16/02/07 Week of epiphany 6
[Please remember this is a sort of "menu" from which to select. No one has to pray it all]
If you would like these meditations to come directly to your in box, please click here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KnitternunMeditation/
Collect
O God, the strength of all who put their trust in you: Mercifully accept our prayers; and because in our weakness we can do nothing good without you, give us the help of your grace, that in keeping your commandments we may please you both in will and deed; 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 102 * 107:1-32; Isaiah 65:17-25; 1 Tim 5:17-22(23-25); Mark 12:28-34
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Isaiah 65:17-25. No more shall there be an infant that lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his days...
"Did you lose a child?" our dinner guest asks my husband, in response to something he has said. He answers yes, and briefly tells the story of his son's death. Both guests are psychotherapists, trained listeners to people's innermost lives, yet neither can think of anything to say. A silence descends for a moment. "I worry about that all the time," one of them says.
Everybody does. Fear of it comes with parenthood. For the most part, we learn to push that fear away--nobody could live sanely staring that possibility in the face for years on end.
Can you survive it? You have to. People think they couldn't, but they do. Can you ever be happy again? Sure you can, although your happiness will always include the fact of your loss, will be visible through the lens of it--it never slips your mind. Your happiness is completely different now. The meaning of your life is different.
Isaiah looks to a time and place that knows no time or place, a life not maimed by tragedy of any kind, premature or not. And yet the risen Christ still bore the marks of the nails. The ones we lost will never not have been. Even in glory, we will remember.
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm
This is a feria, a free day. Our Roman Catholic brethren honor St. Gilbert of Sempringham today
Gilbert was born at Sempringham, England, son of Jocelin, a wealthy Norman knight. He was sent to France to study and returned to England to receive the benefices of Sempringham and Tirington from his father. He became a clerk in the household of Bishop Robert Bloet of Lincoln and was ordained by Robert's successor, Alexander. He returned to Sempringham as Lord on the death of his father in 1131. In the same year he began acting as adviser for a group of seven young women living in enclosure with lay sisters and brothers and decided the community should be incorporated into an established religious order. After several new foundations were established, Gilbert went to Citeaux in 1148 to ask the Cistercians to take over the Community. When the Cistercians declined to take on the governing of a group of women, Gilbert, with the approval of Pope Eugene III, continued the Community with the addition of Canons Regular for its spiritual directors and Gilbert as Master General. The Community became known as the Gilbertine Order, the only English religious order originating in the medieval period; it eventually had twenty-six monasteries which continued in existence until King Henry VIII suppressed monasteries in England. Gilbert imposed a strict rule on his Order and became noted for his own austerities and concern for the poor. He was imprisoned in 1165 on a false charge of aiding Thomas of Canterbury during the latter's exile but was exonerated of the charge. He was faced with a revolt of some of his lay brothers when he was ninety, but was sustained by Pope Alexander III. Gilbert resigned his office late in life because of blindness and died at Sempringham. He was canonized in 1202.
++++++++++
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Matlosane (Southern Africa)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
Take God for your bridegroom and friend, and walk with him continually; and you will not sin and will learn to love, and the things you must do will work out prosperously for you.
St John of the Cross
Sayings of Light and Love, 68.
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
On Joy
Abba Hyperichius said, "Praise God continally with spiritual hymns and always remain in meditation and in this way you will be able to bear the burden of the temptations that come upon you. A traveller who is carrying a heavy load pauses from time to time and draws in deep breaths; it makes the journey easier and the burden lighter."
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
The Intimacy of the Table
The table is one of the most intimate places in our lives. It is there that we give ourselves to one another. When we say, "Take some more, let me serve you another plate, let me pour you another glass, don't be shy, enjoy it," we say a lot more than our words express. We invite our friends to become part of our lives. We want them to be nurtured by the same food and drink that nurture us. We desire communion. That is why a refusal to eat and drink what a host offers is so offensive. It feels like a rejection of an invitation to intimacy.
Strange as it may sound, the table is the place where we want to become food for one another. Every breakfast, lunch, or dinner can become a time of growing communion with one another.
