Matthew 14:30.^↩

Interior renewal, being grounded in Reality

It was touch-and-go as to whether I was going to post a traditio this week. Needless to say, it's been a fairly draining time. The good thing about this show is that it need not go on.

There are desolations aplenty. In his goodness, God also provides consolations. Among the consolations over these past several days have been continuing to read Jane Foulcher's Life Here Together: The Prophetic Gift of the Tibhirine Monks and listening to the episode of John Dear's "The Nonviolent Jesus" podcast with Jim Finley on God and the mystics.

The monks of the monastery in Tibhirine, Algeria

For six years immediately following high school, Finley was at Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky. Pater Tom served as his novice master and provided him with spiritual direction. Jim also wrote what remains one of the best books on the spirituality of Pater Tom.

First published in 1978, ten years after Pater Tom's death, Finley's Merton's Palace of Nowhere is still worth reading. In fact, I am going to re-read it in September.

I plan to also read How Far to Follow?: The Martyrs of Atlas, by Bernardo Olivera, OSCO. Not be confused with the famous soccer player of the same name, at the time of the kidnapping and murder of the seven Cistercian monks from Our Lady of Atlas Priory in Algeria in 1996, Father Olivera was serving in Rome as Abbot General of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (OSCO).

You may ask, to whom or what do these monks called "Cistercians" strictly observe? It's a great question. They seek to strictly observe the Rule of Saint Benedict. Dating to the twelfth century, the Cistercians are a Benedictine reform movement.

While I have had the book for several years, I will probably also (finally) read The Rule of Saint Benedict: Initiation into the Monastic Tradition 4, which contains Merton's teaching as novice master at Gethsemani on Saint Benedict's Regula.

Anyway, kind of a data dump and a Cistercian one at that. Maybe should institute "Media Monday." I really feel the need for interior renewal. I have also started listening to the first season of Finley's podcast Turning to the Mystics. Pater Tom is the main focus of this first season.

Our traditio for this First First Friday of August is a chant of the Jesus Prayer. This is chanted in "Church" Slavonic. This seems appropriate both given what I wrote above and that Fridays remain penitential days.

It occurred to me on Wednesday that I missed last month's anniversary. 19 July 2006 was the date I began posting regularly here in this cyberspace. While I started blog nearly a year earlier with a few posts written over a few days, it wasn't until nearly a year later that this endeavor really took off. So, it's been 21 years in total, but 20 as far as this being a real effort.

Tragedy challenges God's love

No sooner did I finish my reflection on this week's second reading from Romans chapter 8 about the all-encompassing nature of God's love yesterday than I received some very shocking news. Some long-time friends of ours, while in Idaho for a family reunion, were shot. One was wounded and the other friend killed.

I have to be honest and admit that the reality of this senseless tragedy has not really sunk in. Our friends were not shot by someone they knew. It was a random and very senseless act of violence, the kind of which is all too prevalent in our society.

I suppose those who are interested can find news reports coming out of Twin Falls, Idaho (see here). They had merely stopped to recharge their electric vehicle when their assailant shot them. After his shooting spree, the man responsible for it killed himself.

In the face of something like this, there are no satisfactory explanations, no good answers. There is only shock, grief, and, certainly, anger. Instead, such horrific events prompt many, many questions.

First and foremost, the question "Why?" For those of us who believe not just in God, but in an all-loving, all-caring, benevolent God, a God who is also omnipotent, "Why does God allow these things to happen?" All I can say is, I don't know. It makes no sense to me.

To attempt to answer these questions in any satisfactory way is to dismiss the pain and anguish that prompts them. During his visit to Spain, Pope Leo warned against the danger of well-meaning efforts to “spiritualize pain, superficially attributing it to 'God's will' or to some mysterious plan of his.” To do this, he noted, runs the risk of minimizing or silencing suffering, thus hurting people. God neither wants nor wills human suffering (see here).

Yet, suffering happens. But Christ, Pope Leo insisted, “carries [suffering] with us and invites us to trust in him with perseverance,” hopefully noting that “with God, life is always reborn." At least this is our hope.

Our Gospel today offers some insight (see Matthew 14:13-21). On learning of the Baptist's death, Jesus headed to a deserted place. It appears he does so to mourn and grieve John's death.

But word apparently got out that he was coming. As he stepped onto the shore, a "vast crowd" awaited him. Far from being self-pitying and reproachful, the Lord was "moved with pity for them." And so, he healed those who were sick. Beyond that, enlisting the reluctant help of his closest followers, he miraculously fed them all.

This is Jesus Christ. Meek, gentle, merciful, and caring. Rather than be a heavenly puppet-master, he became one of us, entered fully into our human condition, thus humbly subjecting himself to all that is human, including the grief of death. We see this, too, in John's Gospel, when he weeps at the death of his friend Lazarus (see John 11:1-44).

Anguish, disttress, the sword, even death cannot separate us from the love of God given us in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. But sometimes in the face of reality, God, who is love, seems notably absent. But he's not.

God suffers with us and, in Christ, suffers for us. By his wounds, we are healed. Healing is often a long, slow process. Of course, we look forward to that ultimate healing. As I wrote this, the Holy Spirit brought to my mind this beautiful song written and sung years ago by Wayne Watson: "Home Free."

There are times when the walk through valley of the shadow of death is a very long and dark one. But Christ is with you every step of the way. Like the discouraged disciples Jesus accompanied as they made their way back home to Emmaus, it is often the case that we recognize him only when we look back.

When dealing with grave tragedies with which life is at times sadly fraught, God's love is scandalous in a different way, meaning he can seem absent or even non-existent. Cling to hope. Cling to Christ.

