04/03/07 2nd Sunday in Lent
[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, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
++++++++++
Today's Scripture http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/
Psalm 27;Genesis 15:1-12,17-18; Philippians 3:17--4:1; Luke 13:31-35
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18. Look toward heaven, and number the stars... So shall your descendants be.
An enormous granite stone etched with the family name broods over the landscape. Scattered in its shadow, smaller gravestones record the lives and deaths of 200 years of ancestors. Generation by generation, children grew up and moved away, returning at last to this resting place beneath the Quabog hills. Wandering through the cemetery with my father and my sister, I became aware that these long-ago ancestors bought enough land to bury a dozen future generations.
When God called Abraham in a vision and promised descendents--not just a dozen generations but as numerous as the stars--Abraham was still childless, and yet he believed God's promise. Abraham knew God's time is not our time, and that fulfillment is in God's hands.
Arriving at last at my mother's grave, surrounded by family both living and dead, I had a quiet sense of belonging to something beyond myself, beyond that moment, even beyond those dear people. We were, I realized, part of the starscape God promised to Abraham.
And so are you--you and I and all our ancestors and descendents--all of us are children of God's promise.
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm
The Resurrection of our Lord, as we do every Sunday
++++++++++
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Missouri (Prov. V, U.S.)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
40 Ideas for Lent: A Lenten calendar http://ship-of-fools.com/lent/index.html
Today is Sunday.. it is in Lent, but not of Lent so instead of the Lenten calendar is offered:
Look upon us, O Lord, and let all the darkness of our souls vanish before the beams of thy brightness. Fill us with holy love, and open to us the treasures of thy wisdom. All our desire is known unto thee, therefore perfect what thou hast begun, and what thy Spirit has awakened us to ask in prayer. We seek thy face, turn thy face unto us and show us thy glory. Then shall our longing be satisfied, and our peace shall be perfect.
(Augustine, 354 - 430)
++++++++++
A Celtic Lenten Calendar
http://www.oursanctuary.net/celticlent.html
Today is Sunday.. it is in Lent, but not of Lent instead is offered:
( http://www.faithandworship.com/ )
It is not ours to know
the time or place
when you will return
We have enough to concern us
in these present times
in the day to day business
of living
But one thing is certain
of this I am sure
we are all a part of history
and history has a purpose
an end point
a destination
and we should live our lives
as if that destination
is ours also
Lives lived with purpose
watchful
prepared
in expectation
For if the time is hidden
it may catch us unawares
our temples full
of unwashed linen
dirt and debris
Perhaps we'd better
get the dustpan out, Lord
do some unseasonable
spring cleaning!
++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
It is very important for us to realise that God does not lead us all by the same road…
St Teresa of Jesus
Way, 17.2
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
It was said of Abba Helladius that he spent twenty years in the Cells, without ever raising his eyes to see the roof of the church.
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:
Day Four - The Object (cont.)
When Saint Francis encouraged the formation of the Third Order he recognized
that many are called to serve God in the spirit of Poverty, Chastity, and
Obedience in everyday life (rather than in a literal acceptance of these
principles as in the vows of the Brothers and Sisters of the First and
Second Orders). The Rule of the Third Order is intended to enable the duties
and conditions of daily living to be carried out in this spirit.
God, your love led Francis and Clare to establish our three Orders: draw us
into your love that we may grow in love towards all with whom we have to do,
for the sake of your son, Jesus Christ, who gives himself in love to all.
Amen
++++++++++
Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/
THE LENTEN TIME of tension between dying and birth is tinged with the hues of mystery. What we are becoming is yet unknown. The fullness of God’s kingdom is visible to us only through the latticework of parable and story. We are taught that the last will be first, that our present vision of reality will be turned topsy-turvy in a celebration of the beauty hidden in the forgotten, ignored, and despised.
- Wendy M. Wright
The Rising
From page 44 of The Rising by Wendy M. Wright. Copyright © 1994 by Wendy M. Wright.