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:
Day Sixteen - The First Way of Service (cont)
Tertiaries recognize the power of intercessory prayer for furthering the
purposes of God's kingdom, and therefore seek a deepening fellowship with
God in personal devotion, and constantly intercede for the needs of his
church and his world. Those of us who have much time at our disposal give
prayer a large part of our daily lives. Those of us with less time must not
fail to see the importance of prayer and to guard the time we have allotted
to it from interruption. Lastly, we are encouraged to avail ourselves of the
sacrament of Reconciliation, through which the burden of past sin and
failure is lifted and peace and hope restored.
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
The Cross Prayers
Having in mind Saint Francis' devotion to the passion of Christ and looking
upon the figure of the crucified, with arms outstretched, let us pray to the
Lord.
Lord God, you have sealed your servant Francis with the sign of our
redemption.
Almighty God, when the world was growing cold you inflamed the hearts of
your people with the fire of your love. You raised up blessed Francis,
bearing in his body the marks of Christ crucified. Grant to us your people,
true penitence, and grace to bear the cross for love of him, who is alive
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
++++++++++
Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/
IF OUR VIEW of ourselves is anything less than being a word spoken forth by God, then our self image is a self-constructed facade — a crust of self. … I have come to realize that the primary work of God’s grace in our lives is to liberate us from this destructive bondage to the crust of self in order to shape us into wholeness. God is seeking to create in us a whole new structure of habits, attitudes, and perceptions, of dynamics of personal and corporate relationships, of patterns of reaction and response to the world. This new structure is one of increasing Christlikeness. God is seeking to break the crust.
- M. Robert Mulholland, Jr.
Shaped by the Word
From pages 110-111 of Shaped by the Word by M. Robert Mulholland, Jr. Copyright © 1985
+++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"Falling in Love"
Somewhere each day we have to fall in love, with someone, something, some moment, event, phrase. Somehow each day we must allow the softening of the heart. Otherwise our hearts will move inevitably toward hardness. We will move toward cynicism, bitterness, fear and despair. That's where most of the world is trapped and doesn't even know it. The world's been in love with death so long that it calls death life. It tries to conjure up life by making itself falsely excited, by creating parties where there's no reason to celebrate. We have to create and discover the parties of the heart, the place where we know we can enjoy, the place where we can give of ourselves. If you're not involved in giving your thoughts, your emotions, "for-giving," you will be involved only in taking. Yet the only way to experience joy is to give yourself to reality. Joy comes after you go that extra mile and offer yourself first-thing every day. Ask the Lord to give you the grace to fall in love. Then you'll see rightly, because only when we are in love do we understand. Only when we've given ourselves to reality can we in fact receive reality. That is the endless mystery of the Trinity that is expressed in every facet of this world: Perfect giving equals perfect receiving.
from The Passion of God and the Passion Within
++++++++++
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
Centering
While Jesus was surrounded by a large crowd because of the many miracles he performed and because of his gentle doctrine, he, the lover of solitude, again withdrew to a secluded place where, after being useful to his neighbor, he could freely return to prayer and contemplation.
It is a good, indeed necessary, thing for people who are much embattled to take refuge from the fray within themselves, to cultivate themselves, and in their innermost, care-filled hearts to fix their gaze on the divine realities and ask God for what is essential for the guidance and progress of all people. In this way they help with silent prayer those whom they have instructed in the faith, to give them the power to understand, so that the word of God may not fall on the empty air.
Simon Fidati of Cascia, O.S.A.
++++++++++
Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 13: How the Morning Office Is to Be Said on Weekdays
The Morning and Evening Offices
should never be allowed to pass
without the Superior saying the Lord's Prayer
in its place at the end
so that all may hear it,
on account of the thorns of scandal which are apt to spring up.
Thus those who hear it,
being warned by the covenant which they make in that prayer
when they say, "Forgive us as we forgive,"
may cleanse themselves of faults against that covenant.
But at the other Offices
let the last part only of that prayer be said aloud,
so that all may answer, "But deliver us from evil.
Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
Site needs to be updated
++++++++++
If you would like these meditations to come directly to your in box, please click here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KnitternunMeditation/
Collect
O God, the strength of all who put their trust in you: Mercifully accept our prayers; and because in our weakness we can do nothing good without you, give us the help of your grace, that in keeping your commandments we may please you both in will and deed; 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 102 * 107:1-32; Isaiah 65:17-25; 1 Tim 5:17-22(23-25); Mark 12:28-34
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Isaiah 65:17-25. No more shall there be an infant that lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his days...
"Did you lose a child?" our dinner guest asks my husband, in response to something he has said. He answers yes, and briefly tells the story of his son's death. Both guests are psychotherapists, trained listeners to people's innermost lives, yet neither can think of anything to say. A silence descends for a moment. "I worry about that all the time," one of them says.
Everybody does. Fear of it comes with parenthood. For the most part, we learn to push that fear away--nobody could live sanely staring that possibility in the face for years on end.
Can you survive it? You have to. People think they couldn't, but they do. Can you ever be happy again? Sure you can, although your happiness will always include the fact of your loss, will be visible through the lens of it--it never slips your mind. Your happiness is completely different now. The meaning of your life is different.
Isaiah looks to a time and place that knows no time or place, a life not maimed by tragedy of any kind, premature or not. And yet the risen Christ still bore the marks of the nails. The ones we lost will never not have been. Even in glory, we will remember.
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm
This is a feria, a free day. Our Roman Catholic brethren honor St. Gilbert of Sempringham today
Gilbert was born at Sempringham, England, son of Jocelin, a wealthy Norman knight. He was sent to France to study and returned to England to receive the benefices of Sempringham and Tirington from his father. He became a clerk in the household of Bishop Robert Bloet of Lincoln and was ordained by Robert's successor, Alexander. He returned to Sempringham as Lord on the death of his father in 1131. In the same year he began acting as adviser for a group of seven young women living in enclosure with lay sisters and brothers and decided the community should be incorporated into an established religious order. After several new foundations were established, Gilbert went to Citeaux in 1148 to ask the Cistercians to take over the Community. When the Cistercians declined to take on the governing of a group of women, Gilbert, with the approval of Pope Eugene III, continued the Community with the addition of Canons Regular for its spiritual directors and Gilbert as Master General. The Community became known as the Gilbertine Order, the only English religious order originating in the medieval period; it eventually had twenty-six monasteries which continued in existence until King Henry VIII suppressed monasteries in England. Gilbert imposed a strict rule on his Order and became noted for his own austerities and concern for the poor. He was imprisoned in 1165 on a false charge of aiding Thomas of Canterbury during the latter's exile but was exonerated of the charge. He was faced with a revolt of some of his lay brothers when he was ninety, but was sustained by Pope Alexander III. Gilbert resigned his office late in life because of blindness and died at Sempringham. He was canonized in 1202.
++++++++++
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Matlosane (Southern Africa)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
Take God for your bridegroom and friend, and walk with him continually; and you will not sin and will learn to love, and the things you must do will work out prosperously for you.
St John of the Cross
Sayings of Light and Love, 68.
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
On Joy
Abba Hyperichius said, "Praise God continally with spiritual hymns and always remain in meditation and in this way you will be able to bear the burden of the temptations that come upon you. A traveller who is carrying a heavy load pauses from time to time and draws in deep breaths; it makes the journey easier and the burden lighter."
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
The Intimacy of the Table
The table is one of the most intimate places in our lives. It is there that we give ourselves to one another. When we say, "Take some more, let me serve you another plate, let me pour you another glass, don't be shy, enjoy it," we say a lot more than our words express. We invite our friends to become part of our lives. We want them to be nurtured by the same food and drink that nurture us. We desire communion. That is why a refusal to eat and drink what a host offers is so offensive. It feels like a rejection of an invitation to intimacy.
Strange as it may sound, the table is the place where we want to become food for one another. Every breakfast, lunch, or dinner can become a time of growing communion with one another.
