Years ago, as a newly ordained Episcopal priest, I received my share of pastoral calls to make.
Often, these calls involved visiting memory care clients.
Often, these calls involved people who wouldn’t know they didn’t know me. The staff called in a local pastor when they felt “something like that” might be helpful.
And I learned something I have held onto all these years.
Today’s Gospel reminds me of that truth. In a teaching moment with his disciples, Jesus taught them how to pray.
If you’re a church regular, or maybe attended reliably as a child, the words Jesus offered a couple of thousand years ago are still in your heart. If someone starts them off, more than likely you find you can step into them as though it was yesterday.
Embedded in our souls as they are, these words can often come from memory care receivers—even when they cannot remember loved ones.
Old, familiar words, learned years ago through repetition, come rolling out of us as needed.
When my father was in the last days of a long cancer journey, he would say very vile things to my mother. Long, laborious recollections of her failures. Hurtful, biting things spewed forth from him. Sometimes things that were true, sometimes things that were not true, simply the result of a brain that was dying.
Sometimes she would call me in the middle of those tirades. Sometimes that helped, but I wasn’t always available. So, I asked what she does when she couldn’t get me by phone.
“I say the Lord’s Prayer, over and over. It calms me down.”
Over and over, written on hearts decades earlier, this prayer continues to console and protect:
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
The late Trappist monk Thomas Merton was a prolific writer. And his writing has been a source of comfort to me no matter what is going on in the world, or simply to me in my life. Consider the following:
Speak words of hope.
Be human in this most inhuman of ages.
Guard the image of man,
for it is the image of God.
What I found novel and most helpful in this quote is the reminder that even the person who has harmed me the most—that person—deserves respect and care because there is more to him than his treatment of me. He, just as I am, just as you are, warrants guarding because we bear the image of God within us. It may be buried deep, crusted over, denied more than once, but it is there.
Here’s another Merton gift:
Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy.
Reminders such as these serve notice that each of us presents a bit of God to those whom we meet.
I hope that anyone looking at me can recognize, if only briefly, some resemblance to the source of any goodness they see.
It’s Saint Patrick’s Day, March 17, a time for celebration.
We drink green beer, eat corned beef and cabbage, and offer a shamrock for good luck.
Nothing’s too much for the man who chased snakes out of Ireland. Right? I agree, but let’s clear up a few things first.
The man we call Patrick was a slave who returned to be among his former captors.
This is the core of the man, and it’s an exceptional response. Here’s some more.
At the age of 16, Patrick was taken prisoner by Irish raiders and taken to Ireland. There, he spent around six years, enslaved as a shepherd — lonely and afraid, turning to religion for solace.
Most people, once they escape their “prison,” never look back. Patrick did the opposite. He felt there was work there to be done.
After six years of captivity, Patrick heard a voice telling him his ship was ready to take him home.
He traveled 200 miles to the nearest port and managed to persuade a captain to let him stow away. He made it back to Britain and his family.
A nice enough story if it ended there.
But it doesn’t.
After years of study, he returned to Ireland — his mission twofold: to minister to Christians already in Ireland, and to convert the non-believers.
He wasn’t responding to an obligation. He was responding to “a calling.”
And he wasn’t even Irish. He was born in either Scotland or northern England and described himself as a Roman and a Briton.
“Patrick” was not his birth name. When the Pope authorized him to evangelize Ireland, he was prophetically named Patricius, meaning “father of citizens.”
Because of his enslavement, Patrick missed out on formal education. His education was limited to religious teachings, and he apparently taught himself to read and write beyond basic Latin.
Most of us would applaud these results. But the lack of formal schooling embarrassed him — yet his success as a missionary is attributed to tenacity and “dogged determination,” even in the face of doubts about his own self-worth.
He actually wrote about this insecurity in his autobiography, Confessio — one of the oldest personal spiritual memoirs.
Here’s a surprising twist: Patrick was never canonized by the Catholic Church — simply because he lived before there was a formal canonization process.
