13/03/07, week of 3rd 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
Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; 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 78:1-39; Psalm 78:40-72; Jer. 7:21-34; Rom. 4:13-25; John 7:37-52
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From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Jeremiah 7:21-34. And they go on building the high place of Topeth...to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire.
Around this time last March, a beloved eight-year-old from the pediatric hospice program I serve finally let go his tenacious hold on life. Despite a massive blizzard, his memorial service overflowed with those who grieved his passing.
How chilling it was, in the light of that child's death, to read of those who would build a "high place" on which to burn their healthy, living children. "How could they?" I thought.
But then I thought again: "Who am I to judge?" I live as part of a hedonistic culture that shows little concern for the damage we do. Every wasteful act--all our careless consumption--contributes to building that "high place" where we go on sacrificing our children's future for the sake of our own current comforts.
At the eucharist we pray for "this fragile earth, our island home." On Ash Wednesday we confess "our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us." We know and name the sins that we commit--and too often don't know how to stop. May God give us the courage and the tenacity to tend the earth as faithful servants, holding it in trust.
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Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm
James Holly
Psalm 86:11-17; Deuteronomy 6:20-25; Acts 8:26-39;John 4:31-38
Most gracious God, by the calling of your servant James Theodore Holly, you gave us our first bishop of African-American heritage. In his quest for life and freedom, he led your people from bondage into a new land and established the Church in Haiti. Grant that, inspired by his testimony, we may overcome our prejudice and honor those whom you call from every family, language, people, and nation; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Mount Kenya Central (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
13. GO WALKING
WED 7 MAR
Take a completely gratuitous walk. Don't go anywhere, just go out, have a walk around and come back.
Idea by: Steve Tomkins
Lent quote: "God in my speaking and in my thinking. God in my sleeping and in my waking. God to enfold and surround me. God in my life and soul and heart." – Celtic prayer
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Almost Daily Emo from Geranium Farms
THE ONE YOU FEED
It was like the first breeze of spring, so mild a person
is not sure at first that it might not have been imagination: two Anglican announcements. The first was a report from the recent meeting of AWE (Anglican Women's Empowerment), here in New York for the meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. They were women from everywhere. They pledged to remain together, in communion with each other, no matter what. They said that no power on earth was great enough to break them apart, because they had important work to do: the raising up of girls' education and health and well-being today, in order that the mothers and families and societies throughout the world of tomorrow will be strong. They needed each other for this work more than they needed to agree on what the Bible says about sex or who in the church is more important than whom. I don't recall that they mentioned anything about sex at all, in fact. As I recall it, it was the children of the world who were important to them, more important than any prelate. Read that they said at
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_83098_ENG_HTM.htm.
Thank God.
And the Archbishop of Canterbury had a meeting in South Africa called "Towards Effective Anglican Mission." He said that that it was by serving the poor that we would be known as the Christians we want to be, and that we can always know our service is authentic if we were doing that. The meeting focussed on addressing the U. N. Millennium Development Goals towards the eradication of extreme poverty. At this meeting, too, it seems that the poor were the most important people. They seem not to have talked about sex there, either, or about who reads the Bible correctly. You can read about this meetings, too, at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_83161_ENG_HTM.htm.
Imagine.
This is what the Church is: the people of God seeing Christ in one another and serving the poor in His Name. The rest is commentary.
So have another twenty meetings about whether the Church is pure enough for you. Or make it forty -- why not? Make denouncing other peoples' sins your life's work if you want to: most of us have enough of them to keep you busy for years, so knock yourself out.
But some of us will not attend.
An old story, as retold by Jim Gustafson:
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked, "Which wolf wins?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
Copyright © 2007 Barbara Crafton - http://www.geraniumfarm.org
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Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
Mine are the heavens and mine is the earth. Mine are the nations, the just are mine, and mine are the sinners. The angels are mine, and the Mother of God, and all things are mine; and God Himself is mine and for me, because Christ is mine and all for me.
