02/02/07 Week of Epiphany 4
[Please remember this is a sort of "menu" from which to select. No one has to pray it all]
Candlemas Day
Collect
Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
++++++++++
Today's Scripture http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/
Ps 84; Malachi 3:1-4; Heb 2:14-18; Luke 2:22-40
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Messiah of the Lord... There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years...
What we need around here is some young blood, someone at work says, and you wonder why he said that. Or maybe you're just being hypersensitive.
Someone looking for work asks whether she should give her age in her resume. Or should she wait to see if asked? "They can't ask," someone else chimes in. "It's against the law."
But you know what they're thinking, and you wonder if you should dye your hair. Have some work done on your crows feet, maybe? After all, you wouldn't want to look old.
Set in his ways. Not what she used to be. We think that openness to life is a trait of youth, and that old people are rigid. They're out of date, unable to think outside the box.
Maybe. Or maybe not. The first people in Jerusalem to recognize Jesus were both old. They'd waited for him for decades, and their long lives had prepared them to see him for who he was--though the tiny son of a carpenter and his wife can't have looked much like the expected Messiah.
Sounds pretty open-minded to me.
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm
The Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple / The Purification of Mary
Psalm 84; Malachi 3:1-4; Hebrews 2:14-18; Luke 2:22-40
Almighty and everliving God, we humbly pray that, as your only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple, so we may be presented to you with pure and clean hearts by Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
++++++++++
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Manicaland (Central Africa)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
In the evening of this life you will be examined in love. Learn then to love as God desires to be loved and abandon your own ways of acting.
St John of the Cross
Sayings of Light and Love, 60.
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
True Poverty
Abba Theodore, surnamed Pherme, had three good books. He went to abba Macarius and said to him, "I have three good books, and I am helped by reading them; other monks also want to read them and they are helped by them. Tell me, what am I to do?" The old man said, "Reading books is good but possessing nothing is more than all.' When he heard this, he went away and sold the books and gave the money to the poor.
When abba Macarius was in Egypt, he found a man who had brought a beast to his cell and he was steeling his possessions. He went up to the thief as though he were a traveller who did not live there and helped him to load the beast and led him on his way in peace, saying to himself, "We brought nothing into this world; but the Lord gave; as he willed, so is it done; blessed be the Lord in all things."
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
Being Merciful with Ourselves
We need silence in our lives. We even desire it. But when we enter into silence we encounter a lot of inner noises, often so disturbing that a busy and distracting life seems preferable to a time of silence. Two disturbing "noises" present themselves quickly in our silence: the noise of lust and the noise of anger. Lust reveals our many unsatisfied needs, anger or many unresolved relationships. But lust and anger are very hard to face.
What are we to do? Jesus says, "Go and learn the meaning of the words: Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice" (Matthew 9:13). Sacrifice here means "offering up," "cutting out," "burning away," or "killing." We shouldn't do that with our lust and anger. It simply won't work. But we can be merciful toward our own noisy selves and turn these enemies into friends.
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:
Day Two - The Object (cont.)
In the example of his own sacrifice, Jesus reveals the secret of bearing
fruit. In surrendering himself to death, he becomes the source of new life.
Lifted from the earth on the cross, he draws all people to himself. Clinging
to life causes life to decay; the life that is freely given is eternal.
Lord Jesus, in your servant Francis you displayed the wonderful power of the
cross: help us always to follow you in the way of the cross, and give us
strength to resist all temptation, and to you, Lord, with the Father and the
Holy Spirit be all glory for ever. Amen
++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"Masks of God"
The Latin word for mask is persona, from which comes our word for the individual human. The word seems to indicate that the individual manifestation is no more than a mask of a larger reality. It is first referred to the large theatrical masks which the Greek actors used to “speak through” (per-sonare) to magnify their voices. Eventually persona was used by Christian philosophers and theologians to define the individual as separate from the group. Each person was a mask of God. Each person was one breathing and sounding through the mask, one image of a much larger truth. I come to know my personhood only in the infinite respect of the I-Thou relationship, which finally only God can show me: subject to subject, gaze to gaze, one who refuses to treat me as an object. In one sense, love is always between equals. God’s love for us is so perfect, we know ourselves to be respected as equals and lovers. It takes a lifetime to absorb that.
from “Image and likeness: The Restoration of the Divine Image”
++++++++++
From John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., Tradition Day by Day: Readings from Church Writers. Augustinian Press. Villanova, PA, 1994.
http://www.artsci.villanova.edu/dsteelman/tradition/sources.html
The Presentation of Jesus
Today we are celebrating the coming of our Savior and his mother to the temple: let us imitate the people who met him there. First there was the saintly Simeon who, led to the temple by the Spirit, took the child in his arms and blessed the Lord. The widow Anna, a devout woman, came at the same time, gave thanks to God and spoke of the child to everyone who awaited the ransoming of Israel. Let us also come to meet Jesus and rejoice greatly as we take him in the arms of our good works; let us proclaim his great name, and tell of his mercy and the wonderful things he has done for us who await the ransoming of Jerusalem and the comforting of Israel. The psalmist foresaw that comforting by the light of the Spirit when he said: You will gladden us, Lord, with the joy of your presence; everlasting delights are in your right hand.
