PLEASING AND DESIRABLE

PRAYER MOMENT Friday 13 February 2015 PLEASING AND DESIRABLE Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within. Reading: “The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye, and that it was desirable for the knowledge it could give.” (Genesis 3:1-8) Reflection. After describing the beauty of creation the author of Genesis had a problem. What went wrong? Why did we end up in the mess we are in? He gives a simple answer. The woman and the man were not satisfied with all they had been given. They wanted more. And the more they wanted was going to infringe on the order and beauty that God had established. They wanted to tear up God’s plan. Well, God had given them freedom so if this was how they were going to use their freedom they were going to have struggle a great deal to fulfil his plan for them. Yet, despite the disaster that followed, God would not only reinstate them but raise them to life with himself. Prayer. Lord, we fell short of the glory you first planned for us. But now you have raised us in Jesus. Give us immense confidence in the face of the obstacles we meet. Amen. David Harold-Barry SJ

ONE BODY

PRAYER MOMENT Thursday 12 February 2015 ONE BODY Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within. Reading: “This why a man leaves his father and mother and joins himself to his wife and they become one body.” (Genesis 2:18-25) Reflection. As soon as the bible has completed its description of the creation of the world it describes the ‘creation’ of marriage. It is a moment to pause and celebrate the life long commitment of men and women for better or for worse. Leaving parents and joining with another is an adventure, a risk, a giving of oneself to what is unknown. The going out of oneself marriage manifests is central to real living. I am always struck by how Jesus left Nazareth and went to the Jordan. He left security and gave himself to an unknown future, something he knew he had to do if he was to fulfil his mission. Marriage is essentuially about giving oneself. When it turns inward, and is about what I can get out of it, it runs into trouble. Prayer. Lord, thank you for the gift of marriage. Help us to live out this gift in foregivesness and joy. Amen. David Harold-Barry SJ

EVIL FROM WITHIN

PRAYER MOMENT Wednesday 11 February 2015, Our Lady of Lourdes and World Day for the Sick. EVIL FROM WITHIN Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within. Reading: “For it is from within, from men’s hearts, that evil intentions emerge, fornication, theft, murder … (Mark7:14-23) Reflection. While the circumstances of family, education, social and religious environment have a great impact on how a person responds to the events of life each day, in a real sense each of us is master of our own house, in charge of our own life. It is the way we respond that makes us who we are. In the gospel words, it is ‘what comes out of our hearts’ that makes us the person we are. Despite the power of the media and social communications to invade our privacy and influence our attitudes, we can decide to sift everything and respond in a way that guards our freedom and the freedom of others. A person in prison can be more free that many a person walking the streets. Prayer. Lord, help us to be alert to your Spirit working in our consciousness that we may sift everything to see if it comes from God or from the evil one. Amen. David Harold-Barry SJ

THE IMAGE OF GOD

PRAYER MOMENT Tuesday 10 February 2015 THE IMAGE OF GOD Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within. Reading: “God created human beings in the image of himself, in the image of God he created them, male and fmale he created them.” (Genesis 1:20-2:14) Reflection. Five times in a few sentences this phrase ‘the image of God’ is mentioned. The author of the sacred story we call Genesis is intent on making a point. Frequently, in the rest of the Old Testament, we are told how unapproachable God is. He appears in a burning bush, thunder, fire and cloud. It was impossible to see God and live. Yet here we have the leitmotif, the leading idea, of the whole bible. We are made in the image of God. When the human person, Jesus, was born among us he was ‘like God.’ In fact he was more than that; he was God. The boundary between ‘like’ and ‘is’ disappeared. Our awesome calling is to accept the invitation to approach God and be chaged into his likeness. Prayer. Lord, you make us in your image. You share with us all we can possibly take. Help us to welcome you and become like you as best we can. Amen. David Harold-Barry SJ

A FORMLESS VOID

PRAYER MOMENT Monday 9 February 2015 A FORMLESS VOID Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within. Reading: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was a formless void; there was darkness over the deep and God’s spirit hovered over the water.” (Genesis 1:1-19) Reflection. We are becoming familiar with outer space. Photos show us comets and space craft. If our eyes move from the objects to the dark space around them we can become frightened as we see no horizon, no lmits, no form - just emptiness, a void. Our inner space, our consciousness, can be frightening too if there are no fixed points, no ‘home’ to return to. All is emptiness and poinlessness. Some of our brothers and sisters experience this>through no fault of their own they see no point in going on living. Yet God’s Spirit ‘hovers’ over this void, always ready to ‘create light.’ Prayer. Lord, you are always with us, always creating, no longer out of nothing, but out of our own voids and efforts, leading us to new vision and hope. Amen. David Harold-Barry SJ

Discovering Fire

Discovering Fire A power cut on a winter’s night! That is unusual in the part of the world I write from. Seeking the cause, a relative of mine looked out her window to see their barn of hay and straw engulfed in flames. The wind kept the fire just enough in check to spare their house but the barn was an inferno and everything in it was destroyed. Humans did not invent fire but they harnessed it to their use and it transformed their lives. Cooking and heating, smelting and forging – it served us and sometimes destroyed us. Fire found its way into metaphor, particularly as an expression of love. Teilhard de Chardin wrote that one day men and women will truly transform the world through love and then ‘for the second time we will have discovered fire.’ Job, like the Book of Qoheleth, has depressing passages about the hopelessness of life. It is no more than ‘pressed service’ or ‘hired drudgery.’ I am like a ‘slave sighing for the shade’ or a ‘man with no thought but for his wages.’ ‘Swifter than a weaver’s shuttle my days have passed, and vanished, leaving no hope behind.’ Bitter words. And then a fire, not a destructive fire but a fire giving new hope breaks out. It must have been like that when Jesus appeared in the synagogue in Capernaum. The people suddenly sat up astonished; ‘Here is a teaching that is new,’ they said, ‘and with authority behind it.’ They discovered a new energy in themselves. Drudgery was left behind and they felt something was about to ‘disturb the universe’ and they were part of it There are thrilling moments like that. The Second Vatican Council was one of them; the Independence of Zimbabwe, or any country, was another and I suppose for the Greeks the new government they have chosen was also one. But it is not just in these mega-events. The transforming fire of energy, of love, is there at hand for us to harness each moment. Mark’s first chapter, which some of us are hearing each Sunday this month, has been likened to the first chapter of Genesis. Both describe ‘creation.’ In Genesis it is the creation of the world; in Mark it is the creation of love. The people of Galilee who flocked to hear Jesus were drawn to him. He was extraordinary. He radiated an interest in them that they had never experienced in anyone else before. They sensed that he wanted to help them to rise out of their drudgery and the blandness of their lives. He wanted to open up the possibilities and horizons in their life which they hardly knew were there. He wanted to free them from the ‘pressed service’ of their lives and enable them to stretch for what they were capable of. So it is with us. In our complex world we are invited to discover that fire which, we are told, rested on the early disciples at Pentecost. There are many examples of that fire, that love, in our world today and we are all called to fan its flames. 8 February 2015 Sunday 5 B Job 7:1-7 I Corinthians 9:16-23 Mark 1:29-39