St John of the Cross
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Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
(Abba Isaiah) also said 'When God wishes to take pity on a soul and it rebels, not bearing anything and doing its own will, he then allows it to suffer that which it does not want, in order that it may seek him again.'
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Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
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From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:\
Day Thirteen - The three Ways of Service
Tertiaries desire to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, whom we
serve in the three ways of Prayer, Study and Work. In the life of the Order
as a whole these three ways must each find full and balanced expression, but
it is not to be expected that all members devote themselves equally to each
of them. Each individual's service will vary according to his or her
abilities and circumstances, yet each individual member's Personal Rule of
Life must include each of the three ways.
Collect (Tuesday)
God, you resist the proud and give grace to the humble: help us not to think
proudly, but to serve you with the humility that pleases you, so we may walk
in the steps of your servant Francis and receive the gift of your grace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord
Amen.
From: http://www.faithandworship.com/
How can we praise you
In life's ordinary moments
bus, car or train
pedestrian moments
at home and employment
with all those distractions
How can we praise you?
How can we praise you
when time is so precious
appointments and targets
distracting our focus
muddying waters
made clean for your purpose
How can we praise you?
How can we praise you?
Through all of our actions
a smile and a greeting
a shoulder to lean on
a word in due season
love and compassion
in all situations
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Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/
WE DO NOT search out our sinfulness in order to indulge in feeling bad but to set ourselves on the path of return. … We were created with a deep sense of where we belong. Often alienated, sometimes far away, we find the warmth of the God in whose image we have been made touches us; and our hearts respond with desire for homecoming.
- Elizabeth J. Canham
Heart Whispers
From page 130 of Heart Whispers: Benedictine Wisdom for Today by Elizabeth J. Canham. Copyright © 1999 by Elizabeth J. Canham.
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Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"Longing for Union"
We long to expose ourselves, even though it's the most threatening thing in the world. We long for the self-disclosure of another person. That's the power of sexual interaction, the intimate exchange between people. We western men have been trained not to share ourselves because we've been trained, especially as priests, never to look weak but always to be in control. We find it hard to be weak before God, to speak simply to God from our hearts. We find it easier to talk about God than to talk to God. Most spontaneous prayer I hear is in the form of an announcement to the groups instead of a personal address in the second person. Many of us think prayer is meditating on good, holy, churchy thoughts, or preparing sermons, all up in the head. Why don't we, as sons and daughters, talk directly to our Father as if we know and believe he's there? To talk to God takes a childlike attitude. If we need always to be in control, we can't talk like a child to our Mother.
from the Price of Peoplehood
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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
We pray to Christ as God
Our minds are slow to come down to the humble level of Jesus when we have just been contemplating him in his divinity. It is as though we were doing him an injustice in acknowledging in a man the words of one with whom we spoke when we prayed to God; we are usually at a loss and try to change the meaning. Yet our minds find nothing in scripture that does not go back to him, nothing that will allow us to stray from him.
Our thoughts must then be awakened to keep their vigil of faith. We must realize that the one whom we were contemplating a short time before in his nature as God took to himself the nature of a servant; he was made in the likeness of men and found to be a man like others; as he hung on the cross he made the psalmist's words his own: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
We pray to him as God, he prays for us as a servant. In the first case he is the Creator, in the second a creature. Himself unchanged, he took to himself our created nature in order to change it, and made us one man with himself, head and body. We pray then to him, through him, and in him; we speak along with him and he speaks along with us.
Augustine of Hippo, (354 - 430), bishop of Hippo, became the most influential person of the Western Church and left many writings to posterity.
