Reflecting on Amos 7: 12-15

Sometimes, when I read a beautiful scripture text, I wander off into the world the text describes. It’s fun to imagine little Amos talking back to the big-shot priest in the king’s sanctuary. Amaziah isn’t happy with the challenges Amos presents to him and to the affluent Jews living in the North. Amos keeps harping on the scandal of the financial inequities that exist in the North. The rich have found a way to make many times more than those who are poor, and they don’t care about the suffering of those who missed out on the big economic windfalls. Sound familiar?

Amaziah is cozy with the king. And then this Amos shows up, as annoying as sand in your swimsuit. Go back and make a living as a prophet in your own hometown! They don’t have any money there. They’ll like your rampages against unethical business practices!

This is funny. Amaziah assumes Amos is in the prophecy business because he can make a living from it. Why else would someone set up shop in a new town and start criticizing the (deeply heretical) status quo? Amos rails back that he was just a shepherd and dresser of trees, minding his own business, when God called him to leave it all and move up north to speak of God’s great displeasure with how religion and royal power have converged there.

But then my mind wandered to this from the responsorial psalm, another convergence, but the kind with God in the middle of it: kindness and truth shall meet, justice and peace shall kiss. Imagine kindness and truth meeting. Imagine justice and peace kissing. Imagine that world. Amos imagined it, too.

How have you tried, in your own way, to build a more just society?

Kathy McGovern ©2024

Reflecting on 2 Corinthians 12: 7-10

This is the fifth Sunday in a row in which we’ve read from 2 Corinthians. I’m so glad we conclude today with my favorite phrase from that entire letter: My grace is sufficient for you (12:9). I must remind myself of that promise a few times every day, and it’s true every single time.

Now, there were times when I experienced grace in droves—tons and tons of it. And there were a few times—getting further and further in the rearview mirror, thank God—when the only grace I could cling to was that exact scripture, hanging under a photograph on my bedroom wall. It became my mantra, and, over time, the grace I begged for visited me again.

I suppose it depends on what the word “sufficient” means. Today, healthy and robust, sufficient grace means the grace to meet the world with competence, preparation, and prayer. Many, many years ago, sufficient grace meant enough strength to breathe. I need more grace, I told God. My grace is sufficient for you, the poster on the wall replied. Just barely, I returned. Just barely.

It’s possible that some dear reader out there today is hanging on by the barest thread of grace. Maybe it’s a terrible physical illness. Perhaps it’s a terrible loss. Perhaps it’s despair. It’s possible that some reader has already begged God for more grace already today. Okay, Church, let’s do this:

Imagine that person. God knows who it is, so we don’t have to. Pray for sufficient grace for him or her. As Elizabeth said to Mary at the Visitation, “Happy are you who believed that the promise of the Lord would be fulfilled” (Luke 1:45).

Do you need more grace today? Expect that you are included in this prayer.

Kathy McGovern ©2024

Reflecting on Responsorial Psalm 30: 2, 4, 5-6, 11, 12, 13

Every time that refrain for the Responsorial Psalm comes up in the lectionary—I will praise you, Lord, you have rescued me—I find myself singing it all week. I hope you do, too. I hope you feel rescued.

Just in case you don’t, practice this for a week. Several times a day, notice how you were rescued. Maybe you delayed changing lanes for a second, and then saw that speeding car come tearing down the lane into which you nearly drove.

Maybe you were out for your walk and happened to notice the crack in the sidewalk that wasn’t there yesterday, just before you went careening into it. Maybe you had something gossipy and mean on the tip of your tongue, and you stopped just before spitting it out into the world. Good for you. You grabbed God’s grace, and you were rescued.

Sometimes, the very thing that looks like failure ends up being rescue. Aren’t you glad you DIDN’T end up with your junior-high girlfriend/boyfriend? (But apologies to those who did. Congratulations!)

It causes me to tremble when I think of all the things, terrible or just inconvenient, from which God has rescued me. (Someday I’ll regale you with my medical history.) And you know what? All of those Rescues have built up a history of faith in me, so that when the day comes when, for any reason, I am beyond rescue, I’ll remember that the same God who was faithful to me in the past will be faithful to me as I pass into the valley of the shadow of death.

That’s where the greatest rescue of all is waiting for each of us.

What is your best story about being rescued? Tell someone today. It builds a reservoir of faith.

Kathy McGovern ©2024

Reflecting on Mk. 4: 35-41

Is there any silence as palpable as the silence of God? Those disciples in that quaking boat railed against it so much that they were able to wake Jesus, who was serenely asleep during the storm. Sure, he rebuked them and wondered at their paltry faith, but the scolding was worth it. He did, after all, arouse and calm the terrifying sea.