He was proclaimed a saint by the people of Ireland His feast day wasn’t even added to the universal Church calendar until the 1600s.
Oh, and the snake stories are not real. Ireland has no snakes, then or now. The legend is regarded as a metaphor for Patrick’s Christianizing efforts, perhaps drawing on the Judeo-Christian tradition of snakes as symbols of evil.
In other words, he wasn’t driving out reptiles — he was driving out paganism.
Patrick’s story is about a traumatized teen-ager who became a willing exile for the sake of the very people who had enslaved him.
That’s not a story about green beer, corned beef and cabbage, or even the noble shamrock.
That’s a story about forgiveness, resilience, and radical purpose.
The sentence above proved to be an important lesson in my life, courtesy of a dear friend long since gone.
She’d catch me off guard in the middle of a rant (for want of a better word.) I might be speaking of a family member or friend—someone I knew pretty well. I was frustrated that they were not showing their “true” colors. Maybe I had them pegged as hard-hearted, and they just did a loving thing. Or maybe I thought they were tough, but then saw them well up with tears upon seeing a fragile sparrow deceased on the ground.
I could go on, but I hope I have made the point of my friend Martha Petrey. “MT (what she called me), nobody is just one thing. You miss out on lots of wonderful surprises by confining them to a single definition.”
I know that is true, but I also know that “categorizing” brings some control to an otherwise uncontrollable world. Hence, it makes me feel safe. It’s hard to give up those two assurances.
This week I encountered her wisdom once again.
My brother Jim texted me a long poem written by our paternal grandfather. I once had possession of it, and how it ended up in his home in Milwaukee is a mystery to us both.
Titled “Prodigal Girl,” the poem takes Luke 15:11-32 as its inspiration, only it flips the script. Ask yourself this, Ben Trainor seems to pose, would the story even appeal to Luke’s readers if the wayward offspring were a girl?
Jim and I never knew GrandpaTrainor since he died before we were born. All we had to go on were other people’s memories or opinions.
Most of them never knew Martha Petrey, or someone like her who understands that nobody is just one thing.
By most accounts that we ever heard, Ben was characterized as a stern, punitive, by-the-book man, and a staunch Roman Catholic who believed no one other than RCs would cross the threshold of heaven.
He was a railroad engineer, which means he was gone from home a lot, so we think Grandma probably filled in many blanks for her children and their children
Our mother, who somehow “got him” better than his own kids did, told us there was much more depth to the man than was ever revealed to his children.
She also shared that he loved to write, and was frequently published in Railroad Magazine.
Perhaps “Prodigal Girl” graced its pages.
Commentary by Mary Trainer about Prodigal Girl
Narrative reading of Prodigal Girl Poem
Prodigal Girl
By Benjamin Trainor (1923)
Historical Context
Written in 1923, ‘Prodigal Girl’ reflects a period in American society when moral expectations for women were rigid and public judgment could be swift and unforgiving. The 1920s were a time of social change—women had recently gained the right to vote, and cultural norms were shifting—yet traditional standards of virtue remained deeply entrenched. In this poem, Benjamin Trainor challenges the double standard that celebrated the return of the ‘prodigal son’ while condemning the ‘prodigal girl.’ His words offer a compassionate critique of societal hypocrisy and advocate for mercy, dignity, and fairness.
Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Psalm 51:1
If a movie stars Robert Duvall it is already a winner in my eyes. I don’t believe I am alone in that estimation.
Mr. Duvall departed this world on Sunday, February 15, at age 95, headed to his best yet, and final role.
If I had a list of twenty-five favorites, you’d find Duvall’s 1983 movie Tender Mercies at or near the top. If you haven’t seen the movie, you might wonder at this assessment. But I am not alone in my praise. After all, he was awarded Best Actor Academy Award for this film.
