21/02/07 Ash Wednesday
[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/
Invitation to Observe a Lenten Discipline
Sisters and brothers in Christ:
Every year at Easter we celebrate with joy our redemption and renewal
through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The season of Lent is a time to prepare for this celebration
and to make room in our lives for the Spirit of God to renew us in this mystery.
We begin this holy season by acknowledging our need for repentance
and our need for the love and forgiveness shown to us in Jesus Christ.
I invite you, therefore, in the name of Christ, to observe a Holy Lent,
by self-examination and penitence,
by prayer and fasting,
by practicing works of love,
and by reading and reflecting on God's Holy Word.
Let us begin our Lenten journey by together confessing our sins and seeking the forgiveness and new life that is promised to us in Christ Jesus.
Most merciful God,
whose Son Jesus Christ was tempted in every way, yet without sin,
we confess before you that we have sinned;
we have hungered after that which does not satisfy;
we have compromised with evil;
we have doubted your power to protect us.
Forgive our lack of faith; have mercy on our weakness.
Restore in us such love and trust that we may walk in your ways
and delight in doing your will.
++++++++++
Collect
Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; 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/
Psalm 95 & 32,143; Psalm 102,130; Jonah 3:1-4:11; Heb. 12:1-14; Luke 18:9-14
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Jonah 3:1-4:11. I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.
How about that--Jonah wants so badly for the guilty to get what's coming to them that he's ready to die. He can't handle the mercy of God--it offends him.
I finish another segment of my talk on forgiveness and ask if there are any comments. One man says that, to him, forgiveness can only come after revenge. "After I've gotten revenge," he says, "then I can forgive. But not before." Wow. Where's the forgiveness in that sequence?
Forgiveness isn't about the deadly balance of sin for sin, death for death, injury for injury. It's about breaking the cycle of that "balance," about walking away from it into our own future. Actions have consequences, and each of us must pay his own way. That's a fact of life. But it has nothing to do with whether one can forgive. It is not about the one who has injured me: it's about me.
Today, we will each receive a smudge of ash on our foreheads. I won't get your smudge and you won't get mine; we will each get our own. Do you repent? Do I? The first is out of my hands--I'm only in charge of the second.
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm
Lent
Welcome dear feast of Lent: who loves not thee,
He loves not Temperance, or Authority,
But is compos'd of passion.
The Scriptures bid us fast; the Church says, now:
Give to thy Mother, what thou wouldst allow
To ev'ry Corporation.
The humble soul compos'd of love and fear
Begins at home, and lays the burden there,
When doctrines disagree,
He says, in things which use hath justly got,
I am a scandal to the Church, and not
The Church is so to me.
True Christians should be glad of an occasion
To use their temperance, seeking no evasion,
When good is seasonable;
Unless Authority, which should increase
The obligation in us, make it less,
And Power itself disable.
Besides the cleanness of sweet abstinence,
Quick thoughts and motions at a small expense,
A face not fearing light:
Whereas in fulness there are sluttish fumes,
Sour exhalations, and dishonest rheums,
Revenging the delight.
Then those same pendant profits, which the spring
And Easter intimate, enlarge the thing,
And goodness of the deed.
Neither ought other men's abuse of Lent
Spoil the good use; lest by that argument
We forfeit all our Creed.
It's true, we cannot reach Christ's forti'eth day;
Yet to go part of that religious way,
Is better than to rest:
We cannot reach our Saviour's purity;
Yet we are bid, 'Be holy ev'n as he, '
In both let's do our best.
Who goeth in the way which Christ hath gone,
Is much more sure to meet with him, than one
That travelleth by-ways:
Perhaps my God, though he be far before,
May turn and take me by the hand, and more:
May strengthen my decays.
Yet Lord instruct us to improve our fast
By starving sin and taking such repast,
As may our faults control:
That ev'ry man may revel at his door,
Not in his parlour; banqueting the poor,
And among those his soul.