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Daily Readings From "My Utmost for His Highest", Oswald Chambers
http://www.myutmost.org/
THE ABANDONMENT OF GOD
"God so loved the world that He gave. . ." John 3:16
Salvation is not merely deliverance from sin, nor the experience of personal holiness; the salvation of God is deliverance out of self entirely into union with Himself. My experimental knowledge of salvation will be along the line of deliverance from sin and of personal holiness; but salvation means that the Spirit of God has brought me into touch with God's personality, and I am thrilled with something infinitely greater than myself, I am caught up into the abandonment of God.
To say that we are called to preach holiness or sanctification, is to get into a side eddy. We are called to proclaim Jesus Christ. The fact that He saves from sin and makes us holy is part of the effect of the wonderful abandonment of God.
Abandonment never produces the consciousness of its own effort, because the whole life is taken up with the One to Whom we abandon. Beware of talking about abandonment if you know nothing about it, and you will never know anything about it until you have realized that John 3:16 means that God gave Himself absolutely. In our abandonment we give ourselves over to God just as God gave Himself for us, without any calculation. The consequence of abandonment never enters into our outlook because our life is taken up with Him.
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Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 35: On the Weekly Servers in the Kitchen
Let the brethren serve one another,
and let no one be excused from the kitchen service
except by reason of sickness
or occupation in some important work.
For this service brings increase of reward and of charity.
But let helpers be provided for the weak ones,
that they may not be distressed by this work;
and indeed let everyone have help,
as required by the size of the community
or the circumstances of the locality.
If the community is a large one,
the cellarer shall be excused from the kitchen service;
and so also those whose occupations are of greater utility,
as we said above.
Let the rest serve one another in charity.
The one who is ending his week of service
shall do the cleaning on Saturday.
He shall wash the towels
with which the brethren wipe their hands and feet;
and this server who is ending his week,
aided by the one who is about to begin,
shall wash the feet of all the brethren.
He shall return the utensils of his office to the cellarer
clean and in good condition,
and the cellarer in turn shall consign them to the incoming server,
in order that he may know
what he gives out and what he receives back.
Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
Benedict leaves very little to the imagination or fancy of the spiritually pretentious who know everything there is to know about spiritual theory and think that is enough. Benedict says that the spiritual life is not simply what we think about; it is what we do because of what we think. It is possible, in fact, to spend our whole lives thinking about the spiritual life and never develop one. We can study church history forever and never become holier for the doing. There are theology courses all over the world that have nothing whatsoever to do with the spiritual life. In the same way, we may think we are a community or assume we are a family but if we do not serve one another we are, at best, a collection of people who live alone together.
So, Benedict chooses the family meal to demonstrate that point of life where the Eucharist becomes alive for us outside of chapel. It is in kitchen service that we prepare good things for the ones we love, and sustain them and clean up after them. It was woman's work and Roman men were told to do it so that they, too, with their own hands and over their own hot fires could know what it takes to spend their own lives to give life to the other.
Community love and accountability are focused, demonstrated and modeled at the community meal. In every other thing we do, more private in scope, more personal in process, our private agendas so easily nibble away at the transcendent purpose of the work that there is often little left of the philosophical meaning of the task except our own translation of it. In the Middle Ages, the tale goes, a traveler asked three hard-at-work stone masons what they were doing. The first said, "I am sanding down this block of marble." The second said, "I am preparing a foundation." The third said, "I am building a Cathedral." Remembering the greater cause of why we are doing what we do is one of life's more demanding difficulties. But that's not the case in a kitchen, or in a dining room that is shaped around the icon of the Last Supper where the One who is first washes the feet of the ones who are to follow. "Do you know what I have just done," the Scripture reads. "As I have done, so you must do."
In Benedict's dining room, where everyone serves and everyone washes feet and everyone returns the utensils clean and intact for the next person's use, love and accountability become the fulcrum of community life.
