24/02/07
[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
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
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Today's Scripture http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/
Psalm 30, 32; Psalm 42, 43; Deut. 7:17-26; Titus 3:1-15; John 1:43-51
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From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Philippians 3:13-21. Many live as enemies of the cross of Christ... Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame...
The protestant church in Germany split during World War II: the German Protestant Christian Church and the Confessing Church. The former enthusiastically applauded the Nazis and their doings, abdicating its responsibility to speak truth to power. You can read the writings of its theologians today, and it is chilling. None of their names will be familiar to you. They sank as quickly as they had risen.
But on the Confessing side stood Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose words are still read and pondered by students and ordinary people worldwide, whose life story of courage and witness makes him a saint. His faith cost him his life.
No one is excused from the duty of being a moral person. None of us can pass the buck. "Everyone else was doing it" isn't a moral statement: it explains, perhaps, but does not justify. "Success" isn't a moral category, either, or a spiritual one--the theologians of the Reich were "successful." Bonhoeffer was a complete failure, a failure as Jesus was a failure.
Society always rewards those who support its values. But there is a higher authority than the one immediately in charge of us, and all of us--the ruler, and the ruled--answer to it in the end.
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm
St. Matthais the Apostle
AM: Psalm 80; 1 Samuel 16:1-13; 1 John 2:18-25
PM: Psalm 33; 1 Samuel 12:1-5; Acts 20:17-35
O Almighty God, who in the place of Judas chose your faithful servant Matthias to be numbered among the Twelve: Grant that your Church, being delivered from false apostles, may always be ordered and guided by faithful and true pastors; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
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Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Meru (Kenya)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
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40 Ideas for Lent: A Lenten calendar http://ship-of-fools.com/lent/index.html
4. UPLOAD A POEM
SAT 24 FEB
Pick a short poem or reading you like, and learn it off by heart. Try learning one line at a time, and only go onto the next line when you can say the whole piece up to that point. Once you have learned it, repeat it to yourself in quiet moments.
Make sure it's one you like, because it might stay in your head forever.
Idea by: Jerry Carr
Lent quote: "We should give up the foolish task of trying to be saints and get on with the more important task of trying to be human." – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
++++++++++
A Celtic lenten Calendar
http://www.oursanctuary.net/celticlent.html
All Life in Intertwined
4. "All life is intertwined. "The most prevalent of all Celtic symbols is the Celtic knot. Found on their crosses, jewelry, and manuscripts, the knot symbolizes how all things in heaven and earth are intricately intertwined and inseparable. The relationship of the members of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is the prime illustration of interconnection. Life in this world is intertwined with life in the world beyond this one. The communion of the saints was a vibrant reality for the Celts, who believed that those who died remained present to them. Only a thin, permeable membrane separates those living on earth and those living in heaven. This was especially true of the risen Christ, whom the Celts believed is not only at God's right hand but also at ours. Even though God can be encountered anywhere, there are also certain 'thin places' like Iona, (or Sonoma County), where this happens most easily.
For a Celtic Lent: "Is there a 'thin place' in your life where God is particularly present to you? Visit or plan to visit a special spot in your home or work that can be this for you. Go their daily to experience intimacy with God.
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Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
We have now, by God’s help, like good gardeners, to make these plants grow and to water them carefully so that they may produce flowers which shall send forth great fragrance to give refreshment to this Lord of ours.
St Teresa of Jesus
Life 11.6
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Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
Abba Ammonas was asked, 'What is the "narrow and hard way?" (mt. 7.14) He replied, 'The "narrow and hard way" is this, to control your thoughts, and to strip yourself of your own will, for the sake of God. This is also the meaning of the sentence, "Lo, we have left everything and followed you." (Mt. 19.27)
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Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
Bringing Our Secrets into the Light
We all have our secrets: thoughts, memories, feelings that we keep to ourselves. Often we think, "If people knew what I feel or think, they would not love me." These carefully kept secrets can do us much harm. They can make us feel guilty or ashamed and may lead us to self-rejection, depression, and even suicidal thoughts and actions.