In remembering Mr. Duvall, we remember more than an extraordinary actor; we remember a storyteller who understood that the most powerful performances are often the quietest. In Tender Mercies, he gave us a portrait of brokenness without despair and faith without spectacle. He reminded us that redemption rarely arrives with applause — it comes in small choices, steady steps, and undeserved grace. His performance endures because it tells the truth: the way home is seldom dramatic, but it is always possible.
The movie borrows its title from scripture, namely Psalm 51, which is featured in Ash Wednesday services in many Christian churches. David is said to be the author of this psalm, written following his greatest moral breaches: He slept with Bathsheba, another man’s wife, and she became pregnant. In desperation, David sunk lower and arranged for the other man, Uriah, to be killed. David tried to cover up his sins, but was outed by the prophet Nathan.
There he stood. An adulterer, a murderer, and a liar. Finally, he was at the bottom. The psalm is his appeal to God, an appeal which most–if not all–of us can recognize. Our sins may not be on the same scale as David’s, but I know–at least for me–the need of his prayer: According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions…
In various ways throughout his teachings, Jesus talks about the value of being awake. Staying alert, being watchful. With my natural need to worry, my first reaction to such warnings is to be cautious. Look out for the bad guy. The thief. The one who intends harm. As I’ve gotten old, it becomes clearer each passing hour that I am to be watchful for the presence of God, of goodness, of direction for my life. The bad stuff, sure, it’s there. I don’t want to step off a curb, and into the path of a car. But such reality feeds my cautious nature a little too much, I believe. Instead, I’m trying to focus more on what God wants from my life, the help that is needed in this hornet’s nest that is our current life. And then I meet Rosalva Parada, featured on this week’s podcast, The Wonder Files (link below.) There, you will see and hear a person who is always open to God’s direction for her life in the moment. She listens and watches intensely, incorporating unusual dreams or unlikely events into her plans for serving God. And she is open to where these clues lead her.
Light has sprung up for the righteous, and joyful gladness for those who are truehearted. Psalm 97:12
Today, the Church remembers St. Ninian, bishop of Galloway.
Trained in Rome and inspired by St. Martin of Tours, Ninian left home to share the Gospel with people who had never heard it.
He built the Candida Casa—the “White House” of Whithorn—as a center of Christian worship. His story reminds us that evangelism begins in obedience to God’s call, even when the task seems daunting.
No one ever promised it would be easy, especially in difficult times such as we find ourselves now.
But just imagine if we weren’t overwhelmed by the enormity of the big picture, and focused instead on what we might do to make the world a bit better in our own limited sphere of influence.
Let us pray that, like Ninian, we can be bearers of light in dark places, not necessarily by traveling to distant lands, but by embodying Christ’s love in our daily lives—through kindness, truth, and courage.
Special Notice: My new podcast debuts one week from today, on September 23. The Wonder Files can be found wherever podcasts are published. Check it out and offer your feedback to wonderfiles01@gmail.com
On September 9, 1878, an Episcopal nun named Constance died in Memphis, Tennessee.
Years later, she and a small cohort of similarly devoted people of faith would be lifted up as saints of the church.
The group is often described as Constance and Her Companions, or the Martyrs of Memphis.
When yellow fever swept through Memphis, many others fled the city in fear. But Constance, a nun of the Sisters of St. Mary, and her companions (Thecla, Ruth, Frances, Charles Parsons, and Louis Schuyler) remained to serve the sick, bury the dead, and comfort the orphaned.
Sister Constance declared, “It is a privilege to minister to the sick, and we are not afraid to die.
Her words were not bravado, but a quiet testimony of love stronger than fear.
Their lives are reminders that holiness is often found not in grand gestures, but in daily faithfulness, staying when others leave, serving when others retreat, loving when others despair.
The story of Constance and her companions is not only a page of history. It is also a summons:
When crisis comes, when fear tempts me to flee, may I pause long enough to heed Christ’s call to remain in love, and serve.
