05/03/07 week of 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 56, 57, [58]; Psalm 64, 65; Jer. 1:11-19; Rom. 1:1-15; John 4:27-42
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Jeremiah 1:11-19. But you, gird up your loins; arise and say everything I command you.
"It was March," writes Janet Galle in Two Farms, "a bedraggled, lonely month." What a bleak time to begin reading Jeremiah, a battered, lonely prophet--and yet how appropriate a Lenten discipline to hear his honest voice.
Of priestly lineage, Jeremiah was called by God away from the sanctuary and into the streets of Jerusalem to speak harsh truths to a people gone astray. Jeremiah did not seek this role, but God chose him, burdening him with a hard and necessary task that he could neither escape nor lay down.
Sometimes we, too, are called to speak hard truths, to name inequity, corruption, abuse of power, desecration of the earth, abandonment of the poor....
Most of the time I don't want to. I plead busyness, ignorance, exhaustion--and yet I know that Jeremiah's willingness to confront the darkness of his own time challenges us to do the same. "The cost of discipleship" is more than a slogan. Following Jeremiah--or Jesus--into confrontation with the powers that be may be costly, but in turning away, we lose everything.
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm
In the Episcopal Ordo, today is a Lenten feria, a free day. Our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers remember:
St. Kieran
March 5
Kieran is considered the "first-born" of the Irish saints. Whether he is a contemporary of St. Patrick or his senior is uncertain. As so often happened in the early centuries he has most probably been confused with other men of the same name. If one accepts all the legends about him as truth, he would have been at least three hundred years old when he died.
It is generally believed that he lived in the latter half of the 5th century and the earlier part of the 6th. He was a native of Ireland and somehow received a basic knowledge of Christianity. One tradition tells of his taking a pilgrimage to Rome to learn more about his faith and after several years returning to Ireland with some well educated and holy companions who subsequently became bishops.
Another tradition tells of his being consecrated bishop while in Rome and that he met St. Patrick on his journey home. Another and possibly more likely tradition tells of his being one of the twelve men St. Patrick consecrated bishops to help him evangelize Ireland. He is said to have built a hermitage in the woods near a famous spring, and soon being surrounded by disciples. Before long several huts or a monastery were built and the area came to be known as Saigher.
Kieran, is honored as the first bishop of Ossory and his feast day is celebrated throughout Ireland. He is described as a man of great piety and love, truly a man of God.
++++++++++
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Mityana (Uganda)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
40 Ideas for Lent: A Lenten calendar http://ship-of-fools.com/lent/index.html
11. GIVE BLOOD
MON 5 MAR
Take time today to find out where you can give blood in the next few days and then write it into your diary. Twenty minutes of your time can save the lives of three other people.
www.sandiegobloodbank.org
Idea by: Erin Etheredge
Lent quote: "The only truly serious questions are ones that even a child can formulate. Only the most naive of questions are truly serious. They are the questions with no answers." – Milan Kundera
++++++++++
A Celtic lenten Calendar
http://www.oursanctuary.net/celticlent.html
Be the great God between thy two shoulders
To protect thee in thy going and in thy coming,
Be the Son of Mary Virgin near thine heart,
And be the perfect spirit upon thee pouring -
Oh, the perfect spirit upon thee pouring !
May God shield thee,
May God fill thee,
May God watch thee.
May God bring thee
to the land of peace,
To the country of the King,
To the peace of eternity.
++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
It used to help me to look at a field, or water, or flowers. These reminded me of the Creator … they awakened me, helped me to recollect myself and thus served as a book.
St Teresa of Jesus
Life, 9.5
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
(Abba Epiphanius) added, 'A man who receives something from another because of his poverty or his need has therein his reward, and because he is ashamed, when he repays it he does so in secret. But it is the opposite for the Lord God; he receives in secret, but he repays in the presence of the angels, the archangels and the righteous.'
++++++++++
The Merton Reflection for the Week of March 5, 2007
We cannot use created things for the glory of God unless we are in control of ourselves. We cannot be in control of ourselves if we are under the power of the desires and appetites and passions of the flesh. We cannot give ourselves to God if we do not belong to ourselves. And we do not belong to ourselves if we belong to our own ego.The real purpose of Christian asceticism is then not to liberate the soul from the desires and needs of the body, but to bring the whole person into complete submission to God’s will as expressed in the concrete demands of life in all its existential reality. A spirituality that merely entrenched us in the privacy of our own wills and our egos beyond the reach of the claims of flesh, of history and of time, would not only be futile, but it might also confirm us in the evil of that spurious autonomy which is deaf to the call of salvation and obedience uttered in the Gospel Kerygma [the proclamation,announcement and preaching of the Kingdom by Christ in the Gospels].
