20/02/07 Shrove Tuesday
Outline for Daily Meditation
[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, who before the passion of your onlybegotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; 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 26, 28 * 36, 39; Deuteronomy 6:16-25; Hebrews 2:1-10; John 1:19-28
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Deuteronomy 6:16-25. We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt...
The hymn "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" has been known as the Negro national anthem for many years. It was written by two famous brothers: poet James Weldon Johnson wrote the lyrics and composer John Rosamond Johnson set it to its complicated and bracing tune.
It's a song about the struggle up from slavery, a song of such abiding strength and determination that it makes me feel as if I, too, have trod a stony path, felt the chastening rod. But I haven't. When I sing a song about deliverance from slavery, it doesn't ring quite true. And saying that there are other kinds of slavery--the slavery of addiction, say--doesn't make it ring true either: there are many types of slavery, but this song is about chattel slavery as practiced in the first 250 years of American life. I'm not sure I have a right to sing it.
But I have the right to love it. And I have the duty to honor the courage its verses speak, and not to trivialize that courage by equating my aches and pains with the soul--crushing burden of enslavement. When we feel the courage of another as if it were our own, we are not saying that our experience is identical--only that we can recognize bravery when we see it.
Pray for the Diocese of Mbeere (Kenya)
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm
Today is a feria, a free day.
++++++++++
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Mbeere (Kenya)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
The soul of the just person is nothing else but a paradise where the Lord says He finds His delight.
St Teresa of Jesus
Interior Castle, I.1
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
God is for All
God is the life of all free beings. He is the salvation of all, of believers or unbelievers, of the just or the unjust, of the pious or the impious, of those freed from passions or those caught up in them, of monks or those living in the world, of the educated and the illitrate, of the healthy and the sick, of the young or the old. He is like the outpouring of light, the glimpse of the sun, or the changes of the weather which are the same for everyone without exception.
Abba Pambo said, "If you have a heart, you can be saved."
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
The Nonpossessive Life
To be able to enjoy fully the many good things the world has to offer, we must be detached from them. To be detached does not mean to be indifferent or uninterested. It means to be nonpossessive. Life is a gift to be grateful for and not a property to cling to.
A nonpossessive life is a free life. But such freedom is only possible when we have a deep sense of belonging. To whom then do we belong? We belong to God, and the God to whom we belong has sent us into the world to proclaim in his Name that all of creation is created in and by love and calls us to gratitude and joy. That is what the "detached" life is all about. It is a life in which we are free to offer praise and thanksgiving.
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:
Day Twenty - The Third Way of Service, cont'd
Tertiaries endeavor to serve others in active work. We try to find expression for each of the three aims of the Order in our lives, and whenever possible actively help others who are engaged in similar work. The chief form of service which we have to offer is to reflect the love of Christ, who, in his beauty and power, is the inspiration and joy of our lives.
Lord,
Make me an instrument of Your peace;
Where there is hatred let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
++++++++++
Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/
O LORD JESUS,
in this hour
let me hear again your call,
“Follow me.”
My steps are prone to wander.
Come therefore, I pray,
and make your way clear before me.
Amen.
- Rueben P. Job and Norman Shawchuck
A Guide to Prayer for All God’s People
From page 8 of A Guide to Prayer for All God’s People by Rueben P. Job and Norman Shawchuck. Copyright © 1990 by The Upper Room.
+++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"Mardi Gras!"
Some groups of radical disciples wear us out because they are so serious. Everything is so moralistic, heavy and a value judgment of good, better, best right, wrong: "The Scriptures say, don't do this; you must do that." Maybe I tire of this quickly because I was raised Catholic. Too much moralizing really becomes laborious, self-serving and finally, part of the problem. The mature Christian usually is a "holy fool." We really aren't a heavy Church, a fact that has often scandalized other denominations. There is time to be on the front line, then you can take some time in the back enjoying the good and the beautiful, poetry, love, friends, laughter. That's action and contemplation, fasting and feasting - and knowing how and when to do them both. It is the most mature form of Christianity, and also the rarest.
from Why be Catholic?
++++++++++
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
Crucify ourselves
We are soon to celebrate the passion of our crucified Lord. It is therefore in keeping with our commitment to him that we should crucify ourselves by restraining the desires of the flesh. As the apostle says: You cannot belong to Christ Jesus unless you crucify all your self-indulgent passions and desires. Such is the cross upon which we Christians must continually hang, since our whole lives are beset by trials and temptations. Not for us, as long as we live, to be rid of those nails we read of in the psalm: Pierce my flesh with the nails of your fear.