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:
Day Sixteen - The First Way of Service (cont)
Tertiaries recognize the power of intercessory prayer for furthering the
purposes of God's kingdom, and therefore seek a deepening fellowship with
God in personal devotion, and constantly intercede for the needs of his
church and his world. Those of us who have much time at our disposal give
prayer a large part of our daily lives. Those of us with less time must not
fail to see the importance of prayer and to guard the time we have allotted
to it from interruption. Lastly, we are encouraged to avail ourselves of the
sacrament of Reconciliation, through which the burden of past sin and
failure is lifted and peace and hope restored.
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
The Cross Prayers
Having in mind Saint Francis' devotion to the passion of Christ and looking
upon the figure of the crucified, with arms outstretched, let us pray to the
Lord.
Lord God, you have sealed your servant Francis with the sign of our
redemption.
Almighty God, when the world was growing cold you inflamed the hearts of
your people with the fire of your love. You raised up blessed Francis,
bearing in his body the marks of Christ crucified. Grant to us your people,
true penitence, and grace to bear the cross for love of him, who is alive
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
++++++++++
Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/
IF OUR VIEW of ourselves is anything less than being a word spoken forth by God, then our self image is a self-constructed facade — a crust of self. … I have come to realize that the primary work of God’s grace in our lives is to liberate us from this destructive bondage to the crust of self in order to shape us into wholeness. God is seeking to create in us a whole new structure of habits, attitudes, and perceptions, of dynamics of personal and corporate relationships, of patterns of reaction and response to the world. This new structure is one of increasing Christlikeness. God is seeking to break the crust.
- M. Robert Mulholland, Jr.
Shaped by the Word
From pages 110-111 of Shaped by the Word by M. Robert Mulholland, Jr. Copyright © 1985
+++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"Falling in Love"
Somewhere each day we have to fall in love, with someone, something, some moment, event, phrase. Somehow each day we must allow the softening of the heart. Otherwise our hearts will move inevitably toward hardness. We will move toward cynicism, bitterness, fear and despair. That's where most of the world is trapped and doesn't even know it. The world's been in love with death so long that it calls death life. It tries to conjure up life by making itself falsely excited, by creating parties where there's no reason to celebrate. We have to create and discover the parties of the heart, the place where we know we can enjoy, the place where we can give of ourselves. If you're not involved in giving your thoughts, your emotions, "for-giving," you will be involved only in taking. Yet the only way to experience joy is to give yourself to reality. Joy comes after you go that extra mile and offer yourself first-thing every day. Ask the Lord to give you the grace to fall in love. Then you'll see rightly, because only when we are in love do we understand. Only when we've given ourselves to reality can we in fact receive reality. That is the endless mystery of the Trinity that is expressed in every facet of this world: Perfect giving equals perfect receiving.
from The Passion of God and the Passion Within
++++++++++
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
Centering
While Jesus was surrounded by a large crowd because of the many miracles he performed and because of his gentle doctrine, he, the lover of solitude, again withdrew to a secluded place where, after being useful to his neighbor, he could freely return to prayer and contemplation.
It is a good, indeed necessary, thing for people who are much embattled to take refuge from the fray within themselves, to cultivate themselves, and in their innermost, care-filled hearts to fix their gaze on the divine realities and ask God for what is essential for the guidance and progress of all people. In this way they help with silent prayer those whom they have instructed in the faith, to give them the power to understand, so that the word of God may not fall on the empty air.
Simon Fidati of Cascia, O.S.A.
++++++++++
Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 13: How the Morning Office Is to Be Said on Weekdays
The Morning and Evening Offices
should never be allowed to pass
without the Superior saying the Lord's Prayer
in its place at the end
so that all may hear it,
on account of the thorns of scandal which are apt to spring up.
Thus those who hear it,
being warned by the covenant which they make in that prayer
when they say, "Forgive us as we forgive,"
may cleanse themselves of faults against that covenant.
But at the other Offices
let the last part only of that prayer be said aloud,
so that all may answer, "But deliver us from evil.
Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
Site needs to be updated
++++++++++
posted by Gloriamarie Amalfitano @ 11:54 AM
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