Seasons of Celebration [SC]. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1950:138
Thought to Remember:
Whatever may be the mode and measure of self- denial that God asks of us (and this is a matter that cannot really be decided without prayer and spiritual direction,) all Christian asceticism is characterized by wholeness and by balance.
SC: 141
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
Their server is done.
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:
Day Five - the First aim of the Order: To make our Lord known and loved everywhere.
The Order is founded on the conviction that Jesus Christ is the perfect
revelation of God; that true life has been made available to us through his
Incarnation and Ministry; by his Cross and Resurrection; and by the sending
of his Holy Spirit. Our Order believes that it is the commission of the
church to make the gospel known to all, and therefore accepts the duty of
bringing others to know Christ, and of praying and working for the coming of
the Kingdom of God.
God, you are always pleased to show yourself to those who are childlike and
humble in spirit: help us to follow the example of our blessed father
Francis, to look upon the wisdom of this world as foolishness, and to set
our minds only on Christ Jesus and him crucified; to whom with you and the
Holy Spirit be all glory for ever. Amen.
++++++++++
Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/
MUCH OF WHAT Christian community needs right now is … awareness. … In its most complete expression in both Eastern and Western spiritual traditions, awareness is the quality of simple alertness and receptivity to whatever the Divine Presence may be doing. …
We are to become like the awed and the open, like those blinking their eyes at the wonder of life. Do this, Jesus counsels, and then we shall enter most fully what God sets before us. Not long before his crucifixion, Jesus responds to those seeking dramatic signs of God’s reign: “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:20-21). Be open, Jesus counsels. Be attentive. Be aware! The reign of God is in our very midst.
- Stephen V. Doughty
Discovering Community
From pages 31-32 of Discovering Community by Stephen V. Doughty. Copyright © 1999 by Stephen V. Doughty
+++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"Spirituality of Subtraction"
The notion of a spirituality of subtraction comes from Meister Eckhart, the medieval Dominican mystic. He said the spiritual life has much more to do with subtraction than it does with addition. Yet I think Christians today are involved in great part in a spirituality of addition. The capitalist worldview is the only world most of us have ever known. We see reality, experiences, events, other people, things - in fact, everything - as objects for consumption. The nature of the capitalist mind is that things (and often people!) are there for me. Finally, even God becomes an object for our consumption. Remember the bumper sticker "I found it"? The Holy One becomes "it," a pronoun, a thing. Even the Lord becomes a consumer object that I can privately possess. Now that is surely heresy in any religion. You almost wonder if true spirituality is even possible in this culture. Everything gets turned around so that we're in the driver's sear: God, the Bible, the sacraments, the Church, people and prayer. Everything is there to foster my own ego and its need to feel good about itself.
from Letting Go: A Spirituality of Subtraction
++++++++++
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
Love is strong as death
Fasten this sign of the Crucified upon your breast and your heart, fasten it upon your arm, so that in all your actions you may be dead to sin. Do not be dismayed by the hardness of the nails; it is no more than the severity of love. Do not complain of their unbreakable firmness; love also is strong as death. It is love that puts to death all our sins and failings, love that deals their death blow. In a word, by loving the Lord's commandments we die to sin and to deeds of shame. God is love; his word is love, that word which is all-powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, penetrating to the point where soul is divided from spirit or joints from marrow. Our soul and our flesh must be transfixed by the nails of love, and then we ourselves can say: I am wounded by love. Love has its own nail and its own sword with which to pierce the human soul; happy are they who are wounded by them.
Let us willingly expose ourselves to these wounds; if we succumb to them, we shall not taste everlasting death. Let us take up our Lord's cross, the cross on which our unregenerate selves must be crucified and sin destroyed.
Ambrose of Milan, (339 - 397), bishop of Milan, was a noted preacher and writer. He baptized Saint Augustine of Hippo.
++++++++++
Daily Readings From "My Utmost for His Highest", Oswald Chambers
http://www.myutmost.org/
IS HE REALLY LORD?
