knitternun

Friday, August 31, 2007

Come Be My Light

"Come Be My Light" by Brian Kolodiejchuk,
ISBN: 9780385520379 Publisher: Doubleday Books Pages: 416
http://www.powells.com/biblio/9780385520379



In a discussion of James Martin's op ed piece about this book in the 8/29/07NYTimes, http://tinyurl.com/yqqkcp someone said to me

> Maybe she was clinically depressed or had some sort of mental problem?

Possibly. That was my first thought, also. I was very impressed with what the reviewer said about her intention to offer up this darkness on behalf of the world. That's love and generosity.

What also impressed me is that although she lived in a dark night, her faith endured. I know what that's like. I've had long long dark nights myself and eventually I realized God had gifted me with faith. Like Mother Theresa, I didn't have the "consolations of religion", as they are called, but the gift of faith which allowed me to continue to believe. I would guess this was Mother Theresa's experience. To me it only increases her witness and just another reason why she should be canonized.

My correspondent had other questions:

> God called her to work with the poorest of the poor but I >wonder if she had "times >apart for rest and restoration"? and maybe that calling of God was for a season not >for the rest of her life? I wonder if she could have had more >enlightened spiritual >direction? I wonder if she spent so >much time labouring and not enough time in >contemplative prayer and worship?

These are some interesting questions. I wonder if we will have the answers from Mother Theresa's own words in other letters or from conversations with others. Although, of course, the Missionaries of Charity are an active order, not a contemplative one.

I confess I have a somewhat personal response to these questions as a result of my own forty-six year experience with Major Depressive Disorder.W hen I was in the grip of the Insidious Dark, other people were always trying to fix me. Their attempts were always based on what, in their opinion, I did wrongly, that it was my fault and that I could change it if I only did x,y or z. I would try their suggestions and they wouldn't work. Eventually I realized with the help of my therapist that people did this because of the challenge I represented
to their own comfort zones.

So as I read the questions, I am reminded of all those questions which felt so blaming and judgemental... "Gloriamarie, if only you" or "Gloriamarie, why don't you" or "Gloriamarie, you should". To me, Sandie's questions sound to me like " Mother Theresa, you should go on a vacation" when nuns in an order or community don;t go on vacation, they go on retreats. Or "Mother Theresa, don't you think you made a mistake and God didn't intend you to do this the rest of your life?" despite the impact of her life and work, the witness alone convinces me this was her true vocation. Or
"Mother Theresa, you should get a new spiritual director" etc.

Dark Nights are not a bad thing. The apophatic tradition, the Via Negativa, is a long established one and there are those over the centuries who have written quite movingly about the silence of God. In our more modern world, we seem to have come to view discomfort or suffering as a bad thing. Something to be avoided. Of course, as humans we will do everything we can to avoid it.

The witness of the great saints, though, among the things that make them "great" to me, is how they approached their suffering, what they did with it. While I am certain that for a while they, being human, tried to wiggle out of it as any of us would, there also came a time when they accepted it as part of the package of their lives. The darkness, the suffering was transformed.

Seems to me most of us today want to live surrounded by the warm fuzzies rather than go deeper, higher up, further in to that place where we risk the loss of all comfort zone. We think we can't bear the silence. What the great saints teach us, though, is that we must face that utter silence at the very core of our being because that is the God shaped hole within each of us and nothing but God fits, no matter what we stuff into it.

This is not to say that God wills all the suffering. I am of the belief that we have trouble in our lives because we live in a sinful world and that there are consequences to the actions and decisions made. Not just the ones that we ourselves make but the ones of those who have gone before. An example: my nuclear family was dysfunctional probably because the nuclear families of my parents were dysfunctional as were theirs before them etc.

There are those who do what is right for no other reason than that it is right and with no other reward than that of knowing it is right. Somehow, it is the conviction of the rightness of their path that sustains them.

While I am certainly no saint, I said above that I've had my own struggles with the Insidious Dark. Decades of dark night had been preceded by a vision that I live my life within God's cupped hands. Throughout those decades, I'd think back to that vision. No great warm comforting feelings accompanied the memory. I had only the truth that I had this vision and the memory of the conviction that came with the vision that whatever else happened to me, I live my life in God's cupped hands.

