Joys and Hopes, Griefs and Anxieties.

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“The joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of people of our time, particularly those who are poor or in any way afflicted, are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of Christ’s followers. 

"Theirs is a community of people, people who, in union with Christ and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, move forward toward the Kingdom of the Father and carry the message of salvation intended for all. 

"For this reason this community knows that it is deeply united with humankind and its history.” -Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution on theChurch in the Modern World

A Peace That Sings and Burns.

"Since the human soul is capable of receiving God alone, nothing less than God call fill it; 

which explains why lovers of earthly things are never satisfied. 

The peace known by lovers of Christ comes from their heart being fixed, in longing and in thought, in the love of God;

it is a peace that sings and loves and burns and contemplates." -Richard Rolle, The Fire of Love

The Great Mystery

"Religion has not tended to create seekers or searchers, has not tended to create honest, humble people who trust that God is always beyond them. 

We aren’t focused on the great mystery. 

Religion has, rather, tended to create people who think they have God in their pockets, people with quick, easy, glib answers. 

That’s why so much of the West is understandably abandoning religion. 

People know the great mystery cannot be that simple and facile. 

If the great mystery is indeed the Great Mystery, it will lead us into paradox, into darkness, into journeys that never cease...That is what prayer is about." -Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs

Hearing the (whole) promise.

 

Full disclosure: I love Jeremiah 29:11, even though I'm fully aware of how often the passage gets taken out of its prophetic and historic context.

Here, then, is what I understand to be the encouraging, inspiring, entire promise of God to a beloved, exiled people (many of whom would not live to see their homeland again):


"This is what the Lord says: 'When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 

"For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 

"Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.'

"'I will be found by you,' declares the Lord, 'and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,' declares the Lord, 'and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.'”

In other words: God never stopped having a plan. 

God never stopped being trustworthy.

God never stopped loving God's people, and never stopped being present with them in their suffering. 

Indeed, God continued to work faithfully and lovingly in the lives of the people of Judah -and even their captors!- right up until the day of their final deliverance.

Amen!