If only we could be in that boat and scream so loud that Jesus would wake and heal all the storms in our lives. If only he would wake from his deep sleep and heal every person we love who needs his healing gaze so much.

I just finished reading Richard Gaillardetz’s stunning memoir of his terminal illness, While I Breathe, I Hope (Liturgical Press, 2024).  Every chapter of the book takes the reader further into the last months of his illness from Stage Four pancreatic cancer. Terrible as his suffering was, he graciously included in each chapter short passages from some of the great Christian writers throughout history. Each of them had wrestled with the silence of God, and each had come to the same conclusion:

In God’s seeming silence, there is the clear voice of the Body of Christ. As my great friend Father Patrick Dolan says, “When we say that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle, the operative word there is WE.” If the Body of Christ rallies around, supports, prays with, and pulls as hard as it can to release us from the terrors of death, there is Christ in the midst of us.

Find someone who needs your strong, fierce love today. That’s Christ himself, roaring at the sea.

What experience have you had of the Body of Christ standing with you?

Kathy McGovern ©2024

Reflecting on Mk. 4:26-34

It’s that time of year again, and it shocks me every time. The perennials on the side of our house have come up, with absolutely no effort or attention on our part, dancing in the breeze and saying, “Surprise! We’ve been here all along, just waiting for sunshine and rain!”

I can’t get over how KIND they are to keep popping up, riots of purple and pink, in spite of our profound neglect for the past nine months. Of its own accord the land yields fruit. God has created this brilliant memory in our gardens and fields. Of their own accord they come back, year after year.

Now, all you farmers are nodding, but also vehemently noting that EVERY harvest requires the back-breaking effort of sowing and tilling the grain, year after year.  But still, the wheat secretly grows beneath the winter snow. That’s God’s creative, utterly dependable work. And the rest of our lives are like that, too.

It took seventeen years, but I am finally in remission from my (easy) chronic leukemia. Around the same time, my veins healed from damage done during the original diagnosis all those years ago. And just last week I slipped into a cute pair of summer sandals, after clogging around in orthopedic shoes for a decade.

If given the blessing of time, we’ll see healing in many parts of our lives. Huh, we might say. When did I stop feeling resentful toward that person? Or,  Huh, I can see now why I got that poor job evaluation.  Or even, Huh. When did my cold go away? I didn’t even notice.

It’s God’s great secret, this healing. We know not how.

What healings have you noticed over time?

Kathy McGovern ©2024

Reflecting on Mk. 3: 20-25

Oh, how those words of the scribes fall on our 21st-century ears.  In our time, the smartest among us are the ones who will NEVER be duped, NEVER send gift cards to phone scammers, because that was way back when we were naïve. We’re smarter than that now.

But let’s be clear: this kind of ‘savvy’ isn’t the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit that Jesus discusses. It’s the intentional hardness of the heart, the stubborn crossed arms, and rolled eyes when the Gospel is proclaimed, the willful hostility and contempt for Jesus, which the scribes model today, that truly blasphemes the Holy Spirit.

The ”wise” can dissect every beautiful piece of scripture and pretend to understand why it has no value for us today. It does call to mind John Milton’s Paradise Lost, when Satan says, terrifyingly, Evil, be thou my good. In other words, hatred is Satan’s reality, and hating us is the fuel for his life. If we reject his hate, we starve him to death.

As always, C.S. Lewis gets it right: “What we see in Satan is the horrible co-existence of a subtle and incessant intellectual activity with an incapacity to understand anything.” We who know all, and compete with each other in cynicism,  are incapable of understanding anything at all.

And now…ahem. We need to talk about that disturbing ending, when his mother and brothers arrived and tried to get him away from the crowd. Here’s my take: it’s not that Jesus wasn’t ready for public ministry. His mother wasn’t ready. But it was too late. She had to watch him attract crowds, which would eventually attract the Romans, and then the cross. She wasn’t ready.

Are there parts of your spiritual life that have slipped into cynicism?

Kathy McGovern ©2024

A few months ago, my primary care doctor asked me why I never have my blood drawn at his office after my appointment, where there’s no line, but instead leave and drive all the way to the downtown clinic, where there’s always a long line.

“Well,” I hesitated, “I just prefer their clinic.” “Hmm,” he said, “is that really all there is to it?” And then I spilled the beans. “Okay, okay. They have a magical phlebotomist there. She somehow looks at my torn-up veins and knows exactly where and how to place the needle. I barely feel it at all! I’d drive anywhere to have her.” And his answer was just perfect: “That’s what I thought. That’s why we hired her here. She’ll be right in.”