Mother Theresa's letters tell us that she clearly heard God telling her to go and work with the poor. While I don't begin to compare myself to her, I do know what it is like to have the memory of something that helps one keepin' on keepin' on doing the right thing.

My correspondent continues:

> What a shame that she lacked joy, seems like she could >show the love of Jesus but >not the joy, not the vibrant faith, not the fullness of life, and not the peace.

Why is that a shame? How can one possibly show the love of Jesus' without knowing it? The New Testament teaches us that the Holy Spirit works within in a manner that is far beyond our comprehension. I think Mother Theresa trusted that dynamic within her.

She offered that darkness on behalf of the poor, by it she identified with the poor, by it she experienced what the poor experienced. Possibly she carried the sufferings of those to weak to carry it for themselves?

We Christians are the Body of Christ, the body has different parts and needs everyone one of them. Instead of looking at what Mother Theresa lacked and judge her for it, let's instead look at what she did, an instrument of God's mercy and righteousness that is the witness of her life. Perhaps it was necessary that she experience what she did because that was what motivated her efforts? Let us commend her for her selflessness. She could have run away from the silence as so many of us do to look for anything whatsoever to fill up that silence and refusing to admit that there is nothing that will ever fill it up. Mother Theresa endured the silence, I am convinced, because she knew that nothing but God would ever fill it.

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Monday, August 27, 2007

27/08/07 Monday in the week of 13th Sunday After Pentecost

[PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A "MENU" FROM WHICH TO PICK AND CHOOSE ONE OR MORE MEDITATIONS. PLEASE DO NOT THINK YOU HAVE TO PRAY ALL OF IT. PLEASE THINK OF IT AS A BUFFET OF THE DIFFERENT FLAVORS OF CHRISTIANITY. IT IS HOPED THAT ALL WILL PRAY THE COLLECT, REFLECT ON THE DAY'S SCRIPTURES AND PRAY THE ANGLICAN CYCLE OF PRAYER. AFTER THAT, YOUR CHOICE. THANK YOU]




Blessed are those for whom Easter is...
not a hunt, but a find;
not a greeting, but a proclamation;
not outward fashions, but inward grace;
not a day, but an eternity.

Collect

Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

O loving God, whose will it is that everyone should come to you and be saved: We bless your Holy Name for your servants Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Winter Syle, whose labors with and for those who are deaf we commemorate today; and we pray that you will continually move your Church to respond in love to the needs of all people; through Jesus Christ, who opened the ears of the deaf, and who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
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Today's Scripture http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/

AM Psalm 146, 147; PM Psalm 111, 112, 113
2 Samuel 24:1-2,10-25; Gal. 3:23-4:7; John 8:12-20
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From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm

Psalm 4. I lie down in peace; at once I fall asleep; for only you, LORD, make me dwell in safety.

Now I can almost laugh about it, but several weeks ago it was anything but funny. My octogenarian, legally blind mother had fallen, spent the night on
the floor, and was transported to the hospital. When I arrived at the state-of-the-art emergency room, she had been put on a monitor, and the nurse was tapping the screen to program it for readings. After several failed attempts she called in a technology specialist, who was also unable to bring up the right information. A new program module was installed, to no avail. A third specialist was called in to replace the entire unit. As I watched these health care professionals focus their attention on the malfunctioning technology, I wanted to scream, "The patient is in the bed, not on the wall!"


Silently I prayed, "Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place." After affirming that God knew what my mother needed, I gave thanks and received peace. I was able to bring her home that afternoon.


Beware of trusting created things to provide peace and security, for these have limits and will fail. To know real peace and safety, seek the everlasting arms of a loving Father God.
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Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm

Thomas Gallaudet & Henry Winter Syle:
Psalm 19:1-6 or 96:1-7
Isaiah 35:3-6a; Mark 7:32-37
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Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Psalm 4. I lie down in peace; at once I fall asleep; for only you, LORD, make me dwell in safety.

Now I can almost laugh about it, but several weeks ago it was anything but funny. My octogenarian, legally blind mother had fallen, spent the night on
the floor, and was transported to the hospital. When I arrived at the state-of-the-art emergency room, she had been put on a monitor, and the nurse was tapping the screen to program it for readings. After several failed attempts she called in a technology specialist, who was also unable to bring up the right information. A new program module was installed, to no avail. A third specialist was called in to replace the entire unit. As I watched these health care professionals focus their attention on the malfunctioning technology, I wanted to scream, "The patient is in the bed, not on the wall!"