May Christ our Savior bring this desire of ours to fulfillment, for he took flesh for us and gave himself up to ransom us with his own blood, and he lives and reigns with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.
Rabanus Maurus, (776 - 856), archbishop of Mainz, worked to further the evangelization of Germany.
++++++++++
Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 7: On Humility
The fifth degree of humility
is that he hide from his Abbot none of the evil thoughts
that enter his heart
or the sins committed in secret,
but that he humbly confess them.
The Scripture urges us to this when it says,
"Reveal your way to the Lord and hope in Him" (Ps. 36:5)
and again,
"Confess to the Lord, for He is good,
for His mercy endures forever" (Ps. 105:1).
And the Prophet likewise says,
"My offense I have made known to You,
and my iniquities I have not covered up.
I said: 'I will declare against myself my iniquities to the Lord;'
and 'You forgave the wickedness of my heart'" (Ps. 31:5).
Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
The fifth rung of the ladder of humility is an unadorned and disarming one: Self-revelation, Benedict says, is necessary to growth. Going through the motions of religion is simply not sufficient. No, the Benedictine heart, the spiritual heart, is a heart that has exposed itself and all its weaknesses and all of its pain and all of its struggles to the one who has the insight, the discernment, the care to call us out of our worst selves to the heights to which we aspire.
The struggles we hide, psychologists tell us, are the struggles that consume us. Benedict's instruction, centuries before an entire body of research arose to confirm it, is that we must cease to wear our masks, stop pretending to be perfect and accept the graces of growth that can come to us from the wise and gentle hearts of people of quality around us.
Humility such as this gives us energy to face the world. Once we ourselves admit what we are, what other criticism can possibly demean us or undo us or diminish us? Once we know who we are, all the delusions of grandeur, all the righteousness that's in us dies and we come to peace with the world.
++++++++++
THREE PILLARS: THE ZEN OF BEN
I sneak into my office at 4:30 am, so as not to awaken Ben the Cat, who considers himself invited to sit on my lap when I'm trying to write. He has programmed himself to respond, even in his sleep, to the sound of keystrokes, and soon he appears. He stares fixedly at my lap and gathers himself for a leap; as always, I am in awe of a creature who can jump vertically, straight up to a place three times as high as he is.
That's a good pair of back legs you've got there, I tell him, and he gives me a contented quack in return. Ben is the only one of our cats who speaks no English, although he seems to understand it well enough. It's a little odd, since he rehearses all the time, stringing his meows together into diphthongs and consonant pairs: he has mastered "ng" and "ny" and "er" and "oh" and "oer" and a bunch of others I can't recall. But he does it like an opera singer, working toward the proper sound; Ben seems not to have made the connection between this oral activity and conversation. For that, he still just quacks. Not that the others are exactly Laurence Olivier; like most animals, cats speak English telepathically. When they do it at all.
Since he is a member of my household, I feel responsible for Ben's spiritual formation. Ben's religious devotions in the morning are the same as the ones we use in the evening: he sits on my lap while I say the Daily Office in English, and then we do a bilingual recitation of the Three Pillars of Right Behavior for a Good Cat:
What are the three pillars of right behavior?
The first pillar is: meow just a little bit.
The second pillar is: no jumping on the girl cats.
The third pillar is: no eating plants.
These are the three pillars of right behavior.
I have complete confidence in the power of this oral recitation to change Ben's life. I think that he will hear me saying them every day and will become accustomed to the words -- already he quacks a response at each semicolon! And then I think that the words will seep into his cat brain and that, in time, he will come to embody their truth.
Of course, I also think professional wrestling is real.
But really: is it not possible that a cat can learn to pray? That anyone can? That training ourselves with our bodies and our voices and our thoughts changes our spirits, over time? That's how change and growth happens in every other part of life, from learning to speak French to increasing the amount of weight we can bench press. Why would our spirits be different?
After our morning recitation of the Three Pillars, I bury my face in Ben's beautiful black fur and purr with him a little. My love for him grows each day: my delight in his silliness, his beauty, his open longing for a cuddle. Prayer changes us, I think as I feel his softness against my face, all of us, matter what kind of prayer it is. And no matter who we are.
