Suzanne is not available to write this blog today due to oral surgery. She
is still under the influence of the sedation. So I will try to fill
in for her until she can return. I pray I can do her justice and not
disappoint.
A couple of years ago we went on a brief family vacation to a lake resort about an
hour away from Dallas. When I say it was brief, that is to say it
was only for about three days; as for family, it meant all of our children, sons-in-law
and grandsons. At one of the resorts three pools there was a waterfall
that flowed into the pool from a height of about seven feet. I have
a wonderful picture of myself and my two sons sitting under that waterfall allowing
the refreshing water to flow over us. Each of us has our head bowed
as if in prayer and in the stillness of the moment just allowing the flow to
cover us. This scene was captured on film and the picture sits on
my bookshelf in my office. It is a reminder of the day, of the love
I have for my sons, and of the flow of God's grace upon each of us.
In Fr. Rohr's devotional today, I was moved by his last sentence: "There is probably no other way to understand God's nature except to daily stand under
the waterfall of divine mercy and then become conduits of the same flow."
As I view the picture of my sons sitting on either side of me and allowing the water
to flow upon us; I can begin to understand just a bit of God's nature that loves
the contradictions in me and offers me His mercy. There I sat with
my two sons knowing full well their faults and failures and their gifts and graces;
knowing they were contradictions and knowing that I so dearly love them both. The
waterfall of mercy that I have offered to them through the years, is so very
much like the waterfall of mercy that the Father has offered to me over and over
again in my life.
The Evangelist Matthew says that prostitutes and tax collectors were entering the
kingdom because the were paying attention to John and his call to repent and
turn around. In the honesty of their lives, they knew they were the
ones who society considered to be on the margins and out on the edge of the community. They
were self-reflective enough to realize that they were sinners in need of divine
mercy and open enough to hear John say that they were also beloved children of
a loving God who had mercy to offer them.
I have preached for a long time that there is nothing that we can do to get God to
love us more and nothing that we can do to get God to love us less. As
John the Evangelist says: "God is love." That being true, the work is ours to do to accept that God loves......we are the
ones called to repent and turn around and accept the love which flows down like
a waterfall of divine mercy.
Question: Do you think God can still love you? Knowing yourself well, can you love yourself? Then during this the Third Week of Advent let us be honest enough to name for ourselves
the inner contradictions of our lives, knowing that we are indeed beloved of
God just as we are. Let the divine mercy flow!