Silently I prayed, "Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place." After affirming that God knew what my mother needed, I gave thanks and received peace. I was able to bring her home that afternoon.


Beware of trusting created things to provide peace and security, for these have limits and will fail. To know real peace and safety, seek the everlasting arms of a loving Father God.
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
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Speaking to the Soul: http://www.episcopalcafe.com/

Thomas Gallaudet

Daily Reading for August 27 • Thomas Gallaudet, 1890, and Henry Winter Syle, 1902

The growth of the spiritual kingdom, as a divinely appointed organization, is a mystery; and the growth of spiritual life in the hearts of each individual member of the spiritual kingdom is a mystery. We behold indications, from time to time, marking the gradual progress of these two kinds of growth; we believe in them, as realities coming to pass, in consequence of Christ’s redemption, and yet we know not how. “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).

Oh! let those to whom the gospel announcements have come, be not faithless, but believing. Beholding the wonderful work which God, through Christ, has wrought for mankind by the mysterious instrumentalities of his infinitely wise appointment, let all become genuine, devout communicants of the organization which has existed, though they know not how, for upward of eighteen hundred years, as the grand regeneration of the human race; and in due time, they shall be the possessors of the peace of God, which passing understanding, is the earnest of the good things to come in the future life, of which it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive. Oh! let us have entire faith in the Divine arrangements for the growth of spiritual life, although they are to us, in our present condition, unfathomable mysteries.

From the sermon preached at the first service held at St. Ann’s Church for Deaf-Mutes by Thomas Gallaudet, quoted in A Year With American Saints by G. Scott Cady and Christopher L. Webber. Copyright © 2006. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org
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Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php

The soul of the just person is nothing else but a paradise where the Lord says He finds His delight.
St Teresa of Jesus
Interior Castle, I.1
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Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html

The old man (abba John the Dwarf) said, 'You know that the first blow the devil gave to Job was through his possessions; and he saw that he had not grieved him nor separated him from God. Whith the second blow, he touched his flesh, but the brave athlete did not sin by any word that came out of his mouth in that either. In fact, he had within his heart that which is of God, and he drew on that source unceasingly.'
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Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/

Being Ready to Die

Death often happens suddenly. A car accident, a plane crash, a fatal fight, a war, a flood, and so on. When we feel healthy and full of energy, we do not think much about our deaths. Still, death might come very unexpectedly.

How can we be prepared to die? By not having any unfinished relational business. The question is: Have I forgiven those who have hurt me and asked forgiveness from those I have hurt? When I feel at peace with all the people I live with, my death might cause great grief, but it will not cause guilt or anger.

When we are ready to die at any moment, we also are ready to live at any moment.
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The Merton Reflection for the Week of August 27, 2007
http://www.mertoninstitute.org/retreats.php

"[Merton entered his hermitage on a full-time basis on August 20, 1965, the feast day of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the Cistercian Doctor of the Church. On August 21, 1965, Merton wrote this in his journal:]

"This morning-grey, cool, peace. The unquestionable realization of the rightness of this, because it is from God and it is His work. So much could be said! What is immediately perceptible is the immense relief, the burden of ambiguity is lifted, and I am without care-no anxiety about being pulled between my job and my vocation. I feel as if my whole being were an act of thankfulness-even the gut is relaxed and at peace after good meditation and long study of Irenaeus. The woods all around crackle with guerrilla warfare-the hunters are out for squirrel season (as if there were a squirrel left!). Even this idiot ritual does not make me impatient. In their mad way they love the woods too: but I wish their way were less destructive and less of a lie."

Thomas Merton: Dancing in the Water of Life. Journals, Volume 5. Robert E. Daggy, editor. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997: 283

Thought to Remember

"The blessing of Prime under the tall pines, in the cool of early morning, behind the hermitage. The blessing of sawing wood, cutting grass, cleaning house, washing dishes. The blessing of a quiet, alert, concentrated, fully "present" meditation. The blessing of God's presence and guidance."

