Wednesday, December 14, 2011

God gives us ourselves

-A nurse who's humor and joy revealed her love for her job.

-Being in a store and hearing someone call out "Whitney!".  It was my friend Chip, who's an Associate Pastor at a nearby church.  I was doing a bit of shopping with Jane from church and later, when getting dog foot at Petsmart, we saw Juanita buying food for her cats.  Nothing makes a person feel at home like running into people who know you.

-Sermonating on Gabriel's visit to Mary at the same moment when my Irish Catholic friend Padraig posted about Mary on facebook.  I asked him for a few thoughts on that often-overlooked Mother of God.  His words wowed me (as Padraig's words often do).  Drawing upon Rahner, he said, "Mary’s life, in the midst of the complications, poverty and sorrow it contained, gives us the courage to recognise that holiness is not so heavenly and ethereal, but is ordinary, and this helps us to see that everything is not so recalcitrant, but rather the seat of grace.  In Mary’s gracing, we see the holiness of God, not coming with wrath, but rather in the gentleness of spirit with life, light, mercy and beauty. In the transformative light of God’s grace, we become who we are meant to be - God gives us ourselves."

1 comment:

Lynn said...

Thank you for sharing Padraig's words, Whit. I especially love the thought that "holiness is not so heavenly and ethereal, but is ordinary..." Just as it should be.