The Collect

Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Old Testament

Genesis 2:18-24

The Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones 

and flesh of my flesh;

this one shall be called Woman,

for out of Man this one was taken.”

Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.

The Psalm

Psalm 8

Domine, Dominus noster

1 O Lord our Governor, *

how exalted is your Name in all the world!

2 Out of the mouths of infants and children *

your majesty is praised above the heavens.

3 You have set up a stronghold against your adversaries, *

to quell the enemy and the avenger.

4 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, *

the moon and the stars you have set in their courses,

5 What is man that you should be mindful of him? *

the son of man that you should seek him out?

6 You have made him but little lower than the angels; *

you adorn him with glory and honor;

7 You give him mastery over the works of your hands; *

you put all things under his feet:

8 All sheep and oxen, *

even the wild beasts of the field,

9 The birds of the air, the fish of the sea, *

and whatsoever walks in the paths of the sea.

10 O Lord our Governor, *

how exalted is your Name in all the world!

The Epistle

Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. But someone has testified somewhere,

“What are human beings that you are mindful of them, 

or mortals, that you care for them?

You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; 

you have crowned them with glory and honor, 

subjecting all things under their feet.”

Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, saying,

“I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, 

in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.”

The Gospel

Mark 10:2-16

Some Pharisees came, and to test Jesus they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

Some Reflections

"Against Hardness of Heart"

Holy Charity

A friar inquired of Friar Giles and said unto him: "Father, teach me in what manner we may keep ourselves from carnal sin." Whereto Friar Giles made answer: "My brother, he who would stir any great weight or any great rock and move it into another place should study to move it more by skill than by strength. And so we, in like manner, if we would conquer carnal sins and obtain the virtues of chastity, may better obtain them by humility and by good and wise spiritual regimen than by our presumptuous austerity and violence of penance."  …

… A friar asked Friar Giles, saying: "Father, is not the virtue of charity greater and more excellent than that of chastity?" And Friar Giles said: "Tell me, brother, what thing in this world is there to be found more chaste than holy charity?"

- The Little Flowers of St. Francis, trans. W. Heywood (1906)

Muddy Road

Tanzan and Ekido were once traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was still falling.

Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection.

"Come on, girl," said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud.

Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself. "We monks don't go near females," he told Tanzan, "especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?"

"I left the girl there," said Tanzan. "Are you still carrying her?"

-Zen Flesh Zen Bones:

 A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings

 compiled by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki

The Little Way

Therese’s “little way” discloses to us the inexhaustible depths of the commonplace, where each choice to love is that point of intersection of the timeless with time, where the impossible union, the mystery of the Incarnation, takes place in our lives.  Love is a step-by-step journey into the heartland of the ordinary, choice by choice, choice within choice.

-Marc Foley, O.C.D. The Love That Keeps Us Sane: Living the Little Way of St. Therese of Lisieux

In her autobiographical writing Therese of Lisieux expresses her frustration that as a cloistered nun (and woman) she can't fulfill her heroic ambitions in vocations such as priest, martyr, apostle, missionary, or teacher. The following quote describes Therese’s breakthrough while thinking about Paul’s analogy of gifts of the spirit as parts of the body (I Corinthians 12:1-31) and the discourse on love which follows. First Corinthians chapter 13 ends with this line, “these three remain: faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love” (13:13). The capitals and italics are hers. 

I understood that LOVE COMPRISED ALL VOCATIONS, THAT LOVE WAS EVERYTHING, THAT IT EMBRACED ALL TIMES AND PLACES…IN A WORD, THAT IT WAS ETERNAL!

   Then, in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: O Jesus, my love… my vocation, at last I have found it…MY VOCATION IS LOVE!

   Yes, I have found my place in the Church…. I shall be Love.  Thus I shall be everything and thus my dream will be realized.

-Therese of Lisieux  (1873- 1897)  The Story of a Soul

Marginal By Choice

Religious [i.e. vowed or consecrated people in the Church], are marginal by choice, but that marginality is in the service of prophecy, not of escapism. From the edges of the system there is a view of what the system does to those who are excluded, to those who are made means to other people's ends. If contemplation fosters immediacy to God, marginality fosters immediacy to the oppressed. The religious wants to be where the cry of the poor meets the ear of God. To feel the pathos of God is not a warm and comfortable religious experience; it is an experience of the howling wilderness driving one to protest.

-Sandra Schneiders, Spirituality Today

To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception.  It is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or eternity.”

-Soren Kierkegaard  (1813-1855)

“To Cheat Oneself Out of Love”

Before I became cripplingly challenged by high school math I hadn't noticed that students in my high school were tracked into vocational streams - those going to college rarely had classes with those slated for going into a trade. After struggling beyond my level of competency, I was put into a remedial algebra class with those we called the 'hoods', that is, students who generally wore black clothes, faux-leather jackets, short skirts, heavy eye-makeup, teased hair, and who always seemed to me up to then, a bit threatening.

I wore black too, but my "artistic" black represented a different expression of identity than 'hoody' black. One of my teachers used to call out to me in the hall while classes were changing, “Brighter colors, Suzanne!” I was nervous among these other slow math students. But not for long. My new friends were sweet, welcoming, interesting, and, yes, smart, although challenged in math like me, bored and resistant to learning as I was. I felt loved by the 'hoods' and I loved them and couldn't figure out why we hadn't been friends all along. I realized I'd been carrying around a really stupid prejudice I hadn't even known I had. The friendship landscape opened up, and so did my heart.

I've caught myself in scores of prejudices since, both elevating people above some imaginary status line and dismissing others below it and with much more serious implications than what style of black I'm wearing. I love the security of my prejudices. Hardness of heart keeps me perversely organized. But can I really count on such organization while following a man who said, “the last shall be first”?

Hardness of heart keeps me safe in my place. But that's another irritant of Christianity. Do you really have a 'place' when you follow the man who said, “foxes have holes and birds have nests but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head?” If Christians have a 'place' it must be on the prophetic margins of discomfort in empathy with the marginalized.

My worst prejudices are still the ones I don't know I have, still blinding me to truth, still hardening my heart in embarrassing ways for a supposedly open-hearted liberal striving for universal compassion. HA!

But broken prejudices, however humiliating, have always opened me to new people and ideas, and a wider sense of compassion, understanding, and wisdom. Kierkegaard said, “To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception. It is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or eternity.”

Every small hardness of heart cheats me of the love within which I was born to thrive. And surely love is more desirable than temporal security or status.

Open my heart. Open my heart. Open my heart.

-Suzanne Guthrie