One of the most important things we can do with our secrets is to share them in a safe place, with people we trust. When we have a good way to bring our secrets into the light and can look at them with others, we will quickly discover that we are not alone with our secrets and that our trusting friends will love us more deeply and more intimately than before. Bringing our secrets into the light creates community and inner healing. As a result of sharing secrets, not only will others love us better but we will love ourselves more fully.
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:
Day Twenty-Four - The First Note (cont.): Humility
The faults that we see in others are the subject of prayer rather than of
criticism. We take care to cast out the beam from our own eye before
offering to remove the speck from another's. We are ready to accept the
lowest place when asked, and to volunteer to take it. Nevertheless, when
asked to undertake work of which we feel unworthy or incapable, we do not
shrink from it on the grounds of humility, but confidently attempt it
through the power that is made perfect in weakness.
Lord, without you our labour is wasted, but with you all who are weak can
find strength: pour you Spirit on the Society of Saint Francis; give your
labourers a pure intention, patient faith, sufficient success on earth, and
the joy of serving you in heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/
WHENEVER I THINK on the way of integrity, I hear an invitation to come and walk more fully in that way myself. … As I consider the invitation, it presents me with no swift answers. Though I yearn for such answers, the way of integrity does not at any point say, “Now here is just the right program to solve this problem, and here is the one to solve that problem.” If I move forth in response to the invitation, I shall not find swift answers. I shall, however, find myself drawn into a way of being that will itself become the deepest form of answer.
- Stephen Doughty
To Walk in Integrity
From page 133 of To Walk in Integrity: Spiritual Leadership in Times of Crisis by Stephen Doughty. Copyright © 2004 by Stephen Doughty.
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Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"Solitude"
The most simple and spiritual discipline is some degree of solitude and silence. But it's the hardest, because none of us want to be with someone we don't love. To be with our own thoughts and feelings, to sop the addictive prayer wheels and just feel what we're really feeling, think what we're really thinking, is probably the most courageous act most of us will ever do. There's probably no way out of our addictive society - and our addictive, dysfunctional families - apart from some significant and chosen degree of silence and solitude. I go to agrarian societies, places in Africa or the Philippines, and there I see non-addicted people. I see people who lead quiet, simple lives, under stimulated, with a few basic truths that they hold onto all their life. Think of how many things stimulate us daily: radio, television, billboards, conversations. We've got to slow down the chatter, the stimulation; we've go to feel many feelings which have been pent up and denied for decades. We've become overloaded, which is why we're afraid to do it. We won't have the courage to go into that terrifying place of the soul without a great love, without the light and love of the Lord. Such silence is the most spacious and empowering technique in the world, yet it's not a technique at all. It's precisely the refusal of all technique.
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.htm
Spiritual sacrifice
For us who have been called to live a life of holiness through faith the true lamb has been sacrificed, the lamb that takes away the sin of the world. To this sacrifice we must add a food that is spiritual, wholly good, and truly sacred, a food typified in the law by the unleavened bread, which we now understand in a spiritual way.
In the divinely inspired scriptures yeast always signifies wickedness and sin. Our Lord Jesus Christ, warning his holy disciples to be on their guard, said: Beware of the yeast of the scribes and Pharisees. And Paul in his great wisdom wrote that those who have once been sacrificed should put far from them the yeast of impurity that corrupts mind and heart. Purify yourselves of the old yeast, he urged, and become a fresh batch of bread, since you really are unleavened.
This urgent plea prompted by concern for our well-being shows that spiritual communion with Christ the Savior of us all is not only a benefit to us but also a real need. It also shows how important it is for us to keep our minds pure by refraining from sin and washing away every stain. In a word, we must avoid everything that defiled us in the past, for it is then, when no fault of ours bars the way and we are wholly free from reproach, that we shall open the way to this communion with Christ.
Cyril of Alexandria, (~444), patriarch of Alexandria, was a brilliant theologian who combatted the Arian and Nestorian heresies. Cyril presided at the Council of Ephesus in 431 where Mary's title as Mother of God was solemnly recognized.