Flesh means the desires of our lower nature; nails, the demands of God's justice and holiness. With these the fear of the Lord pierces our flesh and fastens us to the cross as an acceptable sacrifice to him. In a similar passage the apostle Paul appeals to us by the mercy of God to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.
Augustine of Hippo, (354 - 430), bishop of Hippo, became the most influential person of the Western Church and left many writings to posterity.
++++++++++
Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 17: How Many Psalms Are to Be Said at These Hours
We have already arranged the order of the psalmody
for the Night and Morning Offices;
let us now provide for the remaining Hours.
At Prime let three Psalms be said,
separately and not under one "Glory be to the Father."
The hymn of that Hour
is to follow the verse "Incline unto my aid, O God,"
before the Psalms begin.
Upon completion of the three Psalms
let one lesson be recited,
then a verse,
the "Lord, have mercy on us" and the concluding prayers.
The Offices of Terce, Sext and None
are to be celebrated in the same order,
that is:
the "Incline unto my aid, O God," the hymn proper to each Hour,
three Psalms, lesson and verse,
"Lord, have mercy on us" and concluding prayers.
If the community is a large one,
let the Psalms be sung with antiphons;
but if small,
let them be sung straight through.
Let the Psalms of the Vesper Office be limited to four,
with antiphons.
After these Psalms the lesson is to be recited,
then the responsory, the Ambrosian hymn, the verse,
the canticle from the Gospel book,
the litany, the Lord's Prayer and the concluding prayers.
Let Compline be limited to the saying of three Psalms,
which are to be said straight through without antiphon,
and after them the hymn of that Hour,
one lesson, a verse, the "Lord, have mercy on us,"
the blessing and the concluding prayers.
Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
Site still needs to be updated.
Commentary by Gloriamarie:
It's all a bit daunting, isn't it, all these instructions and details. Fortunately for us, others have sequenced the Psalms for us in Brevaries and Prayer Books. The Book of Common Prayer for the Episcopal Church has divided the Psalms into readings for each day of the month.
I would say, though, that point we can take from Benedict today is the importance of praying the Psalms. Pray them in whatever manner works for you. They are the first offering in the daily Scripture reading. Maybe for Lent, if you don;t already, you could pray one Psalm a day.
++++++++++
MARDI GRAS
She came with the crate she'd been in since her rescue, a four month old shepherd-husky mix. Her mother had been swept away in the flood, leaving four puppies behind. We're naming her Mardi Gras, Corinna said. Great name for a dog from New Orleans. Immediately she was just Mardi.
Mardi was terrified of everything. She wouldn't walk, for instance: if you set her down on the floor, she just stood there and trembled until her new mom took pity on her and picked her up, no mean feat: even at four months, that was a big dog to carry. In Corinna's lap or in her crate with her blankets, those were the only two places Mardi felt safe.
Soon she decided that she did want to be friends with Dancer, the saintly dog of the house, who is now a senior citizen. Dancer was underwhelmed, but Mardi missed her littermates; she wanted Dancer to play with her and nuzzle her, wanted Dancer to nap with her. She was willing to go outside in the back yard if Dancer was with her, and even ran around and around Dancer in circles, hoping to get up a game of Chase. Dancer held off as long as she could and then succumbed, accompanying her new charge in her adventures with a tolerant air.
Mardi remembers the hurricane. The sounds of summer cloudbursts, the howl of wind sent her scurrying into her crate, where she huddled and shook and cried until it was over. In the kitchen at the start of one storm, she was afraid to make a break for it to the den, where her crate was, choosing instead to huddle and cry under the table. At those moments, even now, her mommy looks into her lovely eyes at fearsome memory, and makes soothing noises. Mardi is content to burrow into Corinna's lap until it's over.
But if Mardi is frightened by things that do not frighten us, she also has courage and fortitude where others don't. Well, we found the husky part of Mardi, Corinna said the other day when it snowed. We took her outside and she just wouldn't come in. Ran around and around in the snow for more than an hour. She howled like a wolf and dug herself a tunnel. She was right at home.
I don't believe they get a lot of snow in New Orleans. Mardi was right at home in some other place, a place to which she's never actually been, her primordial husky home. Scarred by a hurricane so that she is scared of a rainstorm, she nonetheless embraces a blizzard. Animals are surprising sometimes, brave in unexpected places. So are people.
It's Mardi Gras in New Orleans today, and they say the hotels are full. Spend a lot of money, folks -- the livelihoods of some very brave working people depend on it. And laissez le bontemps rollez.
