Monday, June 16, 2008

Invisible Joy and the Emptiness of Love...

I sit and gaze at the pictures of my commissioning and I read the reflection of that day,

(Please link to the following site to read this reflection: http://tinyurl.com/6o9keb )
written by Rory Cooney, liturgist of St. Anne, and I am struck again by the love of God. Who is this God who can love so completely as to hang on a cross and say, “Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing.”



(ABOVE PHOTO, FROM MY JOINT COMMISSIONING WITH ST. JOHN LUTHERAN AND ST. ANNE CATHOLIC CHURCHES and TO THE RIGHT, ONE OF THE BEAUTIFUL PAINTINGS OF THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS FROM RUGARI PARISH CHURCH AT RUGARI VILLAGE, NORTH KIVU PROVINCE, DRC)





Who IS this God? I claim to know this as the God, who will rectify all wrong, who forgives every sin and says, come onto me. This is the God who established with us a covenant relationship; this means we are asked to respond, not to be passive recipients. But, alas, we are such imperfect creatures and being a passive recipient in this relationship is so easy; being a passive recipient is such a part of our sinful nature, and yet God says, “I FORGIVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, ANYWAY, INSPITE OF YOURSELF!!! AND I WILL BE THERE FOR YOU…. IN EVERYWAY AND ALWAYS!!!”

Who IS this God? Have I misunderstood the love of God? I feel it, as total as I have expressed it here, and I live my life as such. For me, this means that I trust so much in his forgiving grace that I am absolutely humbled and absolutely grateful; so aware that I am but a mere worm, as the psalmist points out to me in Psalm 22:6 (But I am a worm, less than human….). Out of this position, being humbled before the face of God’s love, I find in the dust at my feet and in the ash of my sins the desire to respond, to respond in love. I know how incapable I am of such love and so, I place all my trust in forgiveness and righteousness into God’s hands. And because I really believe in this love, I respond in as like a manner, as my poor self is able to conceive, I try in some small way, to love God back, to respond in the way of Christ. I can only try with the full knowledge that I will fail, but try, in some small way, I must. I must, for there is nothing left for me to do in the face of such searing, total love. And so, I continue to explore "invisible Joy and the emptiness of Love" as written in the reflection of the LITURGIST from the day of my commissioning…Thank You St. John Lutheran Church and St. Anne Catholic Community for this privilege.

To learn "invisible Joy and the emptiness of Love"... this is the journey of life. To give until there is nothing left to give, but always there is more…to pour oneself out as exemplified by Gods’ self giving love. God so gave himself as to be fully human and yet fully Divine, this shows us the example of pouring oneself out, but always there is more. Christ’s death and resurrection show us that indeed God can never be used up. God and God’s love; God’s saving grace, will remain with us and for us. God always was and always will be, this we believe!

To learn the emptiness of Love is to understand the kind of faith the 23rd Psalm professes, this psalmist knew the overflowing abundance of the Love of God… NJB Psalm 23:5 You annoint my head with oil, my cup brims over... but he also knew the travail of life that could cause one to doubt or to wail in grief... NJB Psalm 23:4 Even were I to walk in a ravine as dark as death...





All our medical supplies were burned in the fire at Rugari and the people of the village ask me if I will return back to America because of the fire...

(SITTING ON THE TOTES OF MEDICAL SUPPLIES AT THE AIRPORT and then ASHES IS WHAT REMAINS)




To learn the emptiness of Love…

The empty houses and schoolrooms of Mushoro, Nkokwe, Kanombe…














To learn the emptiness of Love…









To hear gunfire at night, on the street beside the Procure where I live and know that more than likely another person is dieing because of the insecurity at night…

Please link to GOOGLE EARTH and the locations i have designated below. You will see exactly where I am staying at the Procure.
(Approximate location of gunfire = 1°40’40. 32”S Longitude 29°14’15. 48” E Latitude)
(Approximate location of my room = 1°40’40. 58” S Longitude 29°14’13. 79” E Latitude)

To pray, "Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing..."
Invisible Joy and the emptiness of Love...

To be asked every day for something that I can give; education, money, biscuit, job, medicine…
To learn the emptiness of Love...



To wait weeks and months for the sound of the voice of your child…







Invisible Joy and the emptiness of Love...







To pray every day for God’s kingdom come, God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven…






To learn the emptiness of Love...


To be greeted with hugs and shouts of joy in the evening by the children whose homes are beside the road I traverse each day to the Procure...



...to know love for these children and to know they will not receive all they need to fulfil their potential because of the conditions of poverty and war that affect their lives…



Invisible Joy and the emptiness of Love...


To laugh and to converse and to pray each evening with my wonderful priest friends of the Procure...





...to know that together we are crossing boundaries and barriers so that we might get a glimpse of the fuller vision of God's Love...













Invisible Joy and the emptiness of Love...





To sit in the chapel at the Procure in the evening gazing up at the cross and pray in the song of Hebrew Psalmody…

































...to give lament to my own sorrows and to the sorrows of others I encounter every day...





Invisible Joy and the emptiness of Love...




To celebrate and find solace with my family of Congo…the family of Bahati and my family of fellow priests at the Procure, they welcome me as their own…







Invisible Joy and the emptiness of Love...




(ROSETTE AND FATHER SALVINUS)


To celebrate in joy the birth of my granddaughter Emily in Buffalo, Wyoming and to hear their voices after so many months…what joy to hear their voices, what joy to see their faces!!! Yet I know that I will be unable to see Emily for the first time until she is almost one year old…





To learn the emptiness of Love...



To visit in happiness with my daughter as she and her fiancĂ©e plan their wedding…I wait in great anticipation this wonderful event…
















Invisible Joy and the emptiness of Love...



To worship in church without understanding the spoken word or sung verse, to lack the familiar experience of worship that feeds my soul through understanding and comprehension…to listen without understanding and pray…


Invisible Joy

The emptiness of Love


To turn a page of the journal that I was gifted with the day of my commissioning and find this verse that consols my longing and my knowledge of the injustice in our world...


NIV Psalm 27:13 I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. 14 Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.