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Daily Readings From "My Utmost for His Highest", Oswald Chambers
http://www.myutmost.org/
THE DELIGHT OF SACRIFICE
"I will very gladly spend and be spent for you;" 2 Corinthians 12:15
When the Spirit of God has shed abroad the love of God in our hearts, we begin deliberately to identify ourselves with Jesus Christ's interests in other people, and Jesus Christ is interested in every kind of man there is. We have no right in Christian work to be guided by our affinities; this is one of the biggest tests of our relationship to Jesus Christ. The delight of sacrifice is that I lay down my life for my Friend, not fling it away, but deliberately lay my life out for Him and His interests in other people, not for a cause. Paul spent himself for one purpose only - that he might win men to Jesus Christ. Paul attracted to Jesus all the time, never to himself. "I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." When a man says he must develop a holy life alone with God, he is of no more use to his fellow men: he puts himself on a pedestal, away from the common run of men. Paul became a sacramental personality; wherever he went, Jesus Christ helped Himself to his life. Many of us are after our own ends, and Jesus Christ cannot help Himself to our lives. If we are abandoned to Jesus, we have no ends of our own to serve. Paul said he knew how to be a "door-mat" without resenting it, because the mainspring of his life was devotion to Jesus. We are apt to be devoted, not to Jesus Christ, but to the things which emancipate us spiritually. That was not Paul's motive. "I could wish my self were accursed from Christ for my brethren" - wild, extravagant - is it? When a man is in love it is not an exaggeration to talk in that way, and Paul is in love with Jesus Christ.
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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
The order of psalmody for the day Hours being thus arranged,
let all the remaining Psalms be equally distributed
among the seven Night Offices
by dividing the longer Psalms among them
and assigning twelve Psalms to each night.
We strongly recommend, however,
that if this distribution of the Psalms is displeasing to anyone,
she should arrange them otherwise,
in whatever way she considers better,
but taking care in any case
that the Psalter with its full number of 150 Psalms
be chanted every week
and begun again every Sunday at the Night Office.
For those monastics show themselves too lazy
in the service to which they are vowed,
who chant less than the Psalter with the customary canticles
in the course of a week,
whereas we read that our holy Fathers
strenuously fulfilled that task in a single day.
May we, lukewarm that we are, perform it at least in a whole week!
Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
Site needs to be updated
Commentary by Gloriamarie: We have just spent several days reading meticulous arrangements for the reading of the Psalms in the various Offices. Benedict obviously put a lot of effort and work into it. And then what does he say? "If this distribution is displeasing to anyone, go ahead and arrange them differently. Just make sure all 105 Psalms are prayed once a week."
Is that humility or what? Despite all his work, Benedict's ego is not tied up in it. He can put it out there, offer it to people and then let go of it. He has released his hold. He doesn't care whether or not people pray the Psalms his way so much as he cares that people pray the Psalms.
He does remind those who might complain that 20ish Psalms a day is too many that the holy fathers, the Desert Christians, prayed the entire Psalter once a day. Makes 20ish Psalms very doable in comparison!
I take 2 things from this passage of the Rule: Pray the Psalms. Just Pray the Psalms. And secondly, no matter how much work we put into something, in the end, all we can do is release it out into the world and allow the Holy Spirit to find a home for it. Our work is done when we make the offer, when we put it out there. Our egos might want to hold on to the work and insist on controlling the implementation or the use others might make of my work but our egos would be out of line. May we learn from Benedict the humility to work as we are called and then to let go and leave the rest up to God.
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Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan
Read Excerpts from the Church Fathers during Lent
http://www.churchyear.net/lentfathers.html
Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians: complete
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http://www.upperroom.org/methodx/thelife/articles/forlent.asp
For Lent, I Gave Up Being Good
by Sarah Parsons
Some people see the season of Lent as a time of prolonged self-flagellation, of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Kind of like what the poor townspeople go through in the movie "Chocolat." If you saw the movie, you'll remember how the people longed to taste the tempting sweets in the new chocolate shop, but initially, because it was Lent, felt too guilty to do so.