Copyright © 2007 Barbara Crafton - http://www.geraniumfarm.org
[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, who before the passion of your onlybegotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; 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 26, 28 * 36, 39; Deuteronomy 6:16-25; Hebrews 2:1-10; John 1:19-28
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Deuteronomy 6:16-25. We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt...
The hymn "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" has been known as the Negro national anthem for many years. It was written by two famous brothers: poet James Weldon Johnson wrote the lyrics and composer John Rosamond Johnson set it to its complicated and bracing tune.
It's a song about the struggle up from slavery, a song of such abiding strength and determination that it makes me feel as if I, too, have trod a stony path, felt the chastening rod. But I haven't. When I sing a song about deliverance from slavery, it doesn't ring quite true. And saying that there are other kinds of slavery--the slavery of addiction, say--doesn't make it ring true either: there are many types of slavery, but this song is about chattel slavery as practiced in the first 250 years of American life. I'm not sure I have a right to sing it.
But I have the right to love it. And I have the duty to honor the courage its verses speak, and not to trivialize that courage by equating my aches and pains with the soul--crushing burden of enslavement. When we feel the courage of another as if it were our own, we are not saying that our experience is identical--only that we can recognize bravery when we see it.
Pray for the Diocese of Mbeere (Kenya)
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm
Today is a feria, a free day.
++++++++++
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Mbeere (Kenya)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
The soul of the just person is nothing else but a paradise where the Lord says He finds His delight.
St Teresa of Jesus
Interior Castle, I.1
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
God is for All
God is the life of all free beings. He is the salvation of all, of believers or unbelievers, of the just or the unjust, of the pious or the impious, of those freed from passions or those caught up in them, of monks or those living in the world, of the educated and the illitrate, of the healthy and the sick, of the young or the old. He is like the outpouring of light, the glimpse of the sun, or the changes of the weather which are the same for everyone without exception.
Abba Pambo said, "If you have a heart, you can be saved."
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
The Nonpossessive Life
To be able to enjoy fully the many good things the world has to offer, we must be detached from them. To be detached does not mean to be indifferent or uninterested. It means to be nonpossessive. Life is a gift to be grateful for and not a property to cling to.
A nonpossessive life is a free life. But such freedom is only possible when we have a deep sense of belonging. To whom then do we belong? We belong to God, and the God to whom we belong has sent us into the world to proclaim in his Name that all of creation is created in and by love and calls us to gratitude and joy. That is what the "detached" life is all about. It is a life in which we are free to offer praise and thanksgiving.
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:
Day Twenty - The Third Way of Service, cont'd
Tertiaries endeavor to serve others in active work. We try to find expression for each of the three aims of the Order in our lives, and whenever possible actively help others who are engaged in similar work. The chief form of service which we have to offer is to reflect the love of Christ, who, in his beauty and power, is the inspiration and joy of our lives.
Lord,
Make me an instrument of Your peace;
Where there is hatred let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
++++++++++
Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/
O LORD JESUS,
in this hour
let me hear again your call,
“Follow me.”
My steps are prone to wander.
Come therefore, I pray,
and make your way clear before me.
Amen.
- Rueben P. Job and Norman Shawchuck
A Guide to Prayer for All God’s People
From page 8 of A Guide to Prayer for All God’s People by Rueben P. Job and Norman Shawchuck. Copyright © 1990 by The Upper Room.
+++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"Mardi Gras!"
Some groups of radical disciples wear us out because they are so serious. Everything is so moralistic, heavy and a value judgment of good, better, best right, wrong: "The Scriptures say, don't do this; you must do that." Maybe I tire of this quickly because I was raised Catholic. Too much moralizing really becomes laborious, self-serving and finally, part of the problem. The mature Christian usually is a "holy fool." We really aren't a heavy Church, a fact that has often scandalized other denominations. There is time to be on the front line, then you can take some time in the back enjoying the good and the beautiful, poetry, love, friends, laughter. That's action and contemplation, fasting and feasting - and knowing how and when to do them both. It is the most mature form of Christianity, and also the rarest.
from Why be Catholic?
++++++++++
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
Crucify ourselves
We are soon to celebrate the passion of our crucified Lord. It is therefore in keeping with our commitment to him that we should crucify ourselves by restraining the desires of the flesh. As the apostle says: You cannot belong to Christ Jesus unless you crucify all your self-indulgent passions and desires. Such is the cross upon which we Christians must continually hang, since our whole lives are beset by trials and temptations. Not for us, as long as we live, to be rid of those nails we read of in the psalm: Pierce my flesh with the nails of your fear.