". . . so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus." Acts 20:24
Joy means the perfect fulfilment of that for which I was created and regenerated, not the successful doing of a thing. The joy Our Lord had lay in doing what the Father sent Him to do, and He says - "As My Father hath sent Me, even so am I sending you." Have I received a ministry from the Lord? If so, I have to be loyal to it, to count my life precious only for the fulfilling of that ministry. Think of the satisfaction it will be to hear Jesus say - "Well done, good and faithful servant"; to know that you have done what He sent you to do. We have all to find our niche in life, and spiritually we find it when we receive our ministry from the Lord. In order to do this we must have companied with Jesus; we must know Him as more than a personal Saviour. "I will show him how great things he must suffer for My sake."
"Lovest thou Me?" Then - "Feed My sheep." There is no choice of service, only absolute loyalty to Our Lord's commission; loyalty to what you discern when you are in closest contact with God. If you have received a ministry from the Lord Jesus, you will know that the need is never the call: the need is the opportunity. The call is loyalty to the ministry you received when you were in real touch with Him. This does not imply that there is a campaign of service marked out for you, but it does mean that you will have to ignore the demands for service along other lines.
++++++++++
Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 28: On Those Who Will Not Amend after Repeated Corrections
If a sister who has been frequently corrected for some fault,
and even excommunicated,
does not amend,
let a harsher correction be applied,
that is, let the punishment of the rod be administered.
But if she still does not reform
or perhaps (which God forbid)
even rises up in pride and wants to defend her conduct,
then let the Abbess do what a wise physician would do.
Having used applications,
the ointments of exhortation,
the medicines of the Holy Scriptures,
finally the cautery of excommunication
and of the strokes of the rod,
if she sees that her efforts are of no avail,
let her apply a still greater remedy,
her own prayers and those of all the others,
that the Lord, who can do all things
may restore health to the sister who is sick.
But if she is not healed even in this way,
then let the Abbess use the knife of amputation,
according to the Apostle's words,
"Expel the evil one from your midst" (1 Cor. 5:13),
and again,
"If the faithless one departs, let her depart" (1 Cor. 7:15)
lest one diseased sheep contaminate the whole flock.
Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
The Tao Te Ching reads: "If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you aren't afraid of dying, there is nothing you can't achieve." Benedict's call to growth is a pressing and intense one, even shocking to the modern mind. Physical punishment has long been suspect in contemporary society. Beating people with the rod is considered neither good pedagogy nor good parenting now, and the notion of whipping full-grown adults is simply unthinkable. Times have changed; theories of behavior modification have changed; the very concept of adulthood has changed; this living of the Rule has changed. What has not changed, however, is the idea that human development demands that we grow through and grow beyond childish uncontrol to maturity and that we be willing to correct things in ourselves in order to do it, whatever the cost.
Benedict clearly believes that there are indeed things we must be willing to die to in life if we want to go beyond the fruitless patterns we're in right now. We aren't allowed to hang on to useless ideas or things or behaviors regardless of how good they might seem to us, regardless of their effect on others. We aren't allowed to live without dying to self. The Rule insists that people be called to growth. The entire community is in the process together and the process is not to be ignored, however painful the process may be.
The spiritual life in the Benedictine tradition is not a series of overnight stays where we do what we want without care for the impact of it on the lives of others, no matter how right we think we are. Human community is the universal obligation to live fully ourselves and to live well with others. So important is personal growth in community life for Benedict that when people refuse to grow in community virtues, to be a blessing to others as well as to be open to the blessings that are there for themselves, Benedict asks them to leave.
There can come a point, it seems, after every effort has been made to deal with a problem and every attempt has been made to correct a spiritual disease in life, when enough is enough and ought not to be tolerated any longer. The person may be a very good person but, the implication is, this just may not be the place for them. The shoe simply does not fit and the foot should not be wrenched to it.
The lesson is a universal one. There are a number of good things that it would not be good for us to do. People who become priests because their parents wanted a priest in the family are often unhappy priests. Children who stay on the farm when they should have gone to art school run the risk of twisting their lives into gnarled deadwood. And the farm with it. People with the courage to put us out of something may be the best spiritual guides we ever get.