Dancing in the Water of Life: 284
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From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis: http://www.tssf.org/textonly/principles.shtml

Day Twenty Seven - The Second Note, cont'd

The Third Order is Christian community whose members, although varied in race, education, and character, are bound into a living whole through the love we share in Christ. This unity of all who believe in him will become, as our Lord intended, a witness to the world of his divine mission. In our relationship with those outside the Order, we show the same Christ-like love, and gladly give of ouselves, remembering that love is measured by sacrifice.
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Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/

The Company of Believers
August 27th, 2007
Monday’s Reflection

JESUS MAY BE God Incarnate, Lord of all creation, Emmanuel, Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace, Coming Messiah, Light of life, and so on, but the Master himself deliberately engaged his public ministry here on earth by surrounding himself with a small covenant group … who knew and loved God. How much more should we place ourselves in the company of fellow believers?

- Derek Maul
Get Real: A Spiritual Journey for Men

From page 73 of Get Real: A Spiritual Journey for Men by Derek Maul. Copyright © 2007 by the author. Published by Upper Room Books. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission. http://www.upperroom.org/bookstore/
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Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html



"Respecting Our American Experience"

The cultural experience of each country has to be respected and listened to, for God has spoken through the minds and hearts of each people. Each, I believe, holds different parts of the Great Mystery in special awareness.

If we're going to listen to the experience of our brothers and sisters in the Third World, I think, in fairness, we have to grant the same privilege to ourselves. We have to respect and listen to the only experience that we Americans have had. We have to trust it, we have to say, somehow there's some truth in it.

We must recognize the good in our society before we can eliminate the bad because good and evil are two sides of one coin. You can't recognize evil without recognizing good. You can't accept the one without, to some degree, accepting or at least understanding the other.

What is the American experience? What is our experience of life, for good and for ill? It's the only experience you and I have. I would list the essentially good values of American culture as: personalism, freedom and self-determination, pluralism, up-front honesty, democratic self-criticism, a not-so-bad emphasis on productivity and practical effect, and a natural egalitarianism that disdains caste systems in any form. These are all potentially gospel and part of the cosmic mystery of the Body of Christ.

The American experience has formed our psyche. God is willing to use these values. We must be willing to work with them, too, recognizing both their gift and their temptation.

from Letting Go: A Spirituality of Subtraction
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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

Remember, Monica, my mother

May Monica, my mother, rest in peace with her husband, before whom and after whom she was given in marriage to no man. She dutifully served him, bringing forth fruit to you with much patience, that she might also win him to you. Inspire, O Lord my God, inspire your servants my brethren, your children my master, whom I serve with my voice, my heart, and my writings, that as many of them as read these words may remember at your altar your handmaid, Monica, together with Patricius, formerly her husband, by whose flesh you brought me into this life, how I know not. May they with a pious affection remember them who were my parents in this transitory light, my brethren under you, our Father in our Catholic mother, and my fellow citizens in the eternal Jerusalem, for which your pilgrim people here below continually sigh from their setting out until their return, so that my mother's last request of me may be more abundantly granted by her through the prayers of many, occasioned by my confessions, rather than through my own prayers.

Augustine of Hippo
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Daily Readings From "My Utmost for His Highest", Oswald Chambers
http://www.myutmost.org/

THEOLOGY ALIVE


"Walk while ye have the light lest darkness come upon you." John 12:35

Beware of not acting upon what you see in your moments on the mount with God. If you do not obey the light, it will turn into darkness. "If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" The second you waive the question of sanctification or any other thing upon which God gave you light, you begin to get dry rot in your spiritual life. Continually bring the truth out into actuality; work it out in every domain, or the very light you have will prove a curse.

The most difficult person to deal with is the one who has the smug satisfaction of an experience to which he can refer back, but who is not working it out in practical life. If you say you are sanctified, show it. The experience must be so genuine that it is shown in the life. Beware of any belief that makes you self-indulgent; it came from the pit, no matter how beautiful it sounds.

Theology must work itself out in the most practical relationships. "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees . . ." said Our Lord, i.e., you must be more moral than the most moral being you know. You may know all about the doctrine of sanctification, but are you running it out into the practical issues of your life? Every bit of your life, physical, moral and spiritual, is to be judged by the standard of the Atonement.
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G. K. Chesterton Day by Day
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/gkcday/gkcday.html

MANY of us live publicly with featureless public puppets, images of the small public abstractions. It is when we pass our own private gate, and open our own secret door, that we step into the land of the giants.