Flesh means the desires of our lower nature; nails, the demands of God's justice and holiness. With these the fear of the Lord pierces our flesh and fastens us to the cross as an acceptable sacrifice to him. In a similar passage the apostle Paul appeals to us by the mercy of God to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.
Augustine of Hippo, (354 - 430), bishop of Hippo, became the most influential person of the Western Church and left many writings to posterity.
++++++++++
Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 17: How Many Psalms Are to Be Said at These Hours
We have already arranged the order of the psalmody
for the Night and Morning Offices;
let us now provide for the remaining Hours.
At Prime let three Psalms be said,
separately and not under one "Glory be to the Father."
The hymn of that Hour
is to follow the verse "Incline unto my aid, O God,"
before the Psalms begin.
Upon completion of the three Psalms
let one lesson be recited,
then a verse,
the "Lord, have mercy on us" and the concluding prayers.
The Offices of Terce, Sext and None
are to be celebrated in the same order,
that is:
the "Incline unto my aid, O God," the hymn proper to each Hour,
three Psalms, lesson and verse,
"Lord, have mercy on us" and concluding prayers.
If the community is a large one,
let the Psalms be sung with antiphons;
but if small,
let them be sung straight through.
Let the Psalms of the Vesper Office be limited to four,
with antiphons.
After these Psalms the lesson is to be recited,
then the responsory, the Ambrosian hymn, the verse,
the canticle from the Gospel book,
the litany, the Lord's Prayer and the concluding prayers.
Let Compline be limited to the saying of three Psalms,
which are to be said straight through without antiphon,
and after them the hymn of that Hour,
one lesson, a verse, the "Lord, have mercy on us,"
the blessing and the concluding prayers.
Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
Site still needs to be updated.
Commentary by Gloriamarie:
It's all a bit daunting, isn't it, all these instructions and details. Fortunately for us, others have sequenced the Psalms for us in Brevaries and Prayer Books. The Book of Common Prayer for the Episcopal Church has divided the Psalms into readings for each day of the month.
I would say, though, that point we can take from Benedict today is the importance of praying the Psalms. Pray them in whatever manner works for you. They are the first offering in the daily Scripture reading. Maybe for Lent, if you don;t already, you could pray one Psalm a day.
++++++++++
MARDI GRAS
She came with the crate she'd been in since her rescue, a four month old shepherd-husky mix. Her mother had been swept away in the flood, leaving four puppies behind. We're naming her Mardi Gras, Corinna said. Great name for a dog from New Orleans. Immediately she was just Mardi.
Mardi was terrified of everything. She wouldn't walk, for instance: if you set her down on the floor, she just stood there and trembled until her new mom took pity on her and picked her up, no mean feat: even at four months, that was a big dog to carry. In Corinna's lap or in her crate with her blankets, those were the only two places Mardi felt safe.
Soon she decided that she did want to be friends with Dancer, the saintly dog of the house, who is now a senior citizen. Dancer was underwhelmed, but Mardi missed her littermates; she wanted Dancer to play with her and nuzzle her, wanted Dancer to nap with her. She was willing to go outside in the back yard if Dancer was with her, and even ran around and around Dancer in circles, hoping to get up a game of Chase. Dancer held off as long as she could and then succumbed, accompanying her new charge in her adventures with a tolerant air.
Mardi remembers the hurricane. The sounds of summer cloudbursts, the howl of wind sent her scurrying into her crate, where she huddled and shook and cried until it was over. In the kitchen at the start of one storm, she was afraid to make a break for it to the den, where her crate was, choosing instead to huddle and cry under the table. At those moments, even now, her mommy looks into her lovely eyes at fearsome memory, and makes soothing noises. Mardi is content to burrow into Corinna's lap until it's over.
But if Mardi is frightened by things that do not frighten us, she also has courage and fortitude where others don't. Well, we found the husky part of Mardi, Corinna said the other day when it snowed. We took her outside and she just wouldn't come in. Ran around and around in the snow for more than an hour. She howled like a wolf and dug herself a tunnel. She was right at home.
I don't believe they get a lot of snow in New Orleans. Mardi was right at home in some other place, a place to which she's never actually been, her primordial husky home. Scarred by a hurricane so that she is scared of a rainstorm, she nonetheless embraces a blizzard. Animals are surprising sometimes, brave in unexpected places. So are people.
It's Mardi Gras in New Orleans today, and they say the hotels are full. Spend a lot of money, folks -- the livelihoods of some very brave working people depend on it. And laissez le bontemps rollez.
Copyright © 2007 Barbara Crafton - http://www.geraniumfarm.org
posted by Gloriamarie Amalfitano @ 10:53 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home