Jul 26, 2026 · 12 min · 9 segments
Listen to Mtr. Holly's farewell sermon, preached at St. Mark's on July 19, 2026, which was the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost. To follow along with the lectionary readings that inspired this sermon…
Jacob wakes from his dream, knowing that he has been sleeping on holy ground, in a place where angels ascend and descend, connecting heaven to earth and earth to heaven.
When he wakes, Jacob sets the stone he'd been using as his pillow up on its end as a pillar to mark the holy spot where his eyes saw God's glory.
In downtown Louisville, Kentucky, on a street corner between 4th Street and what is now Muhammad Ali Boulevard, there is a memorial plaque that stands as a pillar of sorts, marking a modern-day Jacob moment that could be taken from the pages of Genesis.
It was while living in the nearby Trappist Monastery, the Abbey of Gethsemane, Thomas Merton, the monk, writer, activist for peace, he was, I guess, allowed to go out on errands into Louisville in 1958.
And on this particular day, the heavens opened for him.
Here's how he writes about that moment.
In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I was theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers.
It was like waking from a dream of separateness.
This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud.
There are no strangers.
If only everybody could realize this.
But it cannot be explained.
There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
It was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes.
Jacob wakes from his dream, knowing that he has been sleeping on holy ground, in a place where angels ascend and descend, connecting heaven to earth and earth to heaven.
When he wakes, Jacob sets the stone he'd been using as his pillow up on its end as a pillar to mark the holy spot where his eyes saw God's glory.
In downtown Louisville, Kentucky, on a street corner between 4th Street and what is now Muhammad Ali Boulevard, there is a memorial plaque that stands as a pillar of sorts, marking a modern-day Jacob moment that could be taken from the pages of Genesis.
It was while living in the nearby Trappist Monastery, the Abbey of Gethsemane, Thomas Merton, the monk, writer, activist for peace, he was, I guess, allowed to go out on errands into Louisville in 1958.
And on this particular day, the heavens opened for him.
Here's how he writes about that moment.
In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I was theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers.
It was like waking from a dream of separateness.
This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud.
There are no strangers.
If only everybody could realize this.
But it cannot be explained.
There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
It was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes.
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