As you know today (tomorrow) is St. Patrick’s Day. Most of us try to claim to be Irish on this day, but who actually has some in Irish in your ancestry? Raise your hands. Ok, well I have part of a song for you . . .
Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side.
The summer's gone, and all the roses falling,
It's you, it's you must go and I must bide.
But come ye back when summer's in the meadow,
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow,
It's I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow,
Oh, Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so!
That’s one of the most famous Irish songs ever written. It actually is a song with a simple message of saying “I love you.” . . . when someone named Danny has to go away (perhaps to war), but it could be going off to college or just moving away. And it is the simple action of saying “I love you.” OK, now hold that thought.
Once there was a mothers’ group. A group of women who came together with their toddlers for support, conversation and sipping coffee. They were reading a spiritual book on prayer. The book suggested that making quiet time for prayer was crucial to the spiritual life. Most of the mothers agree to try and find some quiet time, but it was usually during nap time, or in the shower, or unloading the dishwasher.
The book however offered a solution for quiet time . . . get up earlier. Just get up before anyone else, because “you can sleep when you’re dead.” As the mothers were talking about this, one mom finally yelled, “Are you kidding me? Heck, after a day of reading the same book 400 times, kissing boo-boos, settling disputes over Legos, cutting a single grape into 10 pieces, scooping turds out of the bathtub . . . I’m going to become a more spiritual person with less sleep by becoming a zombie. I don’t think that’s how it works.
I think that God is with us, day in and day out . . . in the chaos, in the noise and in the stillness of life. God is here, never absent from the clamor of kids’ laughter, their squeals, their skinned knees, their fussing, whining, and raging fits in the Target parking lot.
God is not withholding himself from us, waiting for us to come to him in the wee hours of the morning as a measure of our devotion! I am going to honor God intentionally in my sleep because I am pretty sure that God wants me to be the best Mom I can be. I am going to sleep in whenever I can . . . because I am pretty sure that I’ll have plenty of quiet time for God, when I’m dead!!!”
Wow. You go girl. The problem with this story about Jesus being transfigured (which is called the Transfiguration), is that we think that God appears in the big “ta das” of life. Those wonderful moments of bliss or when we have it “all right.”
But as the Mother in the story expressed, we can all see God’s presence radiated in the little things of life. Oh sure the big things would be wonderful, like a nice miracle or two or to see Jesus dazzling white and glowing . . . but actually if we are to recognize God radiating in our lives . . . it will be scooping turds, or walking the dog, or sitting with a family member who can’t remember things so well.
As the voice of God stated in the gospel, “Listen to Jesus.” His main message is LOVE. That we are to love each other, especially in the small, ordinary ways of showing love.
It’s like the covenant that God had with Abraham in the first reading. Do what you have to do, and do it well . . . and I will be with you. You don’t need to go to a mountain top to find God’s presence. It might be IN the ordinary mundane things of your day or your life. Or even those special times like saying “I love you” for the first time or for the thousandth time. Simply things, that’s where God dwells.
Here’s your challenge . . . say “I love you” so someone this week. Maybe it is someone who has heard it from you already. It doesn’t matter. Maybe it is to someone whom you haven’t said it to in year (decades?) Or possibly to someone to whom has never heard it from you. Try it. Show it.
Like in the Danny Boy song, love continues even after death. . . .
verse 2
But when ye come, and all the flowers are dying,
If I am dead, as dead I well may be,
You'll come and find the place where I am lying,
And kneel and say an Ave there for me.
And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me,
And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be,
For you will bend and tell me that you love me,
And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me!