++++++++++
Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan
Read Excerpts from the Church Fathers during Lent
http://www.churchyear.net/lentfathers.html
St. Ignatius of Antioch
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 56, 57, [58]; Psalm 64, 65; Jer. 1:11-19; Rom. 1:1-15; John 4:27-42
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Jeremiah 1:11-19. But you, gird up your loins; arise and say everything I command you.
"It was March," writes Janet Galle in Two Farms, "a bedraggled, lonely month." What a bleak time to begin reading Jeremiah, a battered, lonely prophet--and yet how appropriate a Lenten discipline to hear his honest voice.
Of priestly lineage, Jeremiah was called by God away from the sanctuary and into the streets of Jerusalem to speak harsh truths to a people gone astray. Jeremiah did not seek this role, but God chose him, burdening him with a hard and necessary task that he could neither escape nor lay down.
Sometimes we, too, are called to speak hard truths, to name inequity, corruption, abuse of power, desecration of the earth, abandonment of the poor....
Most of the time I don't want to. I plead busyness, ignorance, exhaustion--and yet I know that Jeremiah's willingness to confront the darkness of his own time challenges us to do the same. "The cost of discipleship" is more than a slogan. Following Jeremiah--or Jesus--into confrontation with the powers that be may be costly, but in turning away, we lose everything.
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm
In the Episcopal Ordo, today is a Lenten feria, a free day. Our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers remember:
St. Kieran
March 5
Kieran is considered the "first-born" of the Irish saints. Whether he is a contemporary of St. Patrick or his senior is uncertain. As so often happened in the early centuries he has most probably been confused with other men of the same name. If one accepts all the legends about him as truth, he would have been at least three hundred years old when he died.
It is generally believed that he lived in the latter half of the 5th century and the earlier part of the 6th. He was a native of Ireland and somehow received a basic knowledge of Christianity. One tradition tells of his taking a pilgrimage to Rome to learn more about his faith and after several years returning to Ireland with some well educated and holy companions who subsequently became bishops.
Another tradition tells of his being consecrated bishop while in Rome and that he met St. Patrick on his journey home. Another and possibly more likely tradition tells of his being one of the twelve men St. Patrick consecrated bishops to help him evangelize Ireland. He is said to have built a hermitage in the woods near a famous spring, and soon being surrounded by disciples. Before long several huts or a monastery were built and the area came to be known as Saigher.
Kieran, is honored as the first bishop of Ossory and his feast day is celebrated throughout Ireland. He is described as a man of great piety and love, truly a man of God.
++++++++++
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Mityana (Uganda)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
40 Ideas for Lent: A Lenten calendar http://ship-of-fools.com/lent/index.html
11. GIVE BLOOD
MON 5 MAR
Take time today to find out where you can give blood in the next few days and then write it into your diary. Twenty minutes of your time can save the lives of three other people.
www.sandiegobloodbank.org
Idea by: Erin Etheredge
Lent quote: "The only truly serious questions are ones that even a child can formulate. Only the most naive of questions are truly serious. They are the questions with no answers." – Milan Kundera
++++++++++
A Celtic lenten Calendar
http://www.oursanctuary.net/celticlent.html
Be the great God between thy two shoulders
To protect thee in thy going and in thy coming,
Be the Son of Mary Virgin near thine heart,
And be the perfect spirit upon thee pouring -
Oh, the perfect spirit upon thee pouring !
May God shield thee,
May God fill thee,
May God watch thee.
May God bring thee
to the land of peace,
To the country of the King,
To the peace of eternity.
++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
It used to help me to look at a field, or water, or flowers. These reminded me of the Creator … they awakened me, helped me to recollect myself and thus served as a book.
St Teresa of Jesus
Life, 9.5
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
(Abba Epiphanius) added, 'A man who receives something from another because of his poverty or his need has therein his reward, and because he is ashamed, when he repays it he does so in secret. But it is the opposite for the Lord God; he receives in secret, but he repays in the presence of the angels, the archangels and the righteous.'
++++++++++
The Merton Reflection for the Week of March 5, 2007
We cannot use created things for the glory of God unless we are in control of ourselves. We cannot be in control of ourselves if we are under the power of the desires and appetites and passions of the flesh. We cannot give ourselves to God if we do not belong to ourselves. And we do not belong to ourselves if we belong to our own ego.The real purpose of Christian asceticism is then not to liberate the soul from the desires and needs of the body, but to bring the whole person into complete submission to God’s will as expressed in the concrete demands of life in all its existential reality. A spirituality that merely entrenched us in the privacy of our own wills and our egos beyond the reach of the claims of flesh, of history and of time, would not only be futile, but it might also confirm us in the evil of that spurious autonomy which is deaf to the call of salvation and obedience uttered in the Gospel Kerygma [the proclamation,announcement and preaching of the Kingdom by Christ in the Gospels].