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Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan
Read Excerpts from the Church Fathers during Lent
http://www.churchyear.net/lentfathers.html
St. Cyprian: On the Unity of the Church (Treatise I): 1-9
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From our Greek Orthodox brethren:
Tuesday, March 13, 2007 Great Fast Consecration of Raphael as Bishop
of Brooklyn
6th Hour: Isaiah 25:1-9 1st Vespers: Genesis 9:8-17
2nd Vespers: Proverbs 12:8-22
The Destruction of Death: Isaiah 25:1-9 LXX, especially vs. 8: "Death
has prevailed and swallowed men up; but again the Lord God has taken
away every tear from every face. He has taken away the reproach of His
people from all the earth: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it."
There are two versions of this important verse. There is the wording
followed by St. Paul - and by most English translations - which declares
that God "will swallow up death for ever" (e.g, RSV), and the
significant variant found in the Septuagint (LXX) - and quoted above at
the beginning of this meditation. Despite the different meanings one
can derive from the first phrase of verse 8, the clear sense of both
versions leads to the same conclusion: death, the destroyer of all men,
ultimately will itself be destroyed by God. Glory to Jesus Christ!
In this portion of Isaiah, the Prophet presents a vivid image of God
bringing about the ultimate destruction of death and prepares us to hear
the Gospel of the Resurrection. Thus, it is not surprising that St.
Paul would late quote from the verse in 1st Cor. 15:54, nor that St.
John the Theologian referred to it in Rev. 21:4. What grace God gave to
Isaiah - to glimpse at the coming annihilation of death itself, for the
truth of Isaiah's prophecy would at last be revealed fully in the
Passion and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus! That God should give such
foresight to Isaiah is a testimony to the great holiness of this prince
among the Prophets of God.
Isaiah discloses three facets of the Divine triumph over death that
comes in Christ: first, in His wonderful judgment, God uses death,
destruction, and desolation - which appear contrary to His compassion -
to bring glory to Himself (vss. 1-3). Second, by stilling "the song of
the ruthless" (vs. 5), the Lord shelters the poor and those who thirst
for life amidst the bitterness of death's powers (vss. 4-5); and, third,
while these Divine actions impel us to praise and exalt the Name of God
in the present age (vs. 1), they cannot compare with the wonders of the
coming age when God "shall make a feast for all the nations" (vs. 6)
when He imparts all these things to the nations; for this is God's
counsel upon all the nations" (vs. 7).
Looking back over the twentieth century, at its nihilism and worship of
death, we are haunted by powerful images of wicked men's capacity to
negate our humanity. Recall the slave labor camps, the death factories,
the massive extermination of peoples, the decimation of whole
populations by starvation, the bombing of cities and cultures into dust,
and the poisonous legacy of radiation and pollution. Still, through His
Prophet, God invites us to praise and exalt Him for the wonderful
blessings He has brought our race despite the macabre events we unleash
on His earth (vs. 1). Using death itself, God made strong cities a
heap, even "the city of ungodly men" (vs. 2) that the injured might
bless Him (vs. 3).
Beloved, stand in awe at the amazing truth placed before us! God is in
control even of death, as monstrous and ubiquitous as it is in its many
forms. For, even through the terrors of recent history, God has
disclosed His abiding capacity to be "a shelter to them that were
disheartened" (vs. 4) - despite "the ruthless" (vs. 4-5). How Christ's
Gospel, makes it all clear!
Because of the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, we now
understand the end of history - that on the mount of the Church "all the
nations...shall drink gladness (vs. 6). St. John the Theologian
confirms this in speaking of the "marriage supper of the Lamb" (Rev.
19:9). "Again the Lord God has taken away every tear from every face.
He has taken away the reproach of His People from all the earth" (Is.
25:8). Thank God that we know Him Who embraced death for our sake, the
Life-Giver of all who trust in Him. Prepare for His feast, and exclaim!
O Lord God...I will sing to Thy Name; for Thou hast done wonderful
things! (vs. 1)
If you would like these meditations to come directly to your in box, please click here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KnitternunMeditation/
Collect
Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; 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 78:1-39; Psalm 78:40-72; Jer. 7:21-34; Rom. 4:13-25; John 7:37-52
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Jeremiah 7:21-34. And they go on building the high place of Topeth...to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire.
