8th August/September Trinity 2019, Betrothed

August Trinity

Matthew 6: 25-34

“Therefore I say to you, do not trouble your heart about what you will eat and drink or with what you will clothe your body. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds in the sky: they do not plant, do not harvest, and do not fill barns, and your heavenly Father still feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Can any of you, by being vastly concerned, add one moment to the span of your life?

And why do you worry about clothing? Study how the lilies of the field grow: they do not work, and they do not spin cloth. But I am telling you that not even Solomon in all his glory was ever arrayed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the wild grass of the field, here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will He not do much more for you, o small in faith?

“So do not worry, saying, ‘What will we drink? What will we wear?’ It is the nations who ask for all these things, and indeed, your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Ask first for God’s kingdom and its harmonious order, and these other things will be delivered to you as well.

So do not worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow can worry about itself. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

8^th August Trinity

Sept 15, 2019

Matthew 6: 19-34

Marc Adamus

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we are in the time of diminishing light. The days are shortening; the dark is rising. And what can result in our souls, often unconsciously, is the rising of a subtle level of anxiety.

The gospel reading addresses our human tendency to worry, our fear of insufficiency. Christ encourages us not to diminish the range of our attention, through concentrating only on food and drink, clothes, and riches. Rather we are to pay some attention to our own powers of perception. A few verses before today’s reading, He says,  ‘If your eye is wholesome, your whole body will be filled with light.’ That is, if our way of seeing, our way of picturing the world is wholesome, then our body and soul will be filled with light, radiant with love. What does a wholesome way of seeing the world consist of?

It consists of looking at what has already happened through the lens of gratitude. Gratitude expands and enlightens our inner vision. It widens the angle of what we see. Gratitude helps us see the small miracles in each day.

Wholesomeness also consists of imaging the future through the lens of trust; trust in God’s harmonious ordering of events; trust in the beneficence of His guidance through the course of the day. Correcting our vision with the lenses of gratitude and trust lets the light into our bodies and souls.  Filled with an inner light, our souls can radiate the light of love out into the world.

The poet John O’Donohue says,

We seldom notice how each day is a holy place

Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,

Transforming our broken fragments

Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.

Somewhere in us, a dignity presides

That is more gracious than the smallness

That fuels us with fear and force,

A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.

So at the end of this day, we give thanks

For being betrothed to the unknown

And for the secret work

Through which the mind of the day

And the wisdom of the soul become one.*

* John O’Donohue, in To Bless the Space Between Us

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