'Charles Dickens.'
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Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/

Chapter 69: That the Monks Presume Not to Defend One Another

Care must be taken that no monk presume on any ground
to defend another monk in the monastery,
or as it were to take him under his protection,
even though they be united by some tie of blood-relationship.
Let not the monks dare to do this in any way whatsoever,
because it may give rise to most serious scandals.
But if anyone breaks this rule,
let him be severely punished.

Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html

"Stay away from your enemies but guard yourself against friends," Ben Sirach wrote in Ecclesiasticus. The rule knows that false friendship is bad for the person and bad for the community as well. In a life dedicated to spiritual growth and direction, there is no room for multiple masters. Friends who protect us from our need to grow are not friends at all. People who allow a personal agenda, our need to be right or their need to shield, block the achievement of a broader vision in us and betray us. Supporters who risk dividing a group into factions over personal tensions rather than to allow individuals to work their way positively through the hard points of life, barter the spirit and peace of the whole community. We are taught in the Rule not to take sides in issues of personal interpretation and spiritual challenge. We are to hold one another up during hard times, Chapter 27 indicates, but we are not to turn personal difficulty into public warfare. The groups that would be better off if individuals had refused to turn differences of opinion into moral irreconciliables are legion. The Desert Monastics say that one of the disciples asked Abba Sisoes one day, "If I am sitting in the desert and a barbarian comes to kill me and if I am stronger than he, shall I kill him?" The old man said to him, 'No, leave him to God. In fact whatever the trial is which comes to a person, let them say,"This has happened to me because of my sins," and if something good comes say, "This has happened to me because of the providence of God."

Life is not perfect; some of life just is. A great deal of mental, psychological and spiritual health comes from learning to endure the average heat of the average day and to wear both its banes and its blessings with a tempered heart. No warfare. No armies mobilized on the plain. No identification of enemies. Just life.
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Dynamis http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orthodoxdynamis/
Dynamis is a daily Bible meditation based upon the lectionary of the Holy Orthodox Church.

Monday, August 27, 2007 Venerable Confessor
Hosios, Bishop of Cordoba
Kellia: Joshua 2:15-22 Epistle: 2 Corinthians
12:10-19 Gospel: St. Mark4:10-23

Rahab the Ancestor ~ 4:The Scarlet Cord: Joshua 2:15-24 LXX, especially
vs. 18: "Behold, we shall enter into a part of the city, and thou shalt
set a sign; thou shalt bind this scarlet cord in the window, by which
thou hast let us down, and thou shalt bring in to thyself, into thy
house, thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all the family
of thy father." In a conspiracy, safety for the principals is urgent.
Plainly, safety was crucial in the alliance of Rahab and the spies who
came to reconnoiter Jericho. The scouts were not to be captured by the
king of Jericho, for the general security of the army of Israel had to
be assured. Further, Rahab, along with her family, was to be saved
during assault on the city and the annihilation of its people.

The present portion of the narrative concerning Rahab reminds all of us
who call ourselves Christians - the People of God - that it is necessary
to look out after each other's well-being in the face of all enemies,
physical or spiritual. The scarlet cord dangling from a window of
Rahab's house, which physically was part of the walls of Jericho, served
as a warning to all the soldiers of Joshua's army to protect that home
and family during the destruction of the city.

Let none assume, because he lives in "healthful seasons" and during
"peaceful times" that he is safe from enemies. Partially, this
statement is a reminder to be on the watch for the criminal elements
around us and of the dangers they pose. Those are real enough. Mostly,
the reading is a caution concerning the sinister spiritual forces of the
unseen "king who rules over this world," the ruler of this present
"Jericho" (Jn. 16:11). In this temporary life, God expects us to care
for one another as Rahab cared for the spies. What knowledge we have of
"the terrain" of this world, we do well to pass on as life-saving truth
for those we care about, whether family members or those with whom we
are joined in Christ.

Rahab directed the spies to "go into the hill-country" (vs. 16), that is
"the nearby mountains." No doubt she had in mind the rugged country
northwest of Jericho, an area filled with crevices and caves, an ideal
region for hiding from the king's patrols. One tradition believes this
to be the same desert region where the Lord was tempted. What are the
"mountains" of safety toward which we should direct our loved ones and
seek to hide ourselves? Are they not the Church's Holy Mysteries of
Confession and Communion? Is not worship the safe place of temporary
retreat while the enemy is searching us out, to capture and bring us
into his death grip? Ascetic disciplines, including the reading of Holy
Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers are a protective cover from
the probing machinations of the powers of darkness.