George Herbert
++++++++++
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Meath & Kildare (Ireland)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
Sick of giving up ccandy or cookies for Lent? Looking for some new ways to do things differently this year? Check here over the 40 days and 40 nights of Lent for creative ideas to take you from Ash Wednesday to Easter Saturday (excluding Sundays).
Lent. The only festival among world religions to be celebrated by the non-eating of chocolate.
Jesus spent 40 days in the desert, fasting and praying, preparing a mission, fighting temptation, working through his calling. Then in the early church, Lent was the time for new Christians to learn the faith, and for the rest of them to devote themselves to prayer and fasting, a spring cleaning of the soul in readiness for the big day.
And we have a six-week choc-free diet.
Did you ever feel today's Christianity was missing out on something? Identifying Lent with not eating chocolate misses the point almost as much as identifying Easter with eating it.
So this year let us bring you an idea a day for Lent: 40 ways to do something more with your 40 days.
With the help of a few friends, we have been digging out some more creative and adventurous approaches to the season. The challenging, the reflective, the alternative and the ancient.
Now you can read these 40 ideas for Lent, one per day, online here.
They involve carrier bags, paint, money, traffic jams and poetry. They are designed to stretch you, make you think, tone up some forgotten spiritual muscles, put your time to good use and get some fresh air in there. They are practical and positive.
We hope you'll try some of them, and give your spirit something new to do.
And go on, have a Mars Bar.
1. GO ON A MEDIA DIET
Go on a media diet for 24 hours. Turn off the TV and radio, and cancel or give away your newspaper. Avoid them at all costs. Stay offline, too. Don't read anything topical.
I end up so full of news in my career, that when I take vacations my family enforces a strict news diet. It is so restful. This is a great way to slow down and get in touch with what really matters. Silence, for one thing!
Lent quote: "If you are in need of help, he is strength. If you are in dread of death, he is life. If you are fleeing the darkness, he is light." – St Ambrose
++++++++++
A Celtic lenten Calendar
http://www.oursanctuary.net/celticlent.html
The Earth is Alive with the Glory of God
1. All Creation is alive with the presence of God. "Perhaps the most distinctive feature of Celtic Christianity is its affinity with nature. (Iona is an absolutely stunning island, where the line between God and the world is what MacLeod called 'tissue thin'.) The Celts enthusiastically affirmed the psalmist's declaration, 'The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims (God's) handiwork' (Psalm 19:1). The Celts believed that all creation is alive with God's presence. Because God's Spirit dwells in all living things, everything is inherently good... Every moment, every location could therefore become a time and place for encountering God.
For a Celtic Lent: "Celebrate the wonder of creation. Plant a flower and watch it grow. Take time each day to sense the changes taking place, even those changes you cannot see. Do what is necessary to nurture its growth. Marvel at the wonder of Creation and give thanks to God for the gift of life.
++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
The spirit of God, insofar as it is hidden in the veins of the soul, is like soft refreshing water which satisfies the thirst of the spirit.
St John of the Cross
Living Flame, 3.8
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
God is for all
There was an old man living in the desert who served God for so many years and he said, "Lord, let me know if I have pleased you." He saw an angel who said to him, "You have not yet become like the gardener in such and such place." The old man marvelled and said, "I will go off to the city to see both him and what it is that he does that surpasses all my work and toil of all these years."...
So he went to the city and asked the gardener about his awy of life.... When they were getting ready to eat in the evening, the old man heard people singing in the streets, for the cell of the gardener was in a public place. Therefore the old man said to him, "Brother, wanting as you do to live according to God, how do you remain in this place and not be troubled when you hear them singing these songs?"
The man said, "I tell you, abba, I have never been troubled or scandalized." When he heard this the old man said, "What, then, do you think in your heart when you hear these things?" And he replied, "That they are all going into the Kingdom." When he heard this, the old man marvelled and said, "This is the practice which surpasses my labour of all these years."