When I first heard that take on the season, I was a little confused. As a child, Lent had always meant big fun for me -- a time to be "bad."
Here's an example: The church my family attended held potluck suppers every Wednesday night during Lent. After supper, the adults listened to a lecture, and the children were herded off to a room where a movie projector had been set up. Our chaperone for the evening would close the doors, turn out the lights, and expect us to sit quietly watching the movie until the lecture was over and our parents came to take us home.
I have to admit the movies usually were pretty good. For example, I remember actually watching Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Nevertheless, my friend Gwynn and I had a little routine after the Lenten suppers. We dutifully went to the movie room with all the other kids, whom we secretly considered suckers. But we always sat near the back of the room, and when the lights went out and the movie began, we crawled along the floor to the back door, cracked it as little as possible, and escaped.
THE RUSH OF BEING "BAD"
In that moment, I always felt the rush of a rule-breaker: Gwynn and I were renegades, we could get caught, and who knew what our punishment would be? We were wild. So for the next hour and a half, we ran ourselves silly up and down the church halls. Eventually we'd pass a few more bad kids running by, or a pair would step quietly from a darkened Sunday school room, and we'd merge with them to form a single bad-kid pack. Together we sneaked leftover food from the kitchen. We even went out to the darkened playground and talked to escapee boys on the jungle gym. We were that bad.
Understand that I was by no means an everyday bad kid. I was very, very good -- too good, in fact. I restricted my own playtime to make sure I got my homework done. I always minded my parents, my teachers, all adults; I went beyond minding to earn their approval. I worked so hard. I was especially good at school: from the first time a teacher gave me a grade, I worked to keep the A's rolling in.
LEARNING A HEALTHY BALANCE
After so much conscientious effort, I craved those Lenten potluck suppers, and what came afterwards. Gwynn, the movies, the lack of any serious consequences -- all these came together to offer me a taste of wildness, to balance my goodness with a little innocent badness.
Lent invites us to grow spiritually, to draw closer to God, which essentially is to become more alive. One Lenten passage, from Ephesians, reads:
"God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ -- by grace you have been saved"
-- Ephesians 2:4-5, NRSV
BECOMING WHO GOD MADE ME TO BE
God was rich in mercy to me on those childhood Lenten nights. God freed me from the bonds I had imposed on myself, offering me greater freedom and greater life. Lent became a chance for me to be more myself as God had made me -- a child with a strong need to play, not a mini-adult focused on her homework. By grace, I was being saved from myself and from my own best efforts. I became more alive by allowing myself to act like a child.
So in a strange and certainly unplanned way, my escapes from the movie room were my Lenten discipline. People often talk about giving something up for Lent, some bad habit, their favorite little vice. I unwittingly gave up something for Lent as a kid: I gave up trying to be perfect. And when I let perfection go and played for a few hours, I became more fully alive, which is just what I believe God wanted for me, what God wants for all of us.
REMOVING THE BLOCKS
Lent is a time to search out the blocks in our lives -- the habits, thoughts or patterns that weigh us down and deaden our hearts. In that sense, Lent is a heavy season. But it is also a time to choose one of those deadening blocks and to clear it gently away, allowing natural love to flow back and forth again between ourselves and God. Lent is an invitation to self-examination, not as an end in itself, but as a means to fuller life.
So take this long time, these forty days, and be gentle with yourself. Quietly survey your inner landscape and seek out a part that needs tending. It may mean taking thirty minutes of rest each day: time with the phone and computer turned off, the door closed, reading a novel or doing anything that seems like fun.
You won't be able to do everything you need to do in forty days, but that's okay; Lent will be back again next year. Just begin to come back to life.
Sarah Parsons is a social worker Nashville, Tennessee. Check out her Upper Room Book, A Clearing Season: Reflections for Lent.