+++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"The Transcendence of God"
Worship means lifting our hands to a God who seems totally beyond us. Modern humanity has lost the call to worship because it's a blow to our pride and sophistication to worship God who is utter otherness. So instead of adoring God, much worship becomes an attempt to control or influence God. Is adoration pushing God away from us? No! It's allowing God to make the voluntary move toward us - but from beyond us. Sometimes we want to pull God down here. But God is already totally here, by God's own action. In worshiping what seems like a totally transcendent God, we discover the opposite is also true: God is within us. Such faith comes hard to modern humankind: We don't know how to adore.
from The Great Themes of Scripture
++++++++++
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
Christ's temptations and our temptations
When our first parents were tempted by the forbidden fruit, they were tempted by the desire of the flesh. When they were told, you will be like gods, they were tempted by the pride of life. And from what was added, knowing good and evil, they were tempted by greed, taking greed generally as the desire for having any desirable thing.
Likewise Christ was tempted by gluttony or the desire of the flesh when the devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread. He was tempted by greed or the desire of the eyes when the devil led him onto a very high mountain, showing him all the kingdoms of the world and all their glory, and said, All of these I will give to you if you fall down and worship me. And he was tempted by the pride of life when the devil led him onto a pinnacle of the temple and said, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, in order that Christ might rise up in pride since, by the guardianship of the angels, he could do this without injury.
In like manner we ourselves are tempted daily either by the desire of the flesh in regard to pleasurable good, or by the desire of the eyes in regard to a utilitarian good, or by the pride of life in regard to an honorable good.
Giles of Rome, O.S.A., (1243 - 1316), Augustinian friar and archbishop of Bourges, was an outstanding theologian who not only wrote theological treatises but left a magnificent series of homilies.
++++++++++
Daily Readings From "My Utmost for His Highest", Oswald Chambers
http://www.myutmost.org/
COULD THIS BE TRUE OF ME?
"But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself." Acts 20:24
It is easier to serve God without a vision, easier to work for God without a call, because then you are not bothered by what God requires; common sense is your guide, veneered over with Christian sentiment. You will be more prosperous and successful, more leisure-hearted, if you never realize the call of God. But if once you receive a commission from Jesus Christ, the memory of what God wants will always come like a goad; you will no longer be able to work for Him on the common-sense basis.
What do I really count dear? If I have not been gripped by Jesus Christ, I will count service dear, time given to God dear, my life dear unto myself. Paul says he counted his life dear only in order that he might fulfil the ministry he had received; he refused to use his energy for any other thing. Acts 20:24 states Paul's almost sublime annoyance at being asked to consider himself; he was absolutely indifferent to any consideration other than that of fulfilling the ministry he had received. Practical work may be a competitor against abandonment to God, because practical work is based on this argument - Remember how 'useful you are here, or - Think how much value you would be in that particular type of work." That attitude does not put Jesus Christ as the Guide as to where we should go, but our judgment as to where we are of most use. Never consider whether you are of use; but ever consider that you are not your own but His.
++++++++++
Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 27: How Solicitous the Abbot Should Be for the Excommunicated
Let the Abbot be most solicitous
in his concern for delinquent brethren,
for "it is not the healthy but the sick who need a physician" (Matt 9:12)
And therefore he ought to use every means
that a wise physician would use.
Let him send senpectae,
that is, brethren of mature years and wisdom,
who may as it were secretly console the wavering brother
and induce him to make humble satisfaction;
comforting him
that he may not "be overwhelmed by excessive grief" (2 Cor. 2:7),
but that, as the Apostle says,
charity may be strengthened in him (2 Cor. 2:8).
And let everyone pray for him.
For the Abbot must have the utmost solicitude
and exercise all prudence and diligence
lest he lose any of the sheep entrusted to him.
Let him know
that what he has undertaken is the care of weak souls
and not a tyranny over strong ones;
and let him fear the Prophet's warning
through which God says,
"What you saw to be fat you took to yourselves,
and what was feeble you cast away" (Ezec. 34:3,4).
Let him rather imitate the loving example of the Good Shepherd
who left the ninety-nine sheep in the mountains
and went to look for the one sheep that had gone astray,
on whose weakness He had such compassion
that He deigned to place it on His own sacred shoulders
and thus carry it back to the flock (Luke 15:4-5).
Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
The place of punishment in the Rule of Benedict is never to crush the person who is corrected. The purpose of excommunication is to enable a person to get life in perspective and to start over again with new heart. So, though not just anyone with any agenda--personal dissatisfaction, a misguided sense of what support implies, community division--is encouraged to talk to the person who is enduring excommunication, someone must. The abbot and prioress themselves are expected to see that the confused or angry or depressed person gets the help they need to begin fresh again from discerning and mature people who are skilled in the ways of both the mind and the soul, who know life and its rough spots, who realize that humility is what saves us from the blows of failure.
Excommunication is no longer a monastic practice but help from the wise through periods of resistance and reluctance must be a constant or the spiritual life may never come to fullness. Community--family--is that place everywhere where we can fail without fear of being abandoned and with the ongoing certainty that we go on being loved nevertheless. Perfection is not an expectation in monastic life any more than it is an expectation in any healthy environment where experience is the basis both of wisdom and of growth.
A contemporary collection of monastic tales includes the story of the visitor who asks of the monk: "What do you do in the monastery?" And the monastic replies: "Well, we fall and we get up and we fall and we get up and we fall and we get up." Where continual falling and getting up is not honored, where the senpectae--the wise ones who have gone before us--are not present to help us through, life runs the terrible risk of drying up and blowing away before it is half lived.
The idea that the spiritual life is only for the strong, for those who don't need it anyway, is completely dispelled in the Rule of Benedict. Here spiritual athletes need not apply. Monasticism is for human beings only. The abbot and prioress are told quite clearly that they are to see themselves as physicians and shepherds tending the weak and carrying the lost, not as drill sergeants, not as impresarios. What we have in monasteries and parishes and all fine social movements and devoted rectories and most families are just people, simple people who never meet their own ideals and often, for want of confidence and the energy that continuing commitment takes, abandon them completely. Then, our role, the Rule of Benedict insists, is simply to try to soothe what hurts them, heal what weakens them, lift what burdens them and wait. The spiritual life is a process, not an event. It takes time and love and help and care. It takes our patient presence. Just like everything else.
++++++++++
Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan
Read Excerpts from the Church Fathers during Lent
http://www.churchyear.net/lentfathers.html
No reading today because while Sunday is in Lent, it is not of ent
++++++++++
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, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
++++++++++
Today's Scripture http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/
Psalm 27;Genesis 15:1-12,17-18; Philippians 3:17--4:1; Luke 13:31-35
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18. Look toward heaven, and number the stars... So shall your descendants be.
An enormous granite stone etched with the family name broods over the landscape. Scattered in its shadow, smaller gravestones record the lives and deaths of 200 years of ancestors. Generation by generation, children grew up and moved away, returning at last to this resting place beneath the Quabog hills. Wandering through the cemetery with my father and my sister, I became aware that these long-ago ancestors bought enough land to bury a dozen future generations.
When God called Abraham in a vision and promised descendents--not just a dozen generations but as numerous as the stars--Abraham was still childless, and yet he believed God's promise. Abraham knew God's time is not our time, and that fulfillment is in God's hands.
Arriving at last at my mother's grave, surrounded by family both living and dead, I had a quiet sense of belonging to something beyond myself, beyond that moment, even beyond those dear people. We were, I realized, part of the starscape God promised to Abraham.
And so are you--you and I and all our ancestors and descendents--all of us are children of God's promise.
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm
The Resurrection of our Lord, as we do every Sunday
++++++++++
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Missouri (Prov. V, U.S.)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
40 Ideas for Lent: A Lenten calendar http://ship-of-fools.com/lent/index.html
Today is Sunday.. it is in Lent, but not of Lent so instead of the Lenten calendar is offered:
Look upon us, O Lord, and let all the darkness of our souls vanish before the beams of thy brightness. Fill us with holy love, and open to us the treasures of thy wisdom. All our desire is known unto thee, therefore perfect what thou hast begun, and what thy Spirit has awakened us to ask in prayer. We seek thy face, turn thy face unto us and show us thy glory. Then shall our longing be satisfied, and our peace shall be perfect.