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
True Intimacy
Human relationships easily become possessive. Our hearts so much desire to be loved that we are inclined to cling to the person who offers us love, affection, friendship, care, or support. Once we have seen or felt a hint of love, we want more of it. That explains why lovers so often bicker with each other. Lovers' quarrels are quarrels between people who want more of each other than they are able or willing to give.
It is very hard for love not to become possessive because our hearts look for perfect love and no human being is capable of that. Only God can offer perfect love. Therefore, the art of loving includes the art of giving one another space. When we invade one another's space and do not allow the other to be his or her own free person, we cause great suffering in our relationships. But when we give another space to move and share our gifts, true intimacy becomes possible.
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:
Day Twenty-One - The Three Notes of the Order
Humility, love and joy are the three notes that mark the lives of
Tertiaries. When these characteristics are evident throughout the Order, its
work will be fruitful. Without them all that it attempts will be in vain.
God, you have made your church rich through the poverty of blessed Francis:
help us, like him, not to trust in earthly things, but to seek your heavenly
gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord
Lent! What is it?
It is a penitential pilgrimage along the road to Easter.
It is a death march - death to self each day.
It is a walking along His way, being heartsick for Him.
It is yearning to show Him we care and that we are repentant and that we
do love Him.
It is wanting to die for Him -- die to sin and to our weak human nature.
It is wanting to stand at the foot of His cross - to look up into the
agony in His eyes - to yearn to throw our arms about His bleeding knees and
clasp Him to our hearts and to weep with Mary.
And then.
It is to rejoice with Mary on Easter morning, the end of the pilgrimage.
But no, it is not the end, just a new beginning - each day a new
beginning - each day a new pilgrimage.
It is to walk along His way, until the time when we can say with St.
Paul, "I have fought the good fight. I have kept the faith." I have finished
the course."
It is when we come in sight of our own Easter morning...
++++++++++
Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/
WE ARE FORMED OF DUST — which suggests, among other things, not only our humble beginnings but our startling potential. For if God can breathe life into soil, what does that say about the latent potential in our lives? Who can tell what God’s breath might make of us yet — of will and mind, of imagination and compassion — opened to the One whose breath is life?
- John Indermark
Genesis of Grace
From page 17 of Genesis of Grace by John Indermark. Copyright © 1997 by John Indermark
+++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"Waking Up"
In the New Testament, whenever Jesus eats with or encounters the rich he always, without exception, challenges them to come beyond where they are. Yet he never accuses them of malice. He instead shows them their blindness. Always the judgment is blindness: the rich man just can't see the plight of Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). The rich man is not evil, he didn't cause the poor man at his gate to be poor. He simply wasn't aware. He couldn't see. That spiritual blindness is the primary sin. Spirituality is about waking up. Eastern religions know this. The word Buddha means "the awakened one." Spirituality has come upon hard times in the West, where legalism is often took over that we didn't need spirituality. We lost the spiritual disciplines and tools to know how to remain awake. We lost the disciplines that show us what's happening, what human relationships mean, the effects of what we do to one another in our relationships. The Church must continually be taught by the poor. Those who are oppressed and kicked around, who are not beneficiaries of the system, always hold for us the greatest breakthrough-truth and the greatest wisdom. In mythology they are imaged as blind beggars who in fact are true seers. The same is true inside ourselves. That part of ourself that we most hate, that we are most afraid of and most reject, is the poor, oppressed woman or man within. That hated person within holds our greatest gift. We must hold out a preferential option for our own poverty. Our poverty has the key; it offers the breakthrough moment for us to wake up. It's the hole in the soul, that place where we are radically broken, where we are powerless and therefore open.
from Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the 12 Steps
++++++++++
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 communion of saints
If those who believe in Christ are one, then through the mystery of the sacrament the entire body is present where bodily eyes see but a single member. Solitude prevents no one from speaking in the plural; nor is it inappropriate for the multitude of believers to speak in the singular, for through the power of the Holy Spirit, who is present in each and fills all, it is clear that the solitude is full of people and the multitude forms a unity.