The scandal of God's love

Romans 8:35.37-39

Once again, I am reflecting on our reading from Romans. These inspired passages are vital for Christian faith. The beauty of reading Saint Paul is that he is no mere theoretician. He writes from experience. Hence, his short exposition on the heighth, width, and depth, that is, the infinitude (meaning "unbounded," infinity has to do with space and eternity with time) of God's love is no abstract discourse. These are insights born from experience.

Taking the infinity of divine love as a given, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux was fascinated with the burning intensity of love flowing from Jesus' Sacred Heart. This is how she realized that “If I had committed all possible crimes, I would always have the same confidence [in Christ's saving love]; I feel that this whole multitude of offenses would be like a drop of water thrown into a fiery furnace” (Footnote 133 in Pope Francis' encylical Dilexit nos, indicating this is found in Last Conversations. Yellow Notebook, 11 July 1897, 6.). Did you get that? Your worst sins are like a drop water in the "fiery furnance" of God's all-consuming love! Yes, "our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:29).

For many Christians, Christ's love remains a scandal (from the Greek skandalon, meaning a trap or snare). Let's face it, while we like to identify with the prodigal, we can sometimes be more like the pissed off older brother. It was Henri Nouwen who thought that perhaps the Parable of the Prodigal Son should be called the Parable of Profligate Father. "Profligate" means "recklessly extravagant."

God's love provokes. Herbert McCabe, OP was a great provocateur in this regard. In a collection of writings entitled Faith Within Reason, he insisted:

God’s love does not depend on what we do or what we are like. He doesn’t care whether we are sinners or not. It makes no difference to him. He is just waiting to welcome us with joy and love. Sin doesn’t alter God’s attitude to us; it alters our attitude to him, so that we change him from the God who is simply love and nothing else into this punitive ogre, this Satan (italicization mine)

The importance of this point cannot be overemphasized.

Try as you might, you can't make yourself "right with God." This does not imply that God can't or even doesn't choose to sometimes reward meritorious acts. But only Christ can make you "right" with the Father. Your confessions, penances, reparations, works of mercy, etc., are not done to change God's disposition towards you.

Remember, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8) Such things can only ever be responses to God's love, done to alter your attitude to God and neighbor. Projecting human finitude, fickelness, and pettiness onto God is a reversion to paganism, with its tempermental and tempestuous gods.

A few chapters earlier in his Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul writes, "God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:8- italics mine). Soteriology is a fascinating part of Christian theology. Over two milennia, quite a few atonement theories have been set forth.

Among the classic atonement theories, each seems to me to capture one dimension of a multi-dimensional reality. However, try as many might these days, there is an ineradicable substitutionary aspect to Christ's death.

There is nothing more real than divine love. "God is love" (1 John 4:8.16). This is not reversible (i.e., love is not God). Think about how your life might change if you lived in the awareness of God's unchanging, never-ending love for you.

"Rend the veil and we shall sail"

As I slowly and by God's grace begin to emerge from my doldrums, hoping and praying for a better second half of 2026, today's traditio is an easy one. It's one that's more in tune with the spirit of the Καθολικός διάκονος Friday traditio. The last several have not only been discernibly out of tune, but only striking a single note. These last several posts I have felt much more myself. It helps that I am nearing the end of some restful and less stressful weeks.

My own screenshot from the Vatican Bolletino for 31 July 2026

Reviewing The Pillar's "Starting Seven" for today, I quickly noted that the only audience Pope Leo had scheduled for today was with "la Signora Patricia Lee Smith." After a quick check, not believing my initial take, I discovered that the Pontiff had indeed granted an audience to the one and only Patti Smith. Patti is often referred to as "the godmother of punk." There is even a video of the beginning of their meeting. You can watch it here.

Patricia Lee Smith w/ His Holiness, Pope Leo XIV- 31 July 2026

Like the Holy Father, Patti was born in Chicago. She is nearly ten years his senior. In both 2014 and 2021, during Pope Francis' pontificate, Patti played at the Vatican's Christmas concert. While Smith is not Catholic, she has a great devotion to Saint Francis of Assisi, whom she calls an "environmentalist saint." Of course, Pope Leo has declared this year a Jubilee for Saint Francis.

It's safe to say, using a contemporary locution, that she is "Catholic adjacent." It's no small thing to have a private audience with the pope. Leo must've wanted to meet her. He's a person both with great expanse and with depth- not a hollow man.

Provocatively, the first words to the first song ("Gloria: In Excelsis Deo") on her earth-shattering debut album, released in 1975 (51 years ago!) simply entitled Horses, are: "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine." For the unnuanced among us, you have unravel the thread a bit.

In his last Encyclical, Dilexit nos, on devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Pope Francis, commenting on the Little Flower's Sacred Heart devotion, which, as was her wont, can seem a little non-standard, insisted:

Those moralizers who want to keep a tight rein on God’s mercy and grace might claim that Therese could say this because she was a saint, but a simple person could not say the same. In that way, they excise from the spirituality of Saint Therese its wonderful originality, which reflects the heart of the Gospel. Sadly, in certain Christian circles we often encounter this attempt to fit the Holy Spirit into a certain preconceived pattern in a way that enables them to keep everything under their supervision. Yet this astute Doctor of the Church reduces them to silence and directly contradicts their reductive view in these clear words: “If I had committed all possible crimes, I would always have the same confidence; I feel that this whole multitude of offenses would be like a drop of water thrown into a fiery furnace” (sec 137)

In 1978, with the Patti Smith Group, she also recorded the album Easter.

Despite being Friday (the Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Loyola), it is from Easter that today's traditio emanates. While the album features what is perhaps Patti's best-known song, "Because the Night" (co-written with Bruce Springsteen), that is not our traditio. Rather, it is the first track: "Till Victory."