Copyright © 2007 Barbara Crafton - http://www.geraniumfarm.org
Candlemas Day
Collect
Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
++++++++++
Today's Scripture http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/
Ps 84; Malachi 3:1-4; Heb 2:14-18; Luke 2:22-40
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Messiah of the Lord... There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years...
What we need around here is some young blood, someone at work says, and you wonder why he said that. Or maybe you're just being hypersensitive.
Someone looking for work asks whether she should give her age in her resume. Or should she wait to see if asked? "They can't ask," someone else chimes in. "It's against the law."
But you know what they're thinking, and you wonder if you should dye your hair. Have some work done on your crows feet, maybe? After all, you wouldn't want to look old.
Set in his ways. Not what she used to be. We think that openness to life is a trait of youth, and that old people are rigid. They're out of date, unable to think outside the box.
Maybe. Or maybe not. The first people in Jerusalem to recognize Jesus were both old. They'd waited for him for decades, and their long lives had prepared them to see him for who he was--though the tiny son of a carpenter and his wife can't have looked much like the expected Messiah.
Sounds pretty open-minded to me.
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm
The Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple / The Purification of Mary
Psalm 84; Malachi 3:1-4; Hebrews 2:14-18; Luke 2:22-40
Almighty and everliving God, we humbly pray that, as your only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple, so we may be presented to you with pure and clean hearts by Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
++++++++++
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Manicaland (Central Africa)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
In the evening of this life you will be examined in love. Learn then to love as God desires to be loved and abandon your own ways of acting.
St John of the Cross
Sayings of Light and Love, 60.
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
True Poverty
Abba Theodore, surnamed Pherme, had three good books. He went to abba Macarius and said to him, "I have three good books, and I am helped by reading them; other monks also want to read them and they are helped by them. Tell me, what am I to do?" The old man said, "Reading books is good but possessing nothing is more than all.' When he heard this, he went away and sold the books and gave the money to the poor.
When abba Macarius was in Egypt, he found a man who had brought a beast to his cell and he was steeling his possessions. He went up to the thief as though he were a traveller who did not live there and helped him to load the beast and led him on his way in peace, saying to himself, "We brought nothing into this world; but the Lord gave; as he willed, so is it done; blessed be the Lord in all things."
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
Being Merciful with Ourselves
We need silence in our lives. We even desire it. But when we enter into silence we encounter a lot of inner noises, often so disturbing that a busy and distracting life seems preferable to a time of silence. Two disturbing "noises" present themselves quickly in our silence: the noise of lust and the noise of anger. Lust reveals our many unsatisfied needs, anger or many unresolved relationships. But lust and anger are very hard to face.
What are we to do? Jesus says, "Go and learn the meaning of the words: Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice" (Matthew 9:13). Sacrifice here means "offering up," "cutting out," "burning away," or "killing." We shouldn't do that with our lust and anger. It simply won't work. But we can be merciful toward our own noisy selves and turn these enemies into friends.
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:
Day Two - The Object (cont.)
In the example of his own sacrifice, Jesus reveals the secret of bearing
fruit. In surrendering himself to death, he becomes the source of new life.
Lifted from the earth on the cross, he draws all people to himself. Clinging
to life causes life to decay; the life that is freely given is eternal.
Lord Jesus, in your servant Francis you displayed the wonderful power of the
cross: help us always to follow you in the way of the cross, and give us
strength to resist all temptation, and to you, Lord, with the Father and the
Holy Spirit be all glory for ever. Amen
++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"Masks of God"
The Latin word for mask is persona, from which comes our word for the individual human. The word seems to indicate that the individual manifestation is no more than a mask of a larger reality. It is first referred to the large theatrical masks which the Greek actors used to “speak through” (per-sonare) to magnify their voices. Eventually persona was used by Christian philosophers and theologians to define the individual as separate from the group. Each person was a mask of God. Each person was one breathing and sounding through the mask, one image of a much larger truth. I come to know my personhood only in the infinite respect of the I-Thou relationship, which finally only God can show me: subject to subject, gaze to gaze, one who refuses to treat me as an object. In one sense, love is always between equals. God’s love for us is so perfect, we know ourselves to be respected as equals and lovers. It takes a lifetime to absorb that.
from “Image and likeness: The Restoration of the Divine Image”
++++++++++
From John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., Tradition Day by Day: Readings from Church Writers. Augustinian Press. Villanova, PA, 1994.
http://www.artsci.villanova.edu/dsteelman/tradition/sources.html
The Presentation of Jesus
Today we are celebrating the coming of our Savior and his mother to the temple: let us imitate the people who met him there. First there was the saintly Simeon who, led to the temple by the Spirit, took the child in his arms and blessed the Lord. The widow Anna, a devout woman, came at the same time, gave thanks to God and spoke of the child to everyone who awaited the ransoming of Israel. Let us also come to meet Jesus and rejoice greatly as we take him in the arms of our good works; let us proclaim his great name, and tell of his mercy and the wonderful things he has done for us who await the ransoming of Jerusalem and the comforting of Israel. The psalmist foresaw that comforting by the light of the Spirit when he said: You will gladden us, Lord, with the joy of your presence; everlasting delights are in your right hand.
