2022 Blessing of the Waters

January 9, 2022 Blessing of the Waters
Malachi 3:20-24, Ephesians 5:8-20, John 1:19-34

By Sister Cecelia

“Be careful how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of your time, singing and making melody in your hearts. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.” (Ephesians 5)

At the end of our Divine Liturgy today, we have our yearly service of blessing the water. In the book of Genesis, we read that God made all things, drawing forth the Creation from a dark and watery Chaos. We read how the Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters. Here the verb “moved” in Hebrew connotes the behavior of a mother bird brooding over her nest, protecting and nurturing her offspring. The Spirit of God at the Creation of this young world, earth, was caring for it like a hen over her chicks. That is an apt image, as at Christ’s Baptism a bird was seen hovering over Christ when he was baptized and the Father’s words were heard. Only two evangelists relate anything about Jesus’ birth, while all four relate the Baptism of Christ—an indication of its importance to us.

Water is used by John to indicate the person’s cleansing and turning to God—repentance, metanoia.

Water is used in our own baptisms, indicating that we are united as one with Christ.

Water is used for both good and bad, as Br. Luke mentioned on Thursday. This time the symbol of water is good, for in our created world, so much needs water. We do not survive without water.

In the wake of the feast of Epiphany, we receive the waters of chaos turned into the waters of life, and if we bring this blessing into our houses and businesses and offices, for drinking and for sprinkling, we declare our intention to become part of a new creation and to bring our family, our home, and our work into the Reign of God. That is an ongoing commitment that is to be renewed daily. When we receive the water that carries the divine presence, we declare our intention to live no longer according to the laws of survival and self-advancement and pride. Instead, we declare our desire to live according to the rule of love, of mercy, of justice and humility before God and humanity. This is the meaning of the service we do today: our acceptance of Christ as our way of life, and our commitment to following our leader in the time we have been given.

Recently I gleaned a few ideas about the time we have from the writings of Joan Chittister. “We Americans are obsessed with time. We’re a pragmatic, productive people, and time is the national idol. It shows in our language. We spend time, invest time, and need time. We lose time, save time, waste time, find time, gain time, and want time.”

Time, we Americans seem to assume, is for doing something, for producing things, for achieving goals. Our goal is to realize that life is about becoming.

As another year has begun, take time each day to give more serious consideration to what we are becoming rather than to what we are doing. Life is not a package of years; it is a lifetime of opportunities meant to make us everything we can possibly be: gentle, understanding, patient, kind, open, loving, joyful, not envious or boastful, arrogant or rude, not irritable or resentful or rejoicing in wrongdoing but rejoicing rather in truth, being courageous, persevering, and generous.

Make the most of your time, singing and making melody in your hearts.

Christ is in our midst!

 

Sermon 175 Jan 06, 2022 Mt 3:13-17, Ti 2: 11-14, 3:4-8 Ez 36:25-28, 33-36 Theophany

As preached by Brother Luke
Holy Wisdom Church



In the name of the father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit!

    When I was a kid, I wasn't good at getting up out of bed in the morning. So, when calling me to get up didn't work, my father would go into the bathroom, get a washcloth, soak it in cold water and then come into my room and put it on my face! Now that was an effective wake-up call. It definitely got my attention. A new day was about to begin and I was going to have to do my part.

    Water can be used for many things beyond drinking, irrigation, and cleaning. This is the time of year when we are inundated with football games leading to championship games, both college and NFL. At the end of a game, it is not unusual for the coach of the winning team to be doused with a huge barrel of water, or more likely, Gatorade. It can also happen in other outdoor sports, including baseball. It seems an odd way to celebrate a win. Being doused doesn't always have a positive connotation.

    Did you ever have the experience of thinking you had come up with an idea or plan that you thought was special and telling someone else about it only to have the whole idea dismissed with the epitaph "you're all wet!" That is the verbal equivalent of someone pouring cold water on your idea. No wonder babies cry or scream when they get baptized! They don't want to get this early preparation for being told their ideas are no good.

    The theme of water is explored from many angles in this feast. Prayers are said to purify the water of any unclean spirits. The purified water of baptism washes away our sins. The texts of the feast fill out the symbolic meaning. Here is the First Lity Sticheron.

    Today, Christ the savior is baptized: * He who wears light as a cloak was pleased to become like us to save us. * Today he is covered with Jordan’s streams. * Though he has no need of cleansing, * by that cleansing he himself receives, he regenerates us. * O what a wonder, that without fire he casts anew, * and without shattering he fashions anew. * And those who are filled with his light are saved by him, ** by Christ the savior of our souls.

