Here are few words from the Papal Nunico Pietro Sambi who recently passed from this life to the fullness of life in God. He was the Pope's representative here in the United States since 2006.
"[A] young man, 22 years old, once took a piece of marble and sculpted in it two of the most deep human sentiments: suffering accepted from the hand of God does not diminish the beauty of the human person but increases it, and -- second sentiment -- even in death, a son continues to have full confidence in his mother.
This is the Pietá of Michelangelo, that you can see everytime you enter in the Basilica of St Peter in Rome.
Michelangelo, the author of the Pietá, is considered one of the greatest artists in the world. I don't believe it! The greatest artists are the educators -- are you -- because you try to sculpt the best of yourselves, of who you are and what you know, not in a piece of marble, but in living, breathing human beings, who are the glory of God."
Pray for our teachers as they prepare to close the time of vacation and to get back to the grind of forming young hearts and young minds....
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Exodus 40:16-21, 34-38; Psalm 84 How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord, mighty God; Matthew 13:47-53
The first reading details for us the establishment and completion of the dwelling place where God chose to make himself known through the desert years.
Notice, Moses couldn't enter the tent when "the cloud covered the meeting tent because the glory of the Lord filled the
dwelling."
Moses couldn't enter because God's glory was filling....but in Christ the glory of the Lord now fills us, for we are the temple of the Holy SPirit, we are dwelling place.
The Incarnation, God becoming man in Christ, has altered the rules and has stretched the bounds and has included us in the glory of God.
The reading ends with a very poignant passage, "In the daytime the cloud of the Lord was seen over the Dwelling; where as at night, fire was seen in the cloud by the whole house of Israel in all the stages of their journey."
In all the stages of the journey....
God was near no matter what. He was close at hand. God's nearness was not dependent on whether or not the People of ISrael felt his presence of experienced an emotional high but rather God's presence was because God decided and willed that he would be near.
He was with them in all the stages of the journey.
So it is with us. Why? BEcause he has willed to be near us. HE wants to be close.
As Bill Crosby once said, "not every eye that is closed is sleeping; not every eye that is open is seeing."
Reality is not dependent on us but on the God who creates, the God who reveals, the God who redeems, the God who has chosen to remain near.
today, for a brief moment, ask the Lord to see more deeply the things of God and be awaken to the cloud at day and the fire at night that journeys with you at every stage.
IS this not why we have the Blessed Sacrament and the sanctuary lamp to remind us at every moment the words of Jesus, "I will be with always until the end of the age."
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