If you would like these meditations to come directly to your in box, please click here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KnitternunMeditation/
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
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Today's Scripture http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/
Psalm 30, 32; Psalm 42, 43; Deut. 7:17-26; Titus 3:1-15; John 1:43-51
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Philippians 3:13-21. Many live as enemies of the cross of Christ... Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame...
The protestant church in Germany split during World War II: the German Protestant Christian Church and the Confessing Church. The former enthusiastically applauded the Nazis and their doings, abdicating its responsibility to speak truth to power. You can read the writings of its theologians today, and it is chilling. None of their names will be familiar to you. They sank as quickly as they had risen.
But on the Confessing side stood Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose words are still read and pondered by students and ordinary people worldwide, whose life story of courage and witness makes him a saint. His faith cost him his life.
No one is excused from the duty of being a moral person. None of us can pass the buck. "Everyone else was doing it" isn't a moral statement: it explains, perhaps, but does not justify. "Success" isn't a moral category, either, or a spiritual one--the theologians of the Reich were "successful." Bonhoeffer was a complete failure, a failure as Jesus was a failure.
Society always rewards those who support its values. But there is a higher authority than the one immediately in charge of us, and all of us--the ruler, and the ruled--answer to it in the end.
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm
St. Matthais the Apostle
AM: Psalm 80; 1 Samuel 16:1-13; 1 John 2:18-25
PM: Psalm 33; 1 Samuel 12:1-5; Acts 20:17-35
O Almighty God, who in the place of Judas chose your faithful servant Matthias to be numbered among the Twelve: Grant that your Church, being delivered from false apostles, may always be ordered and guided by faithful and true pastors; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
++++++++++
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Meru (Kenya)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
40 Ideas for Lent: A Lenten calendar http://ship-of-fools.com/lent/index.html
4. UPLOAD A POEM
SAT 24 FEB
Pick a short poem or reading you like, and learn it off by heart. Try learning one line at a time, and only go onto the next line when you can say the whole piece up to that point. Once you have learned it, repeat it to yourself in quiet moments.
Make sure it's one you like, because it might stay in your head forever.
Idea by: Jerry Carr
Lent quote: "We should give up the foolish task of trying to be saints and get on with the more important task of trying to be human." – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
++++++++++
A Celtic lenten Calendar
http://www.oursanctuary.net/celticlent.html
All Life in Intertwined
4. "All life is intertwined. "The most prevalent of all Celtic symbols is the Celtic knot. Found on their crosses, jewelry, and manuscripts, the knot symbolizes how all things in heaven and earth are intricately intertwined and inseparable. The relationship of the members of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is the prime illustration of interconnection. Life in this world is intertwined with life in the world beyond this one. The communion of the saints was a vibrant reality for the Celts, who believed that those who died remained present to them. Only a thin, permeable membrane separates those living on earth and those living in heaven. This was especially true of the risen Christ, whom the Celts believed is not only at God's right hand but also at ours. Even though God can be encountered anywhere, there are also certain 'thin places' like Iona, (or Sonoma County), where this happens most easily.
For a Celtic Lent: "Is there a 'thin place' in your life where God is particularly present to you? Visit or plan to visit a special spot in your home or work that can be this for you. Go their daily to experience intimacy with God.
++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
We have now, by God’s help, like good gardeners, to make these plants grow and to water them carefully so that they may produce flowers which shall send forth great fragrance to give refreshment to this Lord of ours.
St Teresa of Jesus
Life 11.6
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
Abba Ammonas was asked, 'What is the "narrow and hard way?" (mt. 7.14) He replied, 'The "narrow and hard way" is this, to control your thoughts, and to strip yourself of your own will, for the sake of God. This is also the meaning of the sentence, "Lo, we have left everything and followed you." (Mt. 19.27)
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
Bringing Our Secrets into the Light
We all have our secrets: thoughts, memories, feelings that we keep to ourselves. Often we think, "If people knew what I feel or think, they would not love me." These carefully kept secrets can do us much harm. They can make us feel guilty or ashamed and may lead us to self-rejection, depression, and even suicidal thoughts and actions.
