Unexpected gem of the day. . .

Unexpected gem of the day:

Do you remember that old nursery rhyme that asked: "Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?" Do you remember the answer? It went: "With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row." Do you know what that answer means? Those silver bells are really "church bells" and those cockle shells are really the "shells of pilgrims" (you get a shell when you finish a pilgrimage) and those pretty maids all in a row are talking about "nuns all sitting in a row at prayer." In other words, gardens grow (and everything else grows) thanks to our faith and our religion and God's goodness. We can't do anything without God's help. Heck, we cannot even get the dirt for our own gardens.

How lovely.  I never knew this one’s origins, despite being fascinated with nursery rhyme derivations.  I guess this one never made it into any of those “Where do nursery rhymes come from?”   compilations, since they tend to gravitate to the horrid—the ones about the plague, or political intrigue, or bloody revolutions.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m fascinated by plague, too, and used to love to teach my Developmental Psych students about “Ring Around the Rosie,”  but it’s nice to know they aren’t ALL about brutal death.    : )

The entire post by “The Priestdude” is well worth reading:

The Priestdude

Your Dirt Day

We can do nothing without God

Mark 4:26-34

Jesus said to the crowds: “This is how it is with the kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and through it all the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come.”

God was once approached by a scientist who said, “Listen God, we’ve decided we don’t need you anymore. These days we can clone people, transplant organs and do all sorts of things that used to be considered miraculous. We will take care of our own miracles, thank you very much." God replied, “Don’t need me huh? How about we put your theory to the test. Why don’t we have a competition to see who can make a human being, say, a male human being.” The scientist agrees, but God declares they should do it like he did in the good old days when he created Adam. “Fine” says the scientist as he bends down to scoop up a handful of dirt. “Whoa!” says God, shaking his head in disapproval. “Not so fast. You get your own dirt.”

I have a friend who always calls your birthday day, "your dirt day." She says that because her grandson says that and that’s very cute. But isn't that true: the day we're born is the day we are brought into this world, just like Adam was “born” from the dirt of the ground and God breathed his life into him. Adam’s birthday was his dirt day! Every Ash Wednesday we receive ashes on our forehead together with the sober reminder: "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return." Every birthday is our dirt day. You see, the scientist was correct that we can now do many things that we thought God used to do in the past, we can do many modern miracles. But we will never be able to make something out of nothing, we can't make the dirt from which we are made, which means we can't do anything without God's help. God has to make US before we can make anything else.

In the gospel today, Jesus explains how gently and lovingly God helps us even when we are oblivious to him, even when we are asleep, kind of how some of you are already sleeping! Jesus says, "This is how it is with the kingdom of God: it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and through it all the seed would sprout and grow." Any of you who are growing a garden at home know immediately what Jesus means. Those flowers and vegetables grow in the ground without our help, only by God's goodness. Of course, we water and we weed and we prune, but we do not make anything actually grow. 

Do you remember that old nursery rhyme that asked: "Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?" Do you remember the answer? It went: "With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row." Do you know what that answer means? Those silver bells are really "church bells" and those cockle shells are really the "shells of pilgrims" (you get a shell when you finish a pilgrimage) and those pretty maids all in a row are talking about "nuns all sitting in a row at prayer." In other words, gardens grow (and everything else grows) thanks to our faith and our religion and God's goodness. We can't do anything without God's help. Heck, we cannot even get the dirt for our own gardens.

My friends, sometimes we too can slip into the same attitude as that scientist and think we can do things without God. Let me give you some examples that might hit home for you. Isn't this one reason why people skip Mass on Sundays? We think: it's more important for me to rest or to work or to go on vacation than to acknowledge that all I have comes from God. Skipping Mass means I don’t need God. Do you know what a "destination wedding" is? It's when you look for a pretty location for your wedding instead of a pretty priest for your wedding! Young couples today feel that marriage is more about what they do than about what God does; they feel like they don't need God in their weddings or in their marriages. Isn't this the same reason why we fail to pray more often? What is the single greatest excuse for not praying? We say, “I don’t have time to pray!” Why? Well because we think that it would be more useful to do other things than to get on our knees and ask for God's grace. Every prayer is a humble confession that I need God.

But like the scientist, we think we don't need God; maybe our parents and grandparents did – because you know, they were kind of backwards and unsophisticated and they used flip phones! – but today we're so much more advanced and we can do everything God can do, and we do it better. But the scientist (and you and I) forget that we don't have anything that has not been given to us by God; even our bodies -- the dirt we're made of -- is a gift from God. Every atheist who has ever shaken a defiant fist at heaven has failed to realize that even his fist is a gift from God. An atheist cannot get his own dirt.

As you come up for Communion today, you know what a great gift the Eucharist is, that the Bread and Wine is really Jesus own body and blood. But don't forget that your hand or your tongue that receives the Body and Blood of Christ is also a great gift from God. Why? Because you cannot get your own dirt.

Praised be Jesus Christ!