(Augustine, 354 - 430)
++++++++++
A Celtic Lenten Calendar
http://www.oursanctuary.net/celticlent.html
Today is Sunday.. it is in Lent, but not of Lent instead is offered:
( http://www.faithandworship.com/ )
It is not ours to know
the time or place
when you will return
We have enough to concern us
in these present times
in the day to day business
of living
But one thing is certain
of this I am sure
we are all a part of history
and history has a purpose
an end point
a destination
and we should live our lives
as if that destination
is ours also
Lives lived with purpose
watchful
prepared
in expectation
For if the time is hidden
it may catch us unawares
our temples full
of unwashed linen
dirt and debris
Perhaps we'd better
get the dustpan out, Lord
do some unseasonable
spring cleaning!
++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
It is very important for us to realise that God does not lead us all by the same road…
St Teresa of Jesus
Way, 17.2
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
It was said of Abba Helladius that he spent twenty years in the Cells, without ever raising his eyes to see the roof of the church.
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:
Day Four - The Object (cont.)
When Saint Francis encouraged the formation of the Third Order he recognized
that many are called to serve God in the spirit of Poverty, Chastity, and
Obedience in everyday life (rather than in a literal acceptance of these
principles as in the vows of the Brothers and Sisters of the First and
Second Orders). The Rule of the Third Order is intended to enable the duties
and conditions of daily living to be carried out in this spirit.
God, your love led Francis and Clare to establish our three Orders: draw us
into your love that we may grow in love towards all with whom we have to do,
for the sake of your son, Jesus Christ, who gives himself in love to all.
Amen
++++++++++
Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/
THE LENTEN TIME of tension between dying and birth is tinged with the hues of mystery. What we are becoming is yet unknown. The fullness of God’s kingdom is visible to us only through the latticework of parable and story. We are taught that the last will be first, that our present vision of reality will be turned topsy-turvy in a celebration of the beauty hidden in the forgotten, ignored, and despised.
- Wendy M. Wright
The Rising
From page 44 of The Rising by Wendy M. Wright. Copyright © 1994 by Wendy M. Wright.
+++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"The Transcendence of God"
Worship means lifting our hands to a God who seems totally beyond us. Modern humanity has lost the call to worship because it's a blow to our pride and sophistication to worship God who is utter otherness. So instead of adoring God, much worship becomes an attempt to control or influence God. Is adoration pushing God away from us? No! It's allowing God to make the voluntary move toward us - but from beyond us. Sometimes we want to pull God down here. But God is already totally here, by God's own action. In worshiping what seems like a totally transcendent God, we discover the opposite is also true: God is within us. Such faith comes hard to modern humankind: We don't know how to adore.
from The Great Themes of Scripture
++++++++++
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
Christ's temptations and our temptations
When our first parents were tempted by the forbidden fruit, they were tempted by the desire of the flesh. When they were told, you will be like gods, they were tempted by the pride of life. And from what was added, knowing good and evil, they were tempted by greed, taking greed generally as the desire for having any desirable thing.
Likewise Christ was tempted by gluttony or the desire of the flesh when the devil said to him, If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread. He was tempted by greed or the desire of the eyes when the devil led him onto a very high mountain, showing him all the kingdoms of the world and all their glory, and said, All of these I will give to you if you fall down and worship me. And he was tempted by the pride of life when the devil led him onto a pinnacle of the temple and said, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, in order that Christ might rise up in pride since, by the guardianship of the angels, he could do this without injury.
In like manner we ourselves are tempted daily either by the desire of the flesh in regard to pleasurable good, or by the desire of the eyes in regard to a utilitarian good, or by the pride of life in regard to an honorable good.
Giles of Rome, O.S.A., (1243 - 1316), Augustinian friar and archbishop of Bourges, was an outstanding theologian who not only wrote theological treatises but left a magnificent series of homilies.
++++++++++
Daily Readings From "My Utmost for His Highest", Oswald Chambers
http://www.myutmost.org/
COULD THIS BE TRUE OF ME?
"But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself." Acts 20:24
It is easier to serve God without a vision, easier to work for God without a call, because then you are not bothered by what God requires; common sense is your guide, veneered over with Christian sentiment. You will be more prosperous and successful, more leisure-hearted, if you never realize the call of God. But if once you receive a commission from Jesus Christ, the memory of what God wants will always come like a goad; you will no longer be able to work for Him on the common-sense basis.