Our holy Fathers regarded this intimate relationship and communion of believers in Christ as so certain that they included it in the creed stating the Catholic faith, and commanded us frequently to call it to mind along with the other basic elements of Christian belief. For immediately after we say: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Church," we add: "the communion of saints." Thus in the very act by which we bear witness to the God in whom we believe, we also affirm the communion that marks the Church which is one with him. For this communion of saints in the unity of faith is such that, because they believe in one God, are reborn in one baptism, and are strengthened by the one Holy Spirit, they are admitted, through the grace of adoption, into the one everlasting life.
Peter Damian, 1007 - 1072), bishop of Ostia, worked closely with eight popes as diplomat and legate. The number and range of his writings was considerable.
++++++++++
Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 18: In What Order the Psalms Are to Be Said
Let this verse be said:
"Incline unto my aid, O God;
O Lord, make haste to help me,"
and the "Glory be to the Father"
then the hymn proper to each Hour.
Then at Prime on Sunday
four sections of Psalm 118 are to be said;
and at each of the remaining Hours,
that is Terce, Sext and None,
three sections of the same Psalm 118.
At Prime on Monday let three Psalms be said,
namely Psalms 1, 2 and 6.
And so each day at Prime until Sunday
let three Psalms be said in numerical order, to Psalm 19,
but with Psalms 9 and 17 each divided into two parts.
Thus it comes about that the Night Office on Sunday
always begins with Psalm 20.
Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
Site needs to be updated.
++++++++++
Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan: Read Excerpts from the Church Fathers during Lent
http://www.churchyear.net/lentfathers.html
Today's reading is the Didache or the Teachings of the Apostles, a wonderful glimpse into daily life of the earliest Christians.
++++++++++
If you would like these meditations to come directly to your in box, please click here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KnitternunMeditation/
Invitation to Observe a Lenten Discipline
Sisters and brothers in Christ:
Every year at Easter we celebrate with joy our redemption and renewal
through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The season of Lent is a time to prepare for this celebration
and to make room in our lives for the Spirit of God to renew us in this mystery.
We begin this holy season by acknowledging our need for repentance
and our need for the love and forgiveness shown to us in Jesus Christ.
I invite you, therefore, in the name of Christ, to observe a Holy Lent,
by self-examination and penitence,
by prayer and fasting,
by practicing works of love,
and by reading and reflecting on God's Holy Word.
Let us begin our Lenten journey by together confessing our sins and seeking the forgiveness and new life that is promised to us in Christ Jesus.
Most merciful God,
whose Son Jesus Christ was tempted in every way, yet without sin,
we confess before you that we have sinned;
we have hungered after that which does not satisfy;
we have compromised with evil;
we have doubted your power to protect us.
Forgive our lack of faith; have mercy on our weakness.
Restore in us such love and trust that we may walk in your ways
and delight in doing your will.
++++++++++
Collect
Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; 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/
Psalm 95 & 32,143; Psalm 102,130; Jonah 3:1-4:11; Heb. 12:1-14; Luke 18:9-14
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Jonah 3:1-4:11. I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.
How about that--Jonah wants so badly for the guilty to get what's coming to them that he's ready to die. He can't handle the mercy of God--it offends him.
I finish another segment of my talk on forgiveness and ask if there are any comments. One man says that, to him, forgiveness can only come after revenge. "After I've gotten revenge," he says, "then I can forgive. But not before." Wow. Where's the forgiveness in that sequence?
Forgiveness isn't about the deadly balance of sin for sin, death for death, injury for injury. It's about breaking the cycle of that "balance," about walking away from it into our own future. Actions have consequences, and each of us must pay his own way. That's a fact of life. But it has nothing to do with whether one can forgive. It is not about the one who has injured me: it's about me.