The spies told Rahab to use a scarlet cord as a marker to guarantee her
safety and the safety of her loved ones. Here is a reminder to use
tangible signs for pointing to spiritual safety. A cross on the wall,
holy icons in a corner, our prayer books, and candles alert us and ward
off our dread foe. Let us place a scarlet cord of prayer before God.
When we are apart from the Church, physical signs in our homes, cars,
and wallets are God's signals, telling us I Am your Protector. Locks on
our doors, insurance policies, and security systems have a value, but
cannot provide much-needed spiritual shelter. "I will dwell in Thy
tabernacle unto the ages, I shall be sheltered in the shelter of Thy
wings" (Ps. 60:4 LXX).

If anyone calls himself a Christian and fails to keep scarlet cords
around him, to heed the teachings of the Church that mark out the place
of true safety from sworn enemies, "then his guilt shall be upon him,
and [the Lord and the Saints] shall be quit of this thine oath" (vs. 19).

O God, our help, our only hope and refuge, we flee to Thee for relief
and comfort, trusting to Thine infinite love and compassion to deliver
us from all the assaults of the enemy.

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Sunday, August 26, 2007

26/08/07 13th Sunday After Pentecost

[PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A "MENU" FROM WHICH TO PICK AND CHOOSE ONE OR MORE MEDITATIONS. PLEASE DO NOT THINK YOU HAVE TO PRAY ALL OF IT. PLEASE THINK OF IT AS A BUFFET OF THE DIFFERENT FLAVORS OF CHRISTIANITY. IT IS HOPED THAT ALL WILL PRAY THE COLLECT, REFLECT ON THE DAY'S SCRIPTURES AND PRAY THE ANGLICAN CYCLE OF PRAYER. AFTER THAT, YOUR CHOICE. THANK YOU]




Blessed are those for whom Easter is...
not a hunt, but a find;
not a greeting, but a proclamation;
not outward fashions, but inward grace;
not a day, but an eternity.

Collect
Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name; 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/

AM Psalm 146, 147; PM Psalm 111, 112, 113
2 Samuel 24:1-2,10-25; Gal. 3:23-4:7; John 8:12-20
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From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm

Psalm 46. The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold.

I love the Psalms. Many are ascribed to David, the youngest son of Jesse who was called from tending sheep to be anointed as God's shepherd king. We find the life and times of David described and chronicled in other Old Testament books but they are biographical, depicting from a privileged spectator's point of view the momentous events in David's private life as well as his professional life at court and on the battlefield.


But it is in the Psalms that we can experience the inner life of David, the man after God's own heart. Through his poetry set to music, David pours out the wide range of human emotions surrounding the events and circumstances of his life: exaltation, agony, outrage, fear, discouragement, longing, awe, hope, joy, confidence, and more. It is here that I began to grasp the nature of a relationship between the living God whom David called his Shepherd and one whom the Lord called "my son," my beloved.


The Psalms give me permission as God's child to pour out to him thoughts and emotions which I tend to hold onto and carry by myself and, like David, to receive the needed reassurance of the above scripture.
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Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Anglican Church of Korea and the Diocese of Seoul
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
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Speaking to the Soul: http://www.episcopalcafe.com/

God within creation

Daily Reading for August 26 • The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The feature of Celtic spirituality that is probably most widely recognized, both within and outside the Church, is its creation emphasis. Like most children, I had grown up with a sense of awe at creation. Our earliest memories are generally of wonder in relation to the elements. Connected to these moments will be recollections of experiencing at the deepest levels a type of communion with God in nature, but there will usually have been very little in our religious traditions to encourage us to do much more than simply thank God for creation. The preconception behind this is that God is separate from creation. How many of us were taught actually to look for God within creation and to recognize the world as the place of revelation and the whole of life as sacramental? Were we not for the most part led to think that spirituality is about looking away from life, so that the Church is distanced from the world and spirit is almost entirely divorced from the matter of our bodies, our lives and the world?