Through the years, I’ve encountered a few genuinely gifted phlebotomists, and I always ask them how on earth they knew they’d be good at such a delicate profession. Every one of them has told me that they just knew. It came from some deep instinct about how to tap a vein. There is no greater gift to a patient who has to have frequent blood draws than a brilliant phlebotomist who just instinctively knows how to draw blood.

On this Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, I extend my blessings to all those who, like the magical phlebotomists, can painlessly get our blood flowing, and to all who selflessly donate their blood, the carrier of life. This mirrors the spiritual reality of our unity as humans. We are not just one Body but also one Blood.

Happy Feast Day, Church. This is the feast that tells us who we are.

What is your most cherished memory of this feast?

Kathy McGovern ©2024

Reflecting on Matthew 28:16-20

I’ve always liked this feast. I love thinking of the ways that I am more than just one person in my life, that all of my different titles represent vital pieces of my identity. I am, for example, Ben’s wife, my parents’ daughter, my siblings’ sister, my cousins’ cousin, my nieces and nephews’ aunt. I am all of those titles, and I’m probably a little different with each of my beloved relatives.

I am also a friend, a student, a teacher, a reader, a writer, and a parishioner. I love being all those things. I can’t imagine a happy life without any one of them.

The earliest Christians—as early as Paul himself, whose profound transformation took place sometime in the mid-40s—were just praying and acting on instinct. There was no catechism, no papal decree to instruct them in what to believe. Paul, Silas, and Barnabas traveled thousands of miles, sailing dangerous waters in rickety boats, walking over treacherous terrain (complete with snakes, as Paul found out at Malta) in order to preach one thing: Jesus Christ, and him crucified, and raised, and living in us through the Holy Spirit.

It wasn’t a hard leap for the New Testament writers to move towards the understanding of God as Three. They intimately knew the Father through their lives steeped in the stories of the Old Testament. They were dedicated to preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, and they depended every day on the comfort and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

It just makes sense that the God in whose image we are created would be more than one Person. We all are.

Which Person of the Trinity do you feel closest to at this point in your life?

Kathy McGovern ©2024

Reflecting on Acts 2: 1-11

Lord, send out your Spirit.

How else can we pray?

There is so much pain abroad,

And in our hearts today.

Lord, send our Your Spirit.

Enlarge our tents and hearts.

Nudge us to more clearly see

The Body’s many parts.

Lord, send our Your Spirit.

Bring peace where there’s despair.

Heal us, Spirit, hold us tight.

Help us see You there.

There where doctors heal the sick,

There where those estranged

Join hands in friendship and resolve

To form a world that’s changed.

Changed in hearts, and set on fire.

Changed in wisdom too.

Changed to lead, and to inspire.

To make the world anew.

Lord, send out your Spirit.

Bring health and hope to birth.

Indwell in us, empower us.

Renew the face of the earth.

What prayers for the world do you entrust to the Holy Spirit today?

Kathy McGovern ©2024

Reflecting on Ephesians 1: 17-23

I want that Ephesians reading plastered on the dashboard of my car, and taped to my computer screen. Yes, yes, yes, I beg for the Spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of him.

I apologize for this sad story on the happy event of Mother’s Day. Many of us recently suffered the terrible loss of the 8-year-old granddaughter of a beloved friend as a result of a terrible car crash. We prayed so hard for her, that she would come out of the medically-induced coma they placed her in after she and her mom were hit by a motorcyclist going 100 mph.

After her death I cried out to the Wisdom figures in my life (I have many of them, thank God). I didn’t care how inappropriate it was for me to call each of them at home, at dinner time. I was in deep despair. I needed the wisdom of the people I know who have spent their lives in prayerful reflection, and face-to-face relationship with those who are suffering.

Their answers were comforting, and powerful. Mostly they were silent, pondering the terrible sadness, waiting to experience God’s mysterious presence during God’s seeming absence.

I hope you have some Wisdom figures in your life. I hope you have some people who witness to the fruit of a lifetime of prayerful listening. I hope you have a priest who could be brave enough to, at a distance of 1500 miles,  stay on the phone and pray with the grieving parents as they walked to the surgical room, where their daughter’s organs were harvested in order to greatly enhance the lives of many, many children.

Our Pentecost novena begins today. Let all the readers around the country pray together for the knowledge of God. O Jesus, we need you. Oh, how we need you.

Please pray for my friend Lori as she lives this terrible tragedy.

Kathy McGovern ©2024