Today, we will each receive a smudge of ash on our foreheads. I won't get your smudge and you won't get mine; we will each get our own. Do you repent? Do I? The first is out of my hands--I'm only in charge of the second.
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm
Lent
Welcome dear feast of Lent: who loves not thee,
He loves not Temperance, or Authority,
But is compos'd of passion.
The Scriptures bid us fast; the Church says, now:
Give to thy Mother, what thou wouldst allow
To ev'ry Corporation.
The humble soul compos'd of love and fear
Begins at home, and lays the burden there,
When doctrines disagree,
He says, in things which use hath justly got,
I am a scandal to the Church, and not
The Church is so to me.
True Christians should be glad of an occasion
To use their temperance, seeking no evasion,
When good is seasonable;
Unless Authority, which should increase
The obligation in us, make it less,
And Power itself disable.
Besides the cleanness of sweet abstinence,
Quick thoughts and motions at a small expense,
A face not fearing light:
Whereas in fulness there are sluttish fumes,
Sour exhalations, and dishonest rheums,
Revenging the delight.
Then those same pendant profits, which the spring
And Easter intimate, enlarge the thing,
And goodness of the deed.
Neither ought other men's abuse of Lent
Spoil the good use; lest by that argument
We forfeit all our Creed.
It's true, we cannot reach Christ's forti'eth day;
Yet to go part of that religious way,
Is better than to rest:
We cannot reach our Saviour's purity;
Yet we are bid, 'Be holy ev'n as he, '
In both let's do our best.
Who goeth in the way which Christ hath gone,
Is much more sure to meet with him, than one
That travelleth by-ways:
Perhaps my God, though he be far before,
May turn and take me by the hand, and more:
May strengthen my decays.
Yet Lord instruct us to improve our fast
By starving sin and taking such repast,
As may our faults control:
That ev'ry man may revel at his door,
Not in his parlour; banqueting the poor,
And among those his soul.
George Herbert
++++++++++
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Meath & Kildare (Ireland)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
Sick of giving up ccandy or cookies for Lent? Looking for some new ways to do things differently this year? Check here over the 40 days and 40 nights of Lent for creative ideas to take you from Ash Wednesday to Easter Saturday (excluding Sundays).
Lent. The only festival among world religions to be celebrated by the non-eating of chocolate.
Jesus spent 40 days in the desert, fasting and praying, preparing a mission, fighting temptation, working through his calling. Then in the early church, Lent was the time for new Christians to learn the faith, and for the rest of them to devote themselves to prayer and fasting, a spring cleaning of the soul in readiness for the big day.
And we have a six-week choc-free diet.
Did you ever feel today's Christianity was missing out on something? Identifying Lent with not eating chocolate misses the point almost as much as identifying Easter with eating it.
So this year let us bring you an idea a day for Lent: 40 ways to do something more with your 40 days.
With the help of a few friends, we have been digging out some more creative and adventurous approaches to the season. The challenging, the reflective, the alternative and the ancient.
Now you can read these 40 ideas for Lent, one per day, online here.
They involve carrier bags, paint, money, traffic jams and poetry. They are designed to stretch you, make you think, tone up some forgotten spiritual muscles, put your time to good use and get some fresh air in there. They are practical and positive.
We hope you'll try some of them, and give your spirit something new to do.
And go on, have a Mars Bar.
1. GO ON A MEDIA DIET
Go on a media diet for 24 hours. Turn off the TV and radio, and cancel or give away your newspaper. Avoid them at all costs. Stay offline, too. Don't read anything topical.
I end up so full of news in my career, that when I take vacations my family enforces a strict news diet. It is so restful. This is a great way to slow down and get in touch with what really matters. Silence, for one thing!