Seasons of Celebration [SC]. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1950:138
Thought to Remember:
Whatever may be the mode and measure of self- denial that God asks of us (and this is a matter that cannot really be decided without prayer and spiritual direction,) all Christian asceticism is characterized by wholeness and by balance.
SC: 141
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
Their server is done.
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:
Day Five - the First aim of the Order: To make our Lord known and loved everywhere.
The Order is founded on the conviction that Jesus Christ is the perfect
revelation of God; that true life has been made available to us through his
Incarnation and Ministry; by his Cross and Resurrection; and by the sending
of his Holy Spirit. Our Order believes that it is the commission of the
church to make the gospel known to all, and therefore accepts the duty of
bringing others to know Christ, and of praying and working for the coming of
the Kingdom of God.
God, you are always pleased to show yourself to those who are childlike and
humble in spirit: help us to follow the example of our blessed father
Francis, to look upon the wisdom of this world as foolishness, and to set
our minds only on Christ Jesus and him crucified; to whom with you and the
Holy Spirit be all glory for ever. Amen.
++++++++++
Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/
MUCH OF WHAT Christian community needs right now is … awareness. … In its most complete expression in both Eastern and Western spiritual traditions, awareness is the quality of simple alertness and receptivity to whatever the Divine Presence may be doing. …
We are to become like the awed and the open, like those blinking their eyes at the wonder of life. Do this, Jesus counsels, and then we shall enter most fully what God sets before us. Not long before his crucifixion, Jesus responds to those seeking dramatic signs of God’s reign: “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:20-21). Be open, Jesus counsels. Be attentive. Be aware! The reign of God is in our very midst.
- Stephen V. Doughty
Discovering Community
From pages 31-32 of Discovering Community by Stephen V. Doughty. Copyright © 1999 by Stephen V. Doughty
+++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"Spirituality of Subtraction"
The notion of a spirituality of subtraction comes from Meister Eckhart, the medieval Dominican mystic. He said the spiritual life has much more to do with subtraction than it does with addition. Yet I think Christians today are involved in great part in a spirituality of addition. The capitalist worldview is the only world most of us have ever known. We see reality, experiences, events, other people, things - in fact, everything - as objects for consumption. The nature of the capitalist mind is that things (and often people!) are there for me. Finally, even God becomes an object for our consumption. Remember the bumper sticker "I found it"? The Holy One becomes "it," a pronoun, a thing. Even the Lord becomes a consumer object that I can privately possess. Now that is surely heresy in any religion. You almost wonder if true spirituality is even possible in this culture. Everything gets turned around so that we're in the driver's sear: God, the Bible, the sacraments, the Church, people and prayer. Everything is there to foster my own ego and its need to feel good about itself.
from Letting Go: A Spirituality of Subtraction
++++++++++
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
Love is strong as death
Fasten this sign of the Crucified upon your breast and your heart, fasten it upon your arm, so that in all your actions you may be dead to sin. Do not be dismayed by the hardness of the nails; it is no more than the severity of love. Do not complain of their unbreakable firmness; love also is strong as death. It is love that puts to death all our sins and failings, love that deals their death blow. In a word, by loving the Lord's commandments we die to sin and to deeds of shame. God is love; his word is love, that word which is all-powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, penetrating to the point where soul is divided from spirit or joints from marrow. Our soul and our flesh must be transfixed by the nails of love, and then we ourselves can say: I am wounded by love. Love has its own nail and its own sword with which to pierce the human soul; happy are they who are wounded by them.
Let us willingly expose ourselves to these wounds; if we succumb to them, we shall not taste everlasting death. Let us take up our Lord's cross, the cross on which our unregenerate selves must be crucified and sin destroyed.
Ambrose of Milan, (339 - 397), bishop of Milan, was a noted preacher and writer. He baptized Saint Augustine of Hippo.
++++++++++
Daily Readings From "My Utmost for His Highest", Oswald Chambers
http://www.myutmost.org/
IS HE REALLY LORD?