One of the most important things we can do with our secrets is to share them in a safe place, with people we trust. When we have a good way to bring our secrets into the light and can look at them with others, we will quickly discover that we are not alone with our secrets and that our trusting friends will love us more deeply and more intimately than before. Bringing our secrets into the light creates community and inner healing. As a result of sharing secrets, not only will others love us better but we will love ourselves more fully.
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:
Day Twenty-Four - The First Note (cont.): Humility
The faults that we see in others are the subject of prayer rather than of
criticism. We take care to cast out the beam from our own eye before
offering to remove the speck from another's. We are ready to accept the
lowest place when asked, and to volunteer to take it. Nevertheless, when
asked to undertake work of which we feel unworthy or incapable, we do not
shrink from it on the grounds of humility, but confidently attempt it
through the power that is made perfect in weakness.
Lord, without you our labour is wasted, but with you all who are weak can
find strength: pour you Spirit on the Society of Saint Francis; give your
labourers a pure intention, patient faith, sufficient success on earth, and
the joy of serving you in heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
++++++++++
Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/
WHENEVER I THINK on the way of integrity, I hear an invitation to come and walk more fully in that way myself. … As I consider the invitation, it presents me with no swift answers. Though I yearn for such answers, the way of integrity does not at any point say, “Now here is just the right program to solve this problem, and here is the one to solve that problem.” If I move forth in response to the invitation, I shall not find swift answers. I shall, however, find myself drawn into a way of being that will itself become the deepest form of answer.
- Stephen Doughty
To Walk in Integrity
From page 133 of To Walk in Integrity: Spiritual Leadership in Times of Crisis by Stephen Doughty. Copyright © 2004 by Stephen Doughty.
+++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"Solitude"
The most simple and spiritual discipline is some degree of solitude and silence. But it's the hardest, because none of us want to be with someone we don't love. To be with our own thoughts and feelings, to sop the addictive prayer wheels and just feel what we're really feeling, think what we're really thinking, is probably the most courageous act most of us will ever do. There's probably no way out of our addictive society - and our addictive, dysfunctional families - apart from some significant and chosen degree of silence and solitude. I go to agrarian societies, places in Africa or the Philippines, and there I see non-addicted people. I see people who lead quiet, simple lives, under stimulated, with a few basic truths that they hold onto all their life. Think of how many things stimulate us daily: radio, television, billboards, conversations. We've got to slow down the chatter, the stimulation; we've go to feel many feelings which have been pent up and denied for decades. We've become overloaded, which is why we're afraid to do it. We won't have the courage to go into that terrifying place of the soul without a great love, without the light and love of the Lord. Such silence is the most spacious and empowering technique in the world, yet it's not a technique at all. It's precisely the refusal of all technique.
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.htm
Spiritual sacrifice
For us who have been called to live a life of holiness through faith the true lamb has been sacrificed, the lamb that takes away the sin of the world. To this sacrifice we must add a food that is spiritual, wholly good, and truly sacred, a food typified in the law by the unleavened bread, which we now understand in a spiritual way.
In the divinely inspired scriptures yeast always signifies wickedness and sin. Our Lord Jesus Christ, warning his holy disciples to be on their guard, said: Beware of the yeast of the scribes and Pharisees. And Paul in his great wisdom wrote that those who have once been sacrificed should put far from them the yeast of impurity that corrupts mind and heart. Purify yourselves of the old yeast, he urged, and become a fresh batch of bread, since you really are unleavened.
This urgent plea prompted by concern for our well-being shows that spiritual communion with Christ the Savior of us all is not only a benefit to us but also a real need. It also shows how important it is for us to keep our minds pure by refraining from sin and washing away every stain. In a word, we must avoid everything that defiled us in the past, for it is then, when no fault of ours bars the way and we are wholly free from reproach, that we shall open the way to this communion with Christ.
Cyril of Alexandria, (~444), patriarch of Alexandria, was a brilliant theologian who combatted the Arian and Nestorian heresies. Cyril presided at the Council of Ephesus in 431 where Mary's title as Mother of God was solemnly recognized.