    Today's celebration reminds us of our own baptism when we were submerged in water to symbolize dying and then rising to new life in Christ. Indeed, the Good News of the New Testament is about new beginnings, transformations from one state of being into another, transitioning from one life to an even better life. And indeed that is what our baptism represents, our entering into a new life with the promise of life eternal.

    The symbol of the voice of God descending like a dove and revealing the ultimate truth about Jesus is a message to all of us with more than one dimension. The truth spoken is: "This is my beloved, pay attention to him." And if we pay attention to him, we too become the beloved of God. Indeed, we are created as the beloved of God, but we do not necessarily always believe it, maybe because we, too often, have been doused with the negative message that we are not good enough to be God's beloved. We may have come to believe that God doesn't even know us or pay attention to us or care about us. Today's feast reminds us that God does care about us, so much so that he sent his only begotten Son to lead us back into that knowledge of God's love for us.

    Our joy on this festive day is waking up to the reality that out of love for us, God is always providing a new day for us, a new opportunity to grow in the likeness of Christ.

    Glory be to Jesus Christ!

Homily for New Year: January 1, 2022

 by Sister Rebecca

 

     Today: Another New Year.  We greet each other:  Happy New Year!  And we truly mean it: May it be a good year for you.  Last year at this time we thought: Oh! Finally 2021—a good year!  Then, the vaccinations were promised, and we could hope to get back to normal living.  Well, by now we are pretty much aware that there is no going back to a ”past normal.” We are facing the reality of the unknown future on numerous scores.  Doesn’t this sound to us like bad news?  Here I will share a story I heard from a Jesuit priest many years ago:

Good Luck? Bad Luck? Who Knows?

There once was a simple farmer who lived and struggled alongside his neighbors and friends, trying to exist and fulfil a peaceful life. One day news arrived, from far away, that his old loving father had died. His neighbors gathered to grieve, but the farmer simply said, “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?"

In time relatives brought a very fine horse of great cost and fine breeding, left to the farmer by his father. All the villagers and neighbors gathered in delight with him to celebrate his good fortune, but he just said, "Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?”

One day the horse escaped into the hills, and when all the farmer’s neighbors sympathized with the old man over his bad luck, the farmer replied, “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?”

A week later the horse returned with a herd of wild horses from the hills, and this time the neighbors congratulated the farmer on his good luck. His reply was “Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?”

Then, when the farmer’s son was attempting to tame one of the wild horses, he fell off its back and broke his leg. Everyone thought this was very bad luck. Not the farmer, whose only reaction was “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?”

Some weeks later the army marched into the village and conscripted every able-bodied youth they found there. When they saw the farmer’s son with his broken leg they let him off. Now was that good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?

 

In some way, to judge, label, and categorize the year as either good or bad is to fragment reality.

 

This is not to say that some aspects of one year or another are not more challenging than others, not as fulfilling as another year, more happy or less happy.  The story doesn’t tell us to be passive, to say “I give up” and just roll with the dice. Rather, it means we must trust the mystery of life more than our assessment of life by thinking and analyzing.  God reveals to us that our life is neither found IN nor determined BY its circumstances, but IN and BY Jesus Christ, God with us: Jesus, the one whose name means “God saves.”  How does God save? By inviting us, challenging us, calling us to a metamorphosis, to transformation. And when God “calls,” “invites,” the call and the invitation include a promise.

A good metaphor is that of the butterfly, which is formed within a dark cocoon, like a cave, a grotto, but totally closed!  Nothing seems to be happening.  All is dark, but new life is being formed untampered by human hands.  Likewise, it is in these dark times—all the while cutting back on all that fragments us and distracts us, spending more time in silence, and solitude, and contemplation—when our covenant in God grows deeper, more luminous.  We are not destined to be like cocoons shrouded in the dark, at the mercy of dismal forces of nature.  Rather, we are meant to be transformed, our consciousness awakened, enlivened, to see luminosity within these somber times. We let God BE, allowing God’s Spirit to transform us into who we are meant to be. We call this theosis: becoming God-like. St John of the Cross said, after a life of many hardships and graces, “I have no other light than the one shining in my heart.”

On this New Year’s Day, let us pause before the coming days give rise to new challenges and deep joys. May we soak in the rich poetic lines below, for the lean days will one day sprout wings.

 

For a New Beginning

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

~ John O'Donohue
From: To Bless the Space Between Us