What do I really count dear? If I have not been gripped by Jesus Christ, I will count service dear, time given to God dear, my life dear unto myself. Paul says he counted his life dear only in order that he might fulfil the ministry he had received; he refused to use his energy for any other thing. Acts 20:24 states Paul's almost sublime annoyance at being asked to consider himself; he was absolutely indifferent to any consideration other than that of fulfilling the ministry he had received. Practical work may be a competitor against abandonment to God, because practical work is based on this argument - Remember how 'useful you are here, or - Think how much value you would be in that particular type of work." That attitude does not put Jesus Christ as the Guide as to where we should go, but our judgment as to where we are of most use. Never consider whether you are of use; but ever consider that you are not your own but His.
++++++++++
Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 27: How Solicitous the Abbot Should Be for the Excommunicated
Let the Abbot be most solicitous
in his concern for delinquent brethren,
for "it is not the healthy but the sick who need a physician" (Matt 9:12)
And therefore he ought to use every means
that a wise physician would use.
Let him send senpectae,
that is, brethren of mature years and wisdom,
who may as it were secretly console the wavering brother
and induce him to make humble satisfaction;
comforting him
that he may not "be overwhelmed by excessive grief" (2 Cor. 2:7),
but that, as the Apostle says,
charity may be strengthened in him (2 Cor. 2:8).
And let everyone pray for him.
For the Abbot must have the utmost solicitude
and exercise all prudence and diligence
lest he lose any of the sheep entrusted to him.
Let him know
that what he has undertaken is the care of weak souls
and not a tyranny over strong ones;
and let him fear the Prophet's warning
through which God says,
"What you saw to be fat you took to yourselves,
and what was feeble you cast away" (Ezec. 34:3,4).
Let him rather imitate the loving example of the Good Shepherd
who left the ninety-nine sheep in the mountains
and went to look for the one sheep that had gone astray,
on whose weakness He had such compassion
that He deigned to place it on His own sacred shoulders
and thus carry it back to the flock (Luke 15:4-5).
Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
The place of punishment in the Rule of Benedict is never to crush the person who is corrected. The purpose of excommunication is to enable a person to get life in perspective and to start over again with new heart. So, though not just anyone with any agenda--personal dissatisfaction, a misguided sense of what support implies, community division--is encouraged to talk to the person who is enduring excommunication, someone must. The abbot and prioress themselves are expected to see that the confused or angry or depressed person gets the help they need to begin fresh again from discerning and mature people who are skilled in the ways of both the mind and the soul, who know life and its rough spots, who realize that humility is what saves us from the blows of failure.
Excommunication is no longer a monastic practice but help from the wise through periods of resistance and reluctance must be a constant or the spiritual life may never come to fullness. Community--family--is that place everywhere where we can fail without fear of being abandoned and with the ongoing certainty that we go on being loved nevertheless. Perfection is not an expectation in monastic life any more than it is an expectation in any healthy environment where experience is the basis both of wisdom and of growth.
A contemporary collection of monastic tales includes the story of the visitor who asks of the monk: "What do you do in the monastery?" And the monastic replies: "Well, we fall and we get up and we fall and we get up and we fall and we get up." Where continual falling and getting up is not honored, where the senpectae--the wise ones who have gone before us--are not present to help us through, life runs the terrible risk of drying up and blowing away before it is half lived.
The idea that the spiritual life is only for the strong, for those who don't need it anyway, is completely dispelled in the Rule of Benedict. Here spiritual athletes need not apply. Monasticism is for human beings only. The abbot and prioress are told quite clearly that they are to see themselves as physicians and shepherds tending the weak and carrying the lost, not as drill sergeants, not as impresarios. What we have in monasteries and parishes and all fine social movements and devoted rectories and most families are just people, simple people who never meet their own ideals and often, for want of confidence and the energy that continuing commitment takes, abandon them completely. Then, our role, the Rule of Benedict insists, is simply to try to soothe what hurts them, heal what weakens them, lift what burdens them and wait. The spiritual life is a process, not an event. It takes time and love and help and care. It takes our patient presence. Just like everything else.
++++++++++
Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan
Read Excerpts from the Church Fathers during Lent
http://www.churchyear.net/lentfathers.html
No reading today because while Sunday is in Lent, it is not of ent
++++++++++
posted by Gloriamarie Amalfitano @ 8:49 AM
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