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Daily Readings From "My Utmost for His Highest", Oswald Chambers
http://www.myutmost.org/
THE DELIGHT OF SACRIFICE
"I will very gladly spend and be spent for you;" 2 Corinthians 12:15
When the Spirit of God has shed abroad the love of God in our hearts, we begin deliberately to identify ourselves with Jesus Christ's interests in other people, and Jesus Christ is interested in every kind of man there is. We have no right in Christian work to be guided by our affinities; this is one of the biggest tests of our relationship to Jesus Christ. The delight of sacrifice is that I lay down my life for my Friend, not fling it away, but deliberately lay my life out for Him and His interests in other people, not for a cause. Paul spent himself for one purpose only - that he might win men to Jesus Christ. Paul attracted to Jesus all the time, never to himself. "I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." When a man says he must develop a holy life alone with God, he is of no more use to his fellow men: he puts himself on a pedestal, away from the common run of men. Paul became a sacramental personality; wherever he went, Jesus Christ helped Himself to his life. Many of us are after our own ends, and Jesus Christ cannot help Himself to our lives. If we are abandoned to Jesus, we have no ends of our own to serve. Paul said he knew how to be a "door-mat" without resenting it, because the mainspring of his life was devotion to Jesus. We are apt to be devoted, not to Jesus Christ, but to the things which emancipate us spiritually. That was not Paul's motive. "I could wish my self were accursed from Christ for my brethren" - wild, extravagant - is it? When a man is in love it is not an exaggeration to talk in that way, and Paul is in love with Jesus Christ.
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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
The order of psalmody for the day Hours being thus arranged,
let all the remaining Psalms be equally distributed
among the seven Night Offices
by dividing the longer Psalms among them
and assigning twelve Psalms to each night.
We strongly recommend, however,
that if this distribution of the Psalms is displeasing to anyone,
she should arrange them otherwise,
in whatever way she considers better,
but taking care in any case
that the Psalter with its full number of 150 Psalms
be chanted every week
and begun again every Sunday at the Night Office.
For those monastics show themselves too lazy
in the service to which they are vowed,
who chant less than the Psalter with the customary canticles
in the course of a week,
whereas we read that our holy Fathers
strenuously fulfilled that task in a single day.
May we, lukewarm that we are, perform it at least in a whole week!
Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
Site needs to be updated
Commentary by Gloriamarie: We have just spent several days reading meticulous arrangements for the reading of the Psalms in the various Offices. Benedict obviously put a lot of effort and work into it. And then what does he say? "If this distribution is displeasing to anyone, go ahead and arrange them differently. Just make sure all 105 Psalms are prayed once a week."
Is that humility or what? Despite all his work, Benedict's ego is not tied up in it. He can put it out there, offer it to people and then let go of it. He has released his hold. He doesn't care whether or not people pray the Psalms his way so much as he cares that people pray the Psalms.
He does remind those who might complain that 20ish Psalms a day is too many that the holy fathers, the Desert Christians, prayed the entire Psalter once a day. Makes 20ish Psalms very doable in comparison!
I take 2 things from this passage of the Rule: Pray the Psalms. Just Pray the Psalms. And secondly, no matter how much work we put into something, in the end, all we can do is release it out into the world and allow the Holy Spirit to find a home for it. Our work is done when we make the offer, when we put it out there. Our egos might want to hold on to the work and insist on controlling the implementation or the use others might make of my work but our egos would be out of line. May we learn from Benedict the humility to work as we are called and then to let go and leave the rest up to God.
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Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan
Read Excerpts from the Church Fathers during Lent
http://www.churchyear.net/lentfathers.html
Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians: complete
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http://www.upperroom.org/methodx/thelife/articles/forlent.asp
For Lent, I Gave Up Being Good
by Sarah Parsons
Some people see the season of Lent as a time of prolonged self-flagellation, of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Kind of like what the poor townspeople go through in the movie "Chocolat." If you saw the movie, you'll remember how the people longed to taste the tempting sweets in the new chocolate shop, but initially, because it was Lent, felt too guilty to do so.