". . . so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus." Acts 20:24
Joy means the perfect fulfilment of that for which I was created and regenerated, not the successful doing of a thing. The joy Our Lord had lay in doing what the Father sent Him to do, and He says - "As My Father hath sent Me, even so am I sending you." Have I received a ministry from the Lord? If so, I have to be loyal to it, to count my life precious only for the fulfilling of that ministry. Think of the satisfaction it will be to hear Jesus say - "Well done, good and faithful servant"; to know that you have done what He sent you to do. We have all to find our niche in life, and spiritually we find it when we receive our ministry from the Lord. In order to do this we must have companied with Jesus; we must know Him as more than a personal Saviour. "I will show him how great things he must suffer for My sake."
"Lovest thou Me?" Then - "Feed My sheep." There is no choice of service, only absolute loyalty to Our Lord's commission; loyalty to what you discern when you are in closest contact with God. If you have received a ministry from the Lord Jesus, you will know that the need is never the call: the need is the opportunity. The call is loyalty to the ministry you received when you were in real touch with Him. This does not imply that there is a campaign of service marked out for you, but it does mean that you will have to ignore the demands for service along other lines.
++++++++++
Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 28: On Those Who Will Not Amend after Repeated Corrections
If a sister who has been frequently corrected for some fault,
and even excommunicated,
does not amend,
let a harsher correction be applied,
that is, let the punishment of the rod be administered.
But if she still does not reform
or perhaps (which God forbid)
even rises up in pride and wants to defend her conduct,
then let the Abbess do what a wise physician would do.
Having used applications,
the ointments of exhortation,
the medicines of the Holy Scriptures,
finally the cautery of excommunication
and of the strokes of the rod,
if she sees that her efforts are of no avail,
let her apply a still greater remedy,
her own prayers and those of all the others,
that the Lord, who can do all things
may restore health to the sister who is sick.
But if she is not healed even in this way,
then let the Abbess use the knife of amputation,
according to the Apostle's words,
"Expel the evil one from your midst" (1 Cor. 5:13),
and again,
"If the faithless one departs, let her depart" (1 Cor. 7:15)
lest one diseased sheep contaminate the whole flock.
Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
The Tao Te Ching reads: "If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you aren't afraid of dying, there is nothing you can't achieve." Benedict's call to growth is a pressing and intense one, even shocking to the modern mind. Physical punishment has long been suspect in contemporary society. Beating people with the rod is considered neither good pedagogy nor good parenting now, and the notion of whipping full-grown adults is simply unthinkable. Times have changed; theories of behavior modification have changed; the very concept of adulthood has changed; this living of the Rule has changed. What has not changed, however, is the idea that human development demands that we grow through and grow beyond childish uncontrol to maturity and that we be willing to correct things in ourselves in order to do it, whatever the cost.
Benedict clearly believes that there are indeed things we must be willing to die to in life if we want to go beyond the fruitless patterns we're in right now. We aren't allowed to hang on to useless ideas or things or behaviors regardless of how good they might seem to us, regardless of their effect on others. We aren't allowed to live without dying to self. The Rule insists that people be called to growth. The entire community is in the process together and the process is not to be ignored, however painful the process may be.
The spiritual life in the Benedictine tradition is not a series of overnight stays where we do what we want without care for the impact of it on the lives of others, no matter how right we think we are. Human community is the universal obligation to live fully ourselves and to live well with others. So important is personal growth in community life for Benedict that when people refuse to grow in community virtues, to be a blessing to others as well as to be open to the blessings that are there for themselves, Benedict asks them to leave.
There can come a point, it seems, after every effort has been made to deal with a problem and every attempt has been made to correct a spiritual disease in life, when enough is enough and ought not to be tolerated any longer. The person may be a very good person but, the implication is, this just may not be the place for them. The shoe simply does not fit and the foot should not be wrenched to it.
The lesson is a universal one. There are a number of good things that it would not be good for us to do. People who become priests because their parents wanted a priest in the family are often unhappy priests. Children who stay on the farm when they should have gone to art school run the risk of twisting their lives into gnarled deadwood. And the farm with it. People with the courage to put us out of something may be the best spiritual guides we ever get.
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Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan
Read Excerpts from the Church Fathers during Lent
http://www.churchyear.net/lentfathers.html
St. Ignatius of Antioch
posted by Gloriamarie Amalfitano @ 7:57 AM
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