Around this time last March, a beloved eight-year-old from the pediatric hospice program I serve finally let go his tenacious hold on life. Despite a massive blizzard, his memorial service overflowed with those who grieved his passing.
How chilling it was, in the light of that child's death, to read of those who would build a "high place" on which to burn their healthy, living children. "How could they?" I thought.
But then I thought again: "Who am I to judge?" I live as part of a hedonistic culture that shows little concern for the damage we do. Every wasteful act--all our careless consumption--contributes to building that "high place" where we go on sacrificing our children's future for the sake of our own current comforts.
At the eucharist we pray for "this fragile earth, our island home." On Ash Wednesday we confess "our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us." We know and name the sins that we commit--and too often don't know how to stop. May God give us the courage and the tenacity to tend the earth as faithful servants, holding it in trust.
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm
James Holly
Psalm 86:11-17; Deuteronomy 6:20-25; Acts 8:26-39;John 4:31-38
Most gracious God, by the calling of your servant James Theodore Holly, you gave us our first bishop of African-American heritage. In his quest for life and freedom, he led your people from bondage into a new land and established the Church in Haiti. Grant that, inspired by his testimony, we may overcome our prejudice and honor those whom you call from every family, language, people, and nation; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
++++++++++
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Mount Kenya Central (Kenya)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
40 Ideas for Lent: A Lenten calendar http://ship-of-fools.com/lent/index.html
13. GO WALKING
WED 7 MAR
Take a completely gratuitous walk. Don't go anywhere, just go out, have a walk around and come back.
Idea by: Steve Tomkins
Lent quote: "God in my speaking and in my thinking. God in my sleeping and in my waking. God to enfold and surround me. God in my life and soul and heart." – Celtic prayer
++++++++++
Almost Daily Emo from Geranium Farms
THE ONE YOU FEED
It was like the first breeze of spring, so mild a person
is not sure at first that it might not have been imagination: two Anglican announcements. The first was a report from the recent meeting of AWE (Anglican Women's Empowerment), here in New York for the meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. They were women from everywhere. They pledged to remain together, in communion with each other, no matter what. They said that no power on earth was great enough to break them apart, because they had important work to do: the raising up of girls' education and health and well-being today, in order that the mothers and families and societies throughout the world of tomorrow will be strong. They needed each other for this work more than they needed to agree on what the Bible says about sex or who in the church is more important than whom. I don't recall that they mentioned anything about sex at all, in fact. As I recall it, it was the children of the world who were important to them, more important than any prelate. Read that they said at
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_83098_ENG_HTM.htm.
Thank God.
And the Archbishop of Canterbury had a meeting in South Africa called "Towards Effective Anglican Mission." He said that that it was by serving the poor that we would be known as the Christians we want to be, and that we can always know our service is authentic if we were doing that. The meeting focussed on addressing the U. N. Millennium Development Goals towards the eradication of extreme poverty. At this meeting, too, it seems that the poor were the most important people. They seem not to have talked about sex there, either, or about who reads the Bible correctly. You can read about this meetings, too, at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_83161_ENG_HTM.htm.
Imagine.
This is what the Church is: the people of God seeing Christ in one another and serving the poor in His Name. The rest is commentary.
So have another twenty meetings about whether the Church is pure enough for you. Or make it forty -- why not? Make denouncing other peoples' sins your life's work if you want to: most of us have enough of them to keep you busy for years, so knock yourself out.
But some of us will not attend.
An old story, as retold by Jim Gustafson:
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked, "Which wolf wins?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
Copyright © 2007 Barbara Crafton - http://www.geraniumfarm.org
++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
Mine are the heavens and mine is the earth. Mine are the nations, the just are mine, and mine are the sinners. The angels are mine, and the Mother of God, and all things are mine; and God Himself is mine and for me, because Christ is mine and all for me.
