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First Words and Antiphons |
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Antiphon 1: Gladden my soul, O God; for to you I lift up my heart.
Antiphon 2: Blessed are the just, who speak the truth.
Antiphon 3: Let us sing a joyful song in the presence of our God.
The Morning Lauds* praised God with Antiphons in glad and joyful ways. How beautiful it is to utter these endearing words to God in the Morning Prayer upon rising.
Do we awaken with these words on our lips and expressed to our spouse, lover, or children? The way we look upon God is also the way we might - in a human way - look upon others: with gladness and hearts uplifted, with blessings upon the just and those who speak in truth, singing joyful songs in the presence of our beloved.
According to Professor Annice Callahan, RSCJ, Karl Rahner "asserts that to speak of the human is to speak of the divine and vice versa. He describes God as the mystery in human experience." Rahner himself writes: "Unselfishness is the essential quality of love, wherein the soul rejoices at the very existence of the beloved."**
If every morning we awaken with the words of love upon our lips, we raise ourselves above the sabotage of relational deceit and destructiveness. If every morning we awaken with the words of love upon our lips for our beloved, we repeat the affirming antiphons with gladness, blessing, and joy. The soul rejoices at the presence of the beloved.
*Carmelites of Indiana, People's Companion to the Breviary, Volume 1, pp 117-8.
**Karl Rahner, On Prayer, Collegeville, TLP, 1993, p.41.
--by Jan |
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Celebrate a Birthday Today - by Bill
I was late to the birthday party last Wednesday.
Annabel (not her real name), was one of the senior saints in the congregation I serve as interim pastor. Just three or four weeks ago, she was diagnosed with cancer: widespread, terminal. Last Wednesday, the nursing home where she lived threw a birthday party for her. It wasn't really her birthday, but they threw the party anyway, gave her a crown to wear, and proclaimed her "Queen for the Day." When I came to visit later that Wednesday afternoon, the hospice nurse told me 50 people had come to Annabel's room to extend their best wishes.
When a church member visited on Thursday, Annabel was still glowing with pleasure from the party. Friday afternoon, Annabel passed to her eternal reward. What a wonderful sendoff! As I thought about Annabel's party, I remembered what Henri Nouwen said: Birthdays don't celebrate a person's achievements or accomplishments; they simply celebrate the person. A birthday party says "Thank you for being born and being among us."
Birthdays, Nouwen went on, "remind us of the goodness of life, and in this spirit we really need to celebrate people's birthdays every day, by showing gratitude, kindness, forgiveness, gentleness, and affection. These are ways of saying: 'It's good that you are alive; it's good that you are walking with me on this earth.'" [1]
So throw a party today for someone you love, or give them a card, or a special hug. And while you're at it, may the thought of death, as John O'Donohue puts it, "call your life to attention." Consider
How you now can live
The life you would love
To look back on
From your deathbed.[2]
[1] Henri M Nouwen, Here and Now: Living in the Spirit (Crossroad, 1994), 18-19.
[2] John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings (Doubleday, 2008), 72. |
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