When I first heard that take on the season, I was a little confused. As a child, Lent had always meant big fun for me -- a time to be "bad."
Here's an example: The church my family attended held potluck suppers every Wednesday night during Lent. After supper, the adults listened to a lecture, and the children were herded off to a room where a movie projector had been set up. Our chaperone for the evening would close the doors, turn out the lights, and expect us to sit quietly watching the movie until the lecture was over and our parents came to take us home.
I have to admit the movies usually were pretty good. For example, I remember actually watching Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Nevertheless, my friend Gwynn and I had a little routine after the Lenten suppers. We dutifully went to the movie room with all the other kids, whom we secretly considered suckers. But we always sat near the back of the room, and when the lights went out and the movie began, we crawled along the floor to the back door, cracked it as little as possible, and escaped.
THE RUSH OF BEING "BAD"
In that moment, I always felt the rush of a rule-breaker: Gwynn and I were renegades, we could get caught, and who knew what our punishment would be? We were wild. So for the next hour and a half, we ran ourselves silly up and down the church halls. Eventually we'd pass a few more bad kids running by, or a pair would step quietly from a darkened Sunday school room, and we'd merge with them to form a single bad-kid pack. Together we sneaked leftover food from the kitchen. We even went out to the darkened playground and talked to escapee boys on the jungle gym. We were that bad.
Understand that I was by no means an everyday bad kid. I was very, very good -- too good, in fact. I restricted my own playtime to make sure I got my homework done. I always minded my parents, my teachers, all adults; I went beyond minding to earn their approval. I worked so hard. I was especially good at school: from the first time a teacher gave me a grade, I worked to keep the A's rolling in.
LEARNING A HEALTHY BALANCE
After so much conscientious effort, I craved those Lenten potluck suppers, and what came afterwards. Gwynn, the movies, the lack of any serious consequences -- all these came together to offer me a taste of wildness, to balance my goodness with a little innocent badness.
Lent invites us to grow spiritually, to draw closer to God, which essentially is to become more alive. One Lenten passage, from Ephesians, reads:
"God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ -- by grace you have been saved"
-- Ephesians 2:4-5, NRSV
BECOMING WHO GOD MADE ME TO BE
God was rich in mercy to me on those childhood Lenten nights. God freed me from the bonds I had imposed on myself, offering me greater freedom and greater life. Lent became a chance for me to be more myself as God had made me -- a child with a strong need to play, not a mini-adult focused on her homework. By grace, I was being saved from myself and from my own best efforts. I became more alive by allowing myself to act like a child.
So in a strange and certainly unplanned way, my escapes from the movie room were my Lenten discipline. People often talk about giving something up for Lent, some bad habit, their favorite little vice. I unwittingly gave up something for Lent as a kid: I gave up trying to be perfect. And when I let perfection go and played for a few hours, I became more fully alive, which is just what I believe God wanted for me, what God wants for all of us.
REMOVING THE BLOCKS
Lent is a time to search out the blocks in our lives -- the habits, thoughts or patterns that weigh us down and deaden our hearts. In that sense, Lent is a heavy season. But it is also a time to choose one of those deadening blocks and to clear it gently away, allowing natural love to flow back and forth again between ourselves and God. Lent is an invitation to self-examination, not as an end in itself, but as a means to fuller life.
So take this long time, these forty days, and be gentle with yourself. Quietly survey your inner landscape and seek out a part that needs tending. It may mean taking thirty minutes of rest each day: time with the phone and computer turned off, the door closed, reading a novel or doing anything that seems like fun.
You won't be able to do everything you need to do in forty days, but that's okay; Lent will be back again next year. Just begin to come back to life.
Sarah Parsons is a social worker Nashville, Tennessee. Check out her Upper Room Book, A Clearing Season: Reflections for Lent.
posted by Gloriamarie Amalfitano @ 10:51 AM
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