St John of the Cross
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
(Abba Isaiah) also said 'When God wishes to take pity on a soul and it rebels, not bearing anything and doing its own will, he then allows it to suffer that which it does not want, in order that it may seek him again.'
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis:\
Day Thirteen - The three Ways of Service
Tertiaries desire to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, whom we
serve in the three ways of Prayer, Study and Work. In the life of the Order
as a whole these three ways must each find full and balanced expression, but
it is not to be expected that all members devote themselves equally to each
of them. Each individual's service will vary according to his or her
abilities and circumstances, yet each individual member's Personal Rule of
Life must include each of the three ways.
Collect (Tuesday)
God, you resist the proud and give grace to the humble: help us not to think
proudly, but to serve you with the humility that pleases you, so we may walk
in the steps of your servant Francis and receive the gift of your grace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord
Amen.
From: http://www.faithandworship.com/
How can we praise you
In life's ordinary moments
bus, car or train
pedestrian moments
at home and employment
with all those distractions
How can we praise you?
How can we praise you
when time is so precious
appointments and targets
distracting our focus
muddying waters
made clean for your purpose
How can we praise you?
How can we praise you?
Through all of our actions
a smile and a greeting
a shoulder to lean on
a word in due season
love and compassion
in all situations
++++++++++
Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/
WE DO NOT search out our sinfulness in order to indulge in feeling bad but to set ourselves on the path of return. … We were created with a deep sense of where we belong. Often alienated, sometimes far away, we find the warmth of the God in whose image we have been made touches us; and our hearts respond with desire for homecoming.
- Elizabeth J. Canham
Heart Whispers
From page 130 of Heart Whispers: Benedictine Wisdom for Today by Elizabeth J. Canham. Copyright © 1999 by Elizabeth J. Canham.
+++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
"Longing for Union"
We long to expose ourselves, even though it's the most threatening thing in the world. We long for the self-disclosure of another person. That's the power of sexual interaction, the intimate exchange between people. We western men have been trained not to share ourselves because we've been trained, especially as priests, never to look weak but always to be in control. We find it hard to be weak before God, to speak simply to God from our hearts. We find it easier to talk about God than to talk to God. Most spontaneous prayer I hear is in the form of an announcement to the groups instead of a personal address in the second person. Many of us think prayer is meditating on good, holy, churchy thoughts, or preparing sermons, all up in the head. Why don't we, as sons and daughters, talk directly to our Father as if we know and believe he's there? To talk to God takes a childlike attitude. If we need always to be in control, we can't talk like a child to our Mother.
from the Price of Peoplehood
++++++++++
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
We pray to Christ as God
Our minds are slow to come down to the humble level of Jesus when we have just been contemplating him in his divinity. It is as though we were doing him an injustice in acknowledging in a man the words of one with whom we spoke when we prayed to God; we are usually at a loss and try to change the meaning. Yet our minds find nothing in scripture that does not go back to him, nothing that will allow us to stray from him.
Our thoughts must then be awakened to keep their vigil of faith. We must realize that the one whom we were contemplating a short time before in his nature as God took to himself the nature of a servant; he was made in the likeness of men and found to be a man like others; as he hung on the cross he made the psalmist's words his own: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
We pray to him as God, he prays for us as a servant. In the first case he is the Creator, in the second a creature. Himself unchanged, he took to himself our created nature in order to change it, and made us one man with himself, head and body. We pray then to him, through him, and in him; we speak along with him and he speaks along with us.
Augustine of Hippo, (354 - 430), bishop of Hippo, became the most influential person of the Western Church and left many writings to posterity.