May Christ our Savior bring this desire of ours to fulfillment, for he took flesh for us and gave himself up to ransom us with his own blood, and he lives and reigns with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.
Rabanus Maurus, (776 - 856), archbishop of Mainz, worked to further the evangelization of Germany.
++++++++++
Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 7: On Humility
The fifth degree of humility
is that he hide from his Abbot none of the evil thoughts
that enter his heart
or the sins committed in secret,
but that he humbly confess them.
The Scripture urges us to this when it says,
"Reveal your way to the Lord and hope in Him" (Ps. 36:5)
and again,
"Confess to the Lord, for He is good,
for His mercy endures forever" (Ps. 105:1).
And the Prophet likewise says,
"My offense I have made known to You,
and my iniquities I have not covered up.
I said: 'I will declare against myself my iniquities to the Lord;'
and 'You forgave the wickedness of my heart'" (Ps. 31:5).
Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
The fifth rung of the ladder of humility is an unadorned and disarming one: Self-revelation, Benedict says, is necessary to growth. Going through the motions of religion is simply not sufficient. No, the Benedictine heart, the spiritual heart, is a heart that has exposed itself and all its weaknesses and all of its pain and all of its struggles to the one who has the insight, the discernment, the care to call us out of our worst selves to the heights to which we aspire.
The struggles we hide, psychologists tell us, are the struggles that consume us. Benedict's instruction, centuries before an entire body of research arose to confirm it, is that we must cease to wear our masks, stop pretending to be perfect and accept the graces of growth that can come to us from the wise and gentle hearts of people of quality around us.
Humility such as this gives us energy to face the world. Once we ourselves admit what we are, what other criticism can possibly demean us or undo us or diminish us? Once we know who we are, all the delusions of grandeur, all the righteousness that's in us dies and we come to peace with the world.
++++++++++
THREE PILLARS: THE ZEN OF BEN
I sneak into my office at 4:30 am, so as not to awaken Ben the Cat, who considers himself invited to sit on my lap when I'm trying to write. He has programmed himself to respond, even in his sleep, to the sound of keystrokes, and soon he appears. He stares fixedly at my lap and gathers himself for a leap; as always, I am in awe of a creature who can jump vertically, straight up to a place three times as high as he is.
That's a good pair of back legs you've got there, I tell him, and he gives me a contented quack in return. Ben is the only one of our cats who speaks no English, although he seems to understand it well enough. It's a little odd, since he rehearses all the time, stringing his meows together into diphthongs and consonant pairs: he has mastered "ng" and "ny" and "er" and "oh" and "oer" and a bunch of others I can't recall. But he does it like an opera singer, working toward the proper sound; Ben seems not to have made the connection between this oral activity and conversation. For that, he still just quacks. Not that the others are exactly Laurence Olivier; like most animals, cats speak English telepathically. When they do it at all.
Since he is a member of my household, I feel responsible for Ben's spiritual formation. Ben's religious devotions in the morning are the same as the ones we use in the evening: he sits on my lap while I say the Daily Office in English, and then we do a bilingual recitation of the Three Pillars of Right Behavior for a Good Cat:
What are the three pillars of right behavior?
The first pillar is: meow just a little bit.
The second pillar is: no jumping on the girl cats.
The third pillar is: no eating plants.
These are the three pillars of right behavior.
I have complete confidence in the power of this oral recitation to change Ben's life. I think that he will hear me saying them every day and will become accustomed to the words -- already he quacks a response at each semicolon! And then I think that the words will seep into his cat brain and that, in time, he will come to embody their truth.
Of course, I also think professional wrestling is real.
But really: is it not possible that a cat can learn to pray? That anyone can? That training ourselves with our bodies and our voices and our thoughts changes our spirits, over time? That's how change and growth happens in every other part of life, from learning to speak French to increasing the amount of weight we can bench press. Why would our spirits be different?
After our morning recitation of the Three Pillars, I bury my face in Ben's beautiful black fur and purr with him a little. My love for him grows each day: my delight in his silliness, his beauty, his open longing for a cuddle. Prayer changes us, I think as I feel his softness against my face, all of us, matter what kind of prayer it is. And no matter who we are.
Copyright © 2007 Barbara Crafton - http://www.geraniumfarm.org
posted by Gloriamarie Amalfitano @ 9:23 AM
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