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Friday 33rd Week OT
Dominican Retreat House
November 21, 2014
CONTRASTS IN POETRY ++++++++++++++++++++++++
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The
Jesuit poet Gerard Manly Hopkins in his poem “Pied Beauty” describes the contrasting attributes of God’s beauty
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Uses
words of opposites coupled together such as “swift & slow, sweet & sour,
adazzle & dim
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1
might think that what’s slow, sour, & dim would not reflect diving glory,
yet, G’s splendor is ubiquitous, i.e. present everywhere
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So,
present in light & darkness, in life & death
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What
is swift, sweet, and adazzle then has no monopoly on G’s amazing grace
CONTRASTS IN
REVELATION ++++++++++++++++++++
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Bk
of Revelation says God’s word is both sweet & sour, sweet to the mouth, but
sour 2 the stomach
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G’s
word consoles & confront us
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G’s
word is both grace & judgment, much like how Finley Peter Dunne describes
job of a newspaper: 2 comfort the afflicted & 2 afflict the comfortable
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J
speaks his Father’s word day in & day out
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In
Gospel that word = strong & accusatory, naming how temple was being
desecrated & instead of being a house of prayer, was turned into a den
where thieves, ripped off the people
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Those
words were sour 2 those in authority who sought to kill him & those words
were sweet 2 the crowds that hung on his every word
CONTRASTS FOR
JOACHIM & ANNE ++++++++++++++
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G’s
word, R tradition has it, was spoken 2 Joachim & Anne, the parents of Mary
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The
message they received was sweet: tho childless, they’re told that a child’d B born
2 them
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That
child was Mary, whom they took, in thanksgiving, 2 the temple & consecrated
2 God
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We
know rest of story; Mary would eventually give birth to a son, the very Word of
God
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The
sour part of account was her heart would B pierced w/ a sword 7 times during their
lifetime
CONTRASTS FOR US ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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On
Feast of Presentation of Mary in temple, not dwell on only 1 side of experience
of Js’ call 2 us
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If
experiencing sweetness, sour will come
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If
experiencing sourness, know that sweetness will just as surely be there if we
look for it
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