Lent quote: "If you are in need of help, he is strength. If you are in dread of death, he is life. If you are fleeing the darkness, he is light." – St Ambrose
++++++++++
A Celtic lenten Calendar
http://www.oursanctuary.net/celticlent.html
The Earth is Alive with the Glory of God
1. All Creation is alive with the presence of God. "Perhaps the most distinctive feature of Celtic Christianity is its affinity with nature. (Iona is an absolutely stunning island, where the line between God and the world is what MacLeod called 'tissue thin'.) The Celts enthusiastically affirmed the psalmist's declaration, 'The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims (God's) handiwork' (Psalm 19:1). The Celts believed that all creation is alive with God's presence. Because God's Spirit dwells in all living things, everything is inherently good... Every moment, every location could therefore become a time and place for encountering God.
For a Celtic Lent: "Celebrate the wonder of creation. Plant a flower and watch it grow. Take time each day to sense the changes taking place, even those changes you cannot see. Do what is necessary to nurture its growth. Marvel at the wonder of Creation and give thanks to God for the gift of life.
++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
The spirit of God, insofar as it is hidden in the veins of the soul, is like soft refreshing water which satisfies the thirst of the spirit.
St John of the Cross
Living Flame, 3.8
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
God is for all
There was an old man living in the desert who served God for so many years and he said, "Lord, let me know if I have pleased you." He saw an angel who said to him, "You have not yet become like the gardener in such and such place." The old man marvelled and said, "I will go off to the city to see both him and what it is that he does that surpasses all my work and toil of all these years."...
So he went to the city and asked the gardener about his awy of life.... When they were getting ready to eat in the evening, the old man heard people singing in the streets, for the cell of the gardener was in a public place. Therefore the old man said to him, "Brother, wanting as you do to live according to God, how do you remain in this place and not be troubled when you hear them singing these songs?"
The man said, "I tell you, abba, I have never been troubled or scandalized." When he heard this the old man said, "What, then, do you think in your heart when you hear these things?" And he replied, "That they are all going into the Kingdom." When he heard this, the old man marvelled and said, "This is the practice which surpasses my labour of all these years."
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
True Intimacy
Human relationships easily become possessive. Our hearts so much desire to be loved that we are inclined to cling to the person who offers us love, affection, friendship, care, or support. Once we have seen or felt a hint of love, we want more of it. That explains why lovers so often bicker with each other. Lovers' quarrels are quarrels between people who want more of each other than they are able or willing to give.
It is very hard for love not to become possessive because our hearts look for perfect love and no human being is capable of that. Only God can offer perfect love. Therefore, the art of loving includes the art of giving one another space. When we invade one another's space and do not allow the other to be his or her own free person, we cause great suffering in our relationships. But when we give another space to move and share our gifts, true intimacy becomes possible.
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:
Day Twenty-One - The Three Notes of the Order
Humility, love and joy are the three notes that mark the lives of
Tertiaries. When these characteristics are evident throughout the Order, its
work will be fruitful. Without them all that it attempts will be in vain.
God, you have made your church rich through the poverty of blessed Francis:
help us, like him, not to trust in earthly things, but to seek your heavenly
gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord
Lent! What is it?
It is a penitential pilgrimage along the road to Easter.
It is a death march - death to self each day.
It is a walking along His way, being heartsick for Him.
It is yearning to show Him we care and that we are repentant and that we
do love Him.
It is wanting to die for Him -- die to sin and to our weak human nature.
It is wanting to stand at the foot of His cross - to look up into the
agony in His eyes - to yearn to throw our arms about His bleeding knees and
clasp Him to our hearts and to weep with Mary.
And then.
It is to rejoice with Mary on Easter morning, the end of the pilgrimage.
But no, it is not the end, just a new beginning - each day a new
beginning - each day a new pilgrimage.
It is to walk along His way, until the time when we can say with St.
Paul, "I have fought the good fight. I have kept the faith." I have finished
the course."
It is when we come in sight of our own Easter morning...