Footnote: Yellow fever is a viral disease spread through mosquito bites. Nowadays, it can be prevented through vaccination, and proper mosquito abatement strategies.
Dear friend, I’d bet most of us know our own weak spots. Despite bravado that may suggest otherwise, we not only know our weak spot(s), we also may live in fear of being exposed. Heaven forbid that the world see us as we are. One coping skill that many of us may wield in our own defense is “denial.”
Peter, you’re going to deny me three times before a rooster announces daybreak tomorrow.
Peter’s “no” was emphatic. Not me. I wouldn’t do that. You got this wrong.
But Jesus knew his friend well. He understood that Peter meant what he said about not betraying him. But after the crucifixion, followers hid in fear. “Knows Jesus” was being erased quickly from resumes throughout Jerusalem. — We live now in fearful times. We live among those who think separation of church and state is not necessary. Some live in fear they’ll be snatched off a street and, without due process, be locked in some hellhole by dinner.
We’re revisiting battles already won but now being questioned again.
We have federally mobilized troops in our cities.
It’s difficult to just keep going when we fear that we’re not going somewhere good.
It’s a test of faith, isn’t it, whatever our faith might be.
I mean, we have responsibilities for our neighbor—which means we can’t just walk on while they are in danger. Or hungry. Or naked. Or unhoused.
Falling to our knees and weeping may seem an appropriate response to an overwhelming need. But it doesn’t erase the need itself, and it doesn’t get our work done.
So, pardon me while I stand up, brush off my knees, dab my tears with Kleenex. I believe I am late for work.
Florence Nightingale. I remember learning about her in elementary school. She is considered to be the founder of modern nursing, improving survival chances from illness and injury through introduction of and insistence upon sanitation practices. In her day, nursing was not a revered service. In fact, people usually enrolled in that work were impoverished, sometimes criminal. The elite family from whom Florence sprung not only thought the work beneath someone of their daughter’s station, they also found it to be unsavory.
Societal norms for the time suggested that Florence should marry some nice young man of promise. But that was not Florence’s plan and, in fact, she never married. As I freshened my memory of her contributions, I am reminded of the exceptional human being she was. As much as, maybe more than, her education, knowledge, and medical accomplishments during the Crimean War, Miss Nightingale should be honored for so much more. Yes, she was the Lady of the Lamp, walking among her patients at night, checking on their care. But she also should be held high in our esteem for her never-ending and near-ruthless battle with bureaucracy. Perhaps it was her greatest battle, to improve organizational deficiencies that severely limited access to medical supplies and such necessary personal items as clothing and even toothbrushes. She never gave up when the care of her wounded warriors was at stake. Today, the Church lifts her up for special tribute, and the readings offered are well suited to the purpose, especially the Gospel. In Matthew 25 we are reminded that those tenacious in the care of “the least of these” have a special place in God’s kingdom. Surely then, we can expect Miss Nightingale to be there.
I’ve always had a special place in my heart for nurses, which has much to do with the fact that my mother was a registered nurse. Time and needs changed, though, and she gave up a profession she dearly loved to raise a family.
But in many ways she was always the nurse, tending to all manner of wounds, lifting spirits as she went. She had a knack for knowing the right thing to say to cheer someone on, or to motivate them to get up and try again. I don’t think she properly appreciated her gift, but I witnessed her doing this over and over. Saving lives, really, but without fanfare or salute. Like Florence Nightingale, she was a Matthew 25 person, serving “the least of these.” In doing research for this piece, I just learned that Florence Nightingale lived to age 90, despite battling poor health, both physical and mental. Weakened in perpetuity by a battlefield disease, many now say she also suffered from bipolar disorder, somehow managing the mood swings amidst helping others. My mother’s own gifts played out from under a shroud of depression, though recipients of her loving wisdom likely did not know it. They were wounded healers, seldom aware of just how far and wide their gifts extend. An excellent resource: Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians: Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Dr. Arnold, General Gordon. 1918.