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Daily Readings From "My Utmost for His Highest", Oswald Chambers
http://www.myutmost.org/
THE ABANDONMENT OF GOD
"God so loved the world that He gave. . ." John 3:16
Salvation is not merely deliverance from sin, nor the experience of personal holiness; the salvation of God is deliverance out of self entirely into union with Himself. My experimental knowledge of salvation will be along the line of deliverance from sin and of personal holiness; but salvation means that the Spirit of God has brought me into touch with God's personality, and I am thrilled with something infinitely greater than myself, I am caught up into the abandonment of God.
To say that we are called to preach holiness or sanctification, is to get into a side eddy. We are called to proclaim Jesus Christ. The fact that He saves from sin and makes us holy is part of the effect of the wonderful abandonment of God.
Abandonment never produces the consciousness of its own effort, because the whole life is taken up with the One to Whom we abandon. Beware of talking about abandonment if you know nothing about it, and you will never know anything about it until you have realized that John 3:16 means that God gave Himself absolutely. In our abandonment we give ourselves over to God just as God gave Himself for us, without any calculation. The consequence of abandonment never enters into our outlook because our life is taken up with Him.
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Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 35: On the Weekly Servers in the Kitchen
Let the brethren serve one another,
and let no one be excused from the kitchen service
except by reason of sickness
or occupation in some important work.
For this service brings increase of reward and of charity.
But let helpers be provided for the weak ones,
that they may not be distressed by this work;
and indeed let everyone have help,
as required by the size of the community
or the circumstances of the locality.
If the community is a large one,
the cellarer shall be excused from the kitchen service;
and so also those whose occupations are of greater utility,
as we said above.
Let the rest serve one another in charity.
The one who is ending his week of service
shall do the cleaning on Saturday.
He shall wash the towels
with which the brethren wipe their hands and feet;
and this server who is ending his week,
aided by the one who is about to begin,
shall wash the feet of all the brethren.
He shall return the utensils of his office to the cellarer
clean and in good condition,
and the cellarer in turn shall consign them to the incoming server,
in order that he may know
what he gives out and what he receives back.
Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
Benedict leaves very little to the imagination or fancy of the spiritually pretentious who know everything there is to know about spiritual theory and think that is enough. Benedict says that the spiritual life is not simply what we think about; it is what we do because of what we think. It is possible, in fact, to spend our whole lives thinking about the spiritual life and never develop one. We can study church history forever and never become holier for the doing. There are theology courses all over the world that have nothing whatsoever to do with the spiritual life. In the same way, we may think we are a community or assume we are a family but if we do not serve one another we are, at best, a collection of people who live alone together.
So, Benedict chooses the family meal to demonstrate that point of life where the Eucharist becomes alive for us outside of chapel. It is in kitchen service that we prepare good things for the ones we love, and sustain them and clean up after them. It was woman's work and Roman men were told to do it so that they, too, with their own hands and over their own hot fires could know what it takes to spend their own lives to give life to the other.
Community love and accountability are focused, demonstrated and modeled at the community meal. In every other thing we do, more private in scope, more personal in process, our private agendas so easily nibble away at the transcendent purpose of the work that there is often little left of the philosophical meaning of the task except our own translation of it. In the Middle Ages, the tale goes, a traveler asked three hard-at-work stone masons what they were doing. The first said, "I am sanding down this block of marble." The second said, "I am preparing a foundation." The third said, "I am building a Cathedral." Remembering the greater cause of why we are doing what we do is one of life's more demanding difficulties. But that's not the case in a kitchen, or in a dining room that is shaped around the icon of the Last Supper where the One who is first washes the feet of the ones who are to follow. "Do you know what I have just done," the Scripture reads. "As I have done, so you must do."
In Benedict's dining room, where everyone serves and everyone washes feet and everyone returns the utensils clean and intact for the next person's use, love and accountability become the fulcrum of community life.