++++++++++
Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/
WE ARE FORMED OF DUST — which suggests, among other things, not only our humble beginnings but our startling potential. For if God can breathe life into soil, what does that say about the latent potential in our lives? Who can tell what God’s breath might make of us yet — of will and mind, of imagination and compassion — opened to the One whose breath is life?
- John Indermark
Genesis of Grace
From page 17 of Genesis of Grace by John Indermark. Copyright © 1997 by John Indermark
+++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"Waking Up"
In the New Testament, whenever Jesus eats with or encounters the rich he always, without exception, challenges them to come beyond where they are. Yet he never accuses them of malice. He instead shows them their blindness. Always the judgment is blindness: the rich man just can't see the plight of Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). The rich man is not evil, he didn't cause the poor man at his gate to be poor. He simply wasn't aware. He couldn't see. That spiritual blindness is the primary sin. Spirituality is about waking up. Eastern religions know this. The word Buddha means "the awakened one." Spirituality has come upon hard times in the West, where legalism is often took over that we didn't need spirituality. We lost the spiritual disciplines and tools to know how to remain awake. We lost the disciplines that show us what's happening, what human relationships mean, the effects of what we do to one another in our relationships. The Church must continually be taught by the poor. Those who are oppressed and kicked around, who are not beneficiaries of the system, always hold for us the greatest breakthrough-truth and the greatest wisdom. In mythology they are imaged as blind beggars who in fact are true seers. The same is true inside ourselves. That part of ourself that we most hate, that we are most afraid of and most reject, is the poor, oppressed woman or man within. That hated person within holds our greatest gift. We must hold out a preferential option for our own poverty. Our poverty has the key; it offers the breakthrough moment for us to wake up. It's the hole in the soul, that place where we are radically broken, where we are powerless and therefore open.
from Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the 12 Steps
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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 communion of saints
If those who believe in Christ are one, then through the mystery of the sacrament the entire body is present where bodily eyes see but a single member. Solitude prevents no one from speaking in the plural; nor is it inappropriate for the multitude of believers to speak in the singular, for through the power of the Holy Spirit, who is present in each and fills all, it is clear that the solitude is full of people and the multitude forms a unity.
Our holy Fathers regarded this intimate relationship and communion of believers in Christ as so certain that they included it in the creed stating the Catholic faith, and commanded us frequently to call it to mind along with the other basic elements of Christian belief. For immediately after we say: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Church," we add: "the communion of saints." Thus in the very act by which we bear witness to the God in whom we believe, we also affirm the communion that marks the Church which is one with him. For this communion of saints in the unity of faith is such that, because they believe in one God, are reborn in one baptism, and are strengthened by the one Holy Spirit, they are admitted, through the grace of adoption, into the one everlasting life.
Peter Damian, 1007 - 1072), bishop of Ostia, worked closely with eight popes as diplomat and legate. The number and range of his writings was considerable.
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Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 18: In What Order the Psalms Are to Be Said
Let this verse be said:
"Incline unto my aid, O God;
O Lord, make haste to help me,"
and the "Glory be to the Father"
then the hymn proper to each Hour.
Then at Prime on Sunday
four sections of Psalm 118 are to be said;
and at each of the remaining Hours,
that is Terce, Sext and None,
three sections of the same Psalm 118.
At Prime on Monday let three Psalms be said,
namely Psalms 1, 2 and 6.
And so each day at Prime until Sunday
let three Psalms be said in numerical order, to Psalm 19,
but with Psalms 9 and 17 each divided into two parts.
Thus it comes about that the Night Office on Sunday
always begins with Psalm 20.
Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
Site needs to be updated.
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Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan: Read Excerpts from the Church Fathers during Lent
http://www.churchyear.net/lentfathers.html
Today's reading is the Didache or the Teachings of the Apostles, a wonderful glimpse into daily life of the earliest Christians.
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posted by Gloriamarie Amalfitano @ 7:27 AM
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