Homily for the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

A woman tumbled off her deck one day, breaking her arm and tearing her rotator cuff. Toward the end of her long and painful rehabilitation, her doctor recommended that she take up some activity to work the small muscles in her hand to keep them from atrophying. She asked if she should resume her knitting again and the doctor said that would be perfect.

She had been knitting off and on for nearly 30 years, but was not very good at it; plus she thought the demands of family and career made time much too precious to spend knitting.

But, "under doctor's orders," she took up her needles once again. She came to enjoy the soothing motion of the needles, the exhilaration of putting together a project and seeing it come to life beneath her hands.

She found that she did some of her best thinking as she knitted, jotting down notes on a pad she kept nearby. And she liked the way she felt while knitting: calm and serene, untroubled by the restless boredom that normally plagued her whenever she tried to sit still.

Her spirit rose to the challenge of creating something and anticipating the joy of those who would be warmed by the sweaters, hats, and scarfs she would make.

She continued knitting long after her arm and shoulder healed. What began as orthopedic therapy became her spiritual practice.

She said that “the making of crafts is soul work. In the midst of complexity, handicrafts provide simplicity, in the midst of movement and noise, they make space for silence and solitude.”

“Their slower rhythms are the rhythms of the earth itself,” she said. “In doing them, we connect to our deepest selves and to all the generations of craftspeople who came before us, creating warmth and beauty with the humble work of their hands."

We all need "soul work" a "holy, out­of-the-way place." where we can escape the clamor of the marketplace and the tyranny of our calendars and things­to-do lists to experience the peace of being alone with God, to listen to the voice of God in the quiet of our hearts, to know the "holy," "soulful" joy of doing simple, humble things for others.

Jesus invites 's to create spaces for prayer in our lives and make quiet time in our days to re-center our lives in the life and love of God.+