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Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan
Read Excerpts from the Church Fathers during Lent
http://www.churchyear.net/lentfathers.html
St. Cyprian: On the Unity of the Church (Treatise I): 1-9
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From our Greek Orthodox brethren:
Tuesday, March 13, 2007 Great Fast Consecration of Raphael as Bishop
of Brooklyn
6th Hour: Isaiah 25:1-9 1st Vespers: Genesis 9:8-17
2nd Vespers: Proverbs 12:8-22
The Destruction of Death: Isaiah 25:1-9 LXX, especially vs. 8: "Death
has prevailed and swallowed men up; but again the Lord God has taken
away every tear from every face. He has taken away the reproach of His
people from all the earth: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it."
There are two versions of this important verse. There is the wording
followed by St. Paul - and by most English translations - which declares
that God "will swallow up death for ever" (e.g, RSV), and the
significant variant found in the Septuagint (LXX) - and quoted above at
the beginning of this meditation. Despite the different meanings one
can derive from the first phrase of verse 8, the clear sense of both
versions leads to the same conclusion: death, the destroyer of all men,
ultimately will itself be destroyed by God. Glory to Jesus Christ!
In this portion of Isaiah, the Prophet presents a vivid image of God
bringing about the ultimate destruction of death and prepares us to hear
the Gospel of the Resurrection. Thus, it is not surprising that St.
Paul would late quote from the verse in 1st Cor. 15:54, nor that St.
John the Theologian referred to it in Rev. 21:4. What grace God gave to
Isaiah - to glimpse at the coming annihilation of death itself, for the
truth of Isaiah's prophecy would at last be revealed fully in the
Passion and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus! That God should give such
foresight to Isaiah is a testimony to the great holiness of this prince
among the Prophets of God.
Isaiah discloses three facets of the Divine triumph over death that
comes in Christ: first, in His wonderful judgment, God uses death,
destruction, and desolation - which appear contrary to His compassion -
to bring glory to Himself (vss. 1-3). Second, by stilling "the song of
the ruthless" (vs. 5), the Lord shelters the poor and those who thirst
for life amidst the bitterness of death's powers (vss. 4-5); and, third,
while these Divine actions impel us to praise and exalt the Name of God
in the present age (vs. 1), they cannot compare with the wonders of the
coming age when God "shall make a feast for all the nations" (vs. 6)
when He imparts all these things to the nations; for this is God's
counsel upon all the nations" (vs. 7).
Looking back over the twentieth century, at its nihilism and worship of
death, we are haunted by powerful images of wicked men's capacity to
negate our humanity. Recall the slave labor camps, the death factories,
the massive extermination of peoples, the decimation of whole
populations by starvation, the bombing of cities and cultures into dust,
and the poisonous legacy of radiation and pollution. Still, through His
Prophet, God invites us to praise and exalt Him for the wonderful
blessings He has brought our race despite the macabre events we unleash
on His earth (vs. 1). Using death itself, God made strong cities a
heap, even "the city of ungodly men" (vs. 2) that the injured might
bless Him (vs. 3).
Beloved, stand in awe at the amazing truth placed before us! God is in
control even of death, as monstrous and ubiquitous as it is in its many
forms. For, even through the terrors of recent history, God has
disclosed His abiding capacity to be "a shelter to them that were
disheartened" (vs. 4) - despite "the ruthless" (vs. 4-5). How Christ's
Gospel, makes it all clear!
Because of the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, we now
understand the end of history - that on the mount of the Church "all the
nations...shall drink gladness (vs. 6). St. John the Theologian
confirms this in speaking of the "marriage supper of the Lamb" (Rev.
19:9). "Again the Lord God has taken away every tear from every face.
He has taken away the reproach of His People from all the earth" (Is.
25:8). Thank God that we know Him Who embraced death for our sake, the
Life-Giver of all who trust in Him. Prepare for His feast, and exclaim!
O Lord God...I will sing to Thy Name; for Thou hast done wonderful
things! (vs. 1)
posted by Gloriamarie Amalfitano @ 8:43 AM
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