9.15.21 National Cathedral Morning Prayer

[Music] [Music] good morning friends it is hump day wednesday september 15th i'm dana corcella the vicar of the cathedral and as always happy to begin my morning with you a few opening sentences my grace is sufficient for you for power is made perfect in weakness my grace is sufficient for you for power is made perfect in witness let us pray grant us o god not to be anxious about earthly things but to love things heavenly and even now while we are placed among things that are passing away to hold fast to those that shall endure through christ our lord amen and the feast day appointed for today is catherine of genoa and let me pray that call it excuse me collect for catherine of genoa gracious god revealed to your church the depths of your love that like your servant catherine of genoa we may give ourselves a loving service knowing that we have been perfectly loved by you through jesus christ our lord amen now for our bit of praise this morning i want to read to you a few verses from psalm 86 this this is the psalm appointed for her feast day psalm 86 beginning at the third verse be merciful to me o lord for you are my god i call upon you all the day long gladden the soul of your servant for to you o lord i lift up my soul for you o lord are good and forgiving and great is your love toward all who call upon you give ear o lord to my prayer and attend to the voice of my supplications in the time of my trouble i will call upon you for you will answer me among the gods there is none like you o lord nor anything like your works all nations you have made will come and worship you o lord and glorify your name for you were great you do wondrous things for you alone are god teach me your way o lord and i will walk in your truth knit my heart to you that i may fear your name i will thank you o lord my god with all my heart and glorify your name forevermore now that is psalm 86. it's a beautiful psalm those were verses 3 through 12 verses 3 through 12 and in many ways it's sort of a love letter or testament from catherine of genoa to to god i want to tell you about her when i realized that she was the saint appointed for today i really wasn't that excited and i told patrick catherine of genoa but you know i read about her and now i'm a fan i mean i always knew about her but i didn't appreciate her so i'm anxious to tell you her story because she truly had this love affair with god and it didn't start out that way she was a mystic and nurse a mystic and a nurse who died in 1510 15 1510 so she was remembered both for her ministry of nursing the sick during repeated plagues and also for the works that she wrote recounting her mystical experiences her writings became widely known when they were made the subject of baron friedrich von huckles classic work the mystical element of religion this was in 1908 so let me begin back up catherine was born in genoa italy in 1447 she was the youngest of five children as a teenager she wanted to become a nun but her application to the convent was denied instead she was married at the age of 16 to giuliano adorno as part of an attempt to end the feud between their two families the couple it says were initially miserable together so it was an arranged marriage it says giuliano was angry unfaithful and lost most of their money due to reckless spending catherine it says spent the first 10 years of her marriage in a deep depression praying that god would strike her with a great sickness so that she could remain in bed all day long now this doesn't sound like 15th century you know soap opera i mean it sounds like it could be today think about this their story is just so fascinating to me so she was in a deep depression for 10 years and he was out carousing and then it says this is important the trajectory of her life changed on march 22 1473 when she had a sudden mystical experience while she was in church in the middle of making her confession to a priest she was suddenly struck with an overwhelming sense of the love of god it just almost knocked her over she was so stunned and dazed by this experience that she walked out of the church without even completing her confession so you can picture this this medieval woman in a medieval church she's in a confessional booth and all of a sudden like a lightning bolt hits her and in this transfixed days she walks out of the church just leaves the confessional and walks out so she literally was struck by the awesome the true word the mysterium tremendous awesome of god then it says this was the beginning of a life of profound prayer catherine combined a deep and intense contemplate contemplative life with an active dedication to caring for the sick and a local hospital in her time and this is what i love so much her husband joined her in her work and the couple became increasingly close to one another through their shared labor for those in need nope that's another miracle right there and matt my cameraman is shaking his head too yes it is they eventually moved together into the panatome i'm not sure how you would say that it was a large hospital and genoa in order to devote themselves completely to caring for the sick there they moved into the hospital and then it says it was there that catherine dictated a number of works of mystical theology which were published some 40 years after her death so i want to share some quotes of hers i i just didn't realize the depth of her mysticism and spirituality it's catherine insisted that god be loved only for god's self and not for anything that one might expect to receive from him writing in her biography that pure love loves god without any for pure love loves god without any for meaning there's no quid pro you love we are called to love god for the simple fact that it's god that that we just love god not that we'll get anything back even though we all know we get so much love back she also wrote all that i have said is nothing compared to what i feel within the witnessed correspondence of love between god and the soul for when god sees the soul as pure as it was in its origins he tugs at it with a glance draws it and binds it to himself with a fiery love that by itself could annihilate the immortal soul that's very passionate and then this is one of her favorite famous sayings and god is my being in excuse me let me start over in god is my being my me my strength my beatitude my good and my delight and god is my being my me my strength my beatitude my good and my delight she had such a passionate love for god i mean have you for can you imagine having a passionate love for god for christ in jesus for the trinity and for what however you imagine or however you visualize or however you feel god in your soul that it's just this passionate i just i just fell in love with that she ended up dying on september 15th 1510 while she was nursing the sick and she was buried in the hospital chapel so i feel kind of ashamed that i wasn't too excited about today but i do now have a profound respect uh for catherine of genoa all right my friends we will continue continue with our worship prayers for today this day on the 15th what is it that we need what is it that's on our hearts that we ask god for in our daily tasks god surrounds us in our successes and failures god surrounds us in our joys and sorrows god surrounds us with the healing of our world god surrounds us we pray today for all who celebrate or seek or needs god's love so i'll let you think about that today we pro we pray for all who celebrate seek or need god's love as we continue our day god surrounds us in hope as we continue our day well actually we're beginning our day please know that god is surrounding you in hope and i want to share two three beautiful quotes about love that i'm hoping will get you through this day and the rest of the week go and love someone exactly as they are and then watch how quickly they transform into the greatest truest version of themselves when one feels seen and appreciated in their own essence one is instantly empowered so see with your power you can go and recognize someone for the purest essence of who they are and then that empowers them so that was by wed angelosi and then a contemplative monk i saw this one i love this always pray to have eyes that see the best in people a heart that forgives the worst a mind that forgets the bad and a soul that never loses faith in god and then finally this is from roomie the philosopher poet i love rumi and rumi wrote some call you love i call you the king of love you are beyond all imaginings taking me places i can't even dream of a ruler of my heart wherever you go don't go without me beautiful and of course love is god love is god god is love so let us pray our way through this morning o holy one we keep still we listen we hear you say i am your strength and we say to you you are our redeemer amen so my friends remember that god says to us my grace is sufficient for you for power is made perfect in weakness my grace is sufficient for you for power is made perfect in weakness and i love this because i can imagine that catherine and her husband showing their own perfect power in the weakness of loving others healing others just this true weakness of of love reaching out and holding and healing another there is nothing greater than that so may you have a blessed day may god be with you may christ love and peace always be with you and may the outpouring of the holy spirit's love bless you this day and always amen [Music] you

Channel: Washington National Cathedral

Views: 2,867

Keywords: Washington National Cathedral, Washington DC, cathedral, music, architecture, choir, organ, singing, tourism, tourist destination, united states

Id: 0d4cH-k9VJA

Length: 16min 34sec (994 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 15 2021