At The Last Judgment I Shall Not Asked Whether I Was Successful In My Ascetic Exercises, Nor How Many

praying for your mutuals is honestly so freaking funny

the beloved | the betrayer

-@ghostsmp3

Every time I have ever found God it has been from a group of outsiders.

Every picture of God that has ever looks like him has been made by people who never saw a Jesus that looked like themselves

I have never felt more at home than when listening to a gay person talk about God. I have never understood someone better than the lesbian Catholics who love to veil, or the transgender episcoples who see their transition as an opportunity to share in God's creation, or anyone who found God and then carved their own way to him.

When I sit in chapel, and the worship music feels like noise, I know there is a hymn being sung with a shaking voice that sounds just like Christ calling out for his father. When I see lessons written in script, I know there are sheets of construction paper printed in stock fonts on a family's kitchen table sent home from Sunday school teaching the same. When I get a hand out with Bible verses bought from Amazon, I know that someone has written the same verse in craft glue and collage and their blood.

I think God is present the most when the process of finding him is distinctly human; because I think he knows us, and makes the way he finds us human.

Recently I realized how easy it was to worship God. Prayer isn't always a woman in her knees, arms lifted into the sky and crying out her love. It can be that, yes, but it doesn't have to be that. Going hiking. A parent kissing their child. Staring at the ocean. A hug from a friend. Watching lighting strike during a thunderstorm. Baking bread. God makes miracles, yes, but you can also find Them just as often in the mundane.

every day i think about jesus and the samaritan woman at the well. she really said why are you bothering to speak to me? do i matter to someone? does god see people like me? and jesus really said i see you. i love you. god loves all the people you've been told god doesn't love. and honestly when i realized that i wanted to drop a water pot and run screaming about it into town too

fanart of jesus holding a hippo was not on my 2024 bingo card

Praying is not a way to get what you want. Prayer is the extension of your soul into the world and beyond. To pray is to surrender yourself to the mystery of the divine, and to open yourself to a response you may never have anticipated or wanted. Prayer is an act of humility and acknowledgement that we are part of an infinite cycle centred not on us, but on God. We join with the prayers of those who came before us and those who are yet to come. Our prayers live on even when we have ceased to be. In a way, to pray is to become eternal.

“Mary’s inability to recognize Jesus may stem from any of the reasons mentioned—grief, disbelief, or the more theological reason that the glorified body did not have the same appearance as did his earthly body. Or maybe she is just stunned by a dead man suddenly alive. Imagine one of your favorite relatives simply showing up at the grave. We can imagine standing there motionless, waiting for an answer. Then comes one the tenderest passages in the whole Gospel: “Jesus said to her, Mariam. She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’” The two words are preserved in Aramaic, transliterated into Greek. Jesus calls her by name—"Mariam.“ She responds with the Aramaic word for rabbi: “Rabbouni.” Aramaic words, you’ll remember, likely reach back to the lips of Jesus, and in this case, of Mary. Imagine her hearing that familiar voice speak her name. The experience would have been unforgettable, and she would have been sure to repeat that very word when she recounted the story, at first to the disciples, next to the evangelist, and to anyone who would listen, probably until the day she died. Her own friends and circle of admirers would have treasured and preserved this Aramaic call and response: “Mariam…Rabbouni.” Not until Jesus speaks her name does Mary know him. At first, Mary couldn’t recognize him, but she knew that distinctive voice with the Nazarean accent—the voice that called her into wholeness when it expelled whatever demons troubled her, the voice that welcomed her into his circle of friends, the voice that told her she was valued in the eyes of God, the voice that answered her questions, the voice that laughed over a meal, the voice that counseled her near the end of his earthly life, the voice that cried out in pain from the cross. Mary knew that voice, because it was a voice that had spoken to her in love. Then she recognizes who it is. Because sometimes seeing is not believing. Loving is.”

—

Fr. James Martin, SJ

Easter Sunday meditation: Jesus and “Mariam.”

From “Jesus: A Pilgrimage”:

Iconograffity, by Alexandr Tsypkov

I fear nothing for God is with me!