I had discovered characteristics of the old Celtic Church in the prayers of the Western Isles, but where was the original source of this spiritual tradition? When I explored the earliest manifestations of Celtic Christianity, in the fourth-century writings of Pelagius, for example, I found a similar emphasis on the life of God within creation. This much-maligned early British Christian stressed not only the essential goodness of creation—and our capacity to glimpse what he called ‘the shafts of divine light’ that penetrate the thin veil dividing heaven and earth—but the essential goodness of humanity. It was a spirituality characterized by a listening within all things for the life of God.

From Listening for the Heartbeat of God: A Celtic Spirituality by J. Philip Newell (Paulist Press, 1997).

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Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php

The loveliest masterpiece of the heart of God is the heart of a mother.
St Therese of the Child Jesus
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Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html

Abba Poemen said that Abba John said that the saints are like a group of trees, each bearing different fruit, but watered from the same source. The practices of one saint differ from those of another, but it is the same Spirit that works in all of them.

Abba John said to his brother, 'Even if we are entirely despised in the eyes of men, let us rejoice that we are honoured in the sight of God.'
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Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/

Remembering the Dead

When we lose a dear friend, someone we have loved deeply, we are left with a grief that can paralyse us emotionally for a long time. People we love become part of us. Our thinking, feeling and acting are codetermined by them: Our fathers, our mothers, our husbands, our wives, our lovers, our children, our friends ... they are all living in our hearts. When they die a part of us has to die too. That is what grief is about: It is that slow and painful departure of someone who has become an intimate part of us. When Christmas, the new year, a birthday or anniversary comes, we feel deeply the absence of our beloved companion. We sometimes have to live at least a whole year before our hearts have fully said good-bye and the pain of our grief recedes. But as we let go of them they become part of our "members" and as we "re-member" them, they become our guides on our spiritual journey.
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From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis: http://www.tssf.org/textonly/principles.shtml

Therefore, we seek to love all those to whom we are bound by ties of family or friendship. Our love for them increases as their love for Christ grows deeper. We have a special love and affection for members of the Third Order, praying for each other individually and seeking to grow in that love. We are on our guard against anything which might injure this love, and we seek reconciliation with those from whom we are estranged. We seek the same love for those with whom we have little natural affinity, for this kind of love is not a welling up of emotion, but is a bond founded in our common union with Christ.
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Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/

Broken Open
August 26th, 2007
Sunday’s Reflection

CULTURE’S MESSAGE is immediate fulfillment, gratification. But when I hungrily seek control in my power, with my plans, I am full, brimming over with empty calories, and strangely unfulfilled. I pray to be broken open — unafraid of change — and pour out pride. My Spirit fast teaches me as I am willing to yield, more space for grace appears, and more of Christ, Bread of Life, is revealed.

- Roberta Porter
“Broken Open”
Alive Now

From page 48 of Alive NowMarch/April 2001. Copyright © 2001 by The Upper Room. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission. http://www.upperroom.org/bookstore/.
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Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html

"The Third Temptation of Christ (Control)"

After the need to be successful and the need to think well of the self, the third human addiction is the need for control or power. So the devil tells Jesus to bow down before the systems of this world: All of them you can have (Matthew 4:8). Just buy them. Believe in them. Jesus refuses to bow down before the little kingdoms of this world, the corporations and the nation-states, the security systems, the idols of militarism. The price of this love of power is to fall at Satan's feet and worship him! (Matthew4:9). That's a very heavy judgement on all the kingdoms of the world. In all these systems, self-interest has to dominate. For Kingdom people, self-interest cannot dominate.

Simply put, the third temptation is the need to be in control, to be aligned with power and money. The three temptations that Jesus faces, in a certain sense, all become one: the addictive system, the great lie, the untouchable mythology, the sin of the world (John 1:29) that must be unmasked and dethroned. And I know nothing strong enough to break the mythology not ideology, not liberalism, not conservatism except the upside-down gospel of Jesus. You must re-found your life on a new foundation, the foundation, the foundation of your experienced union with God.

Jesus tells Satan, "You must worship the Lord your God, and serve God alone." And the devil left him (Matthew 4:10-11). When you have faced these three biggies, Satan doesn't have a chance.

from Preparing for Christmas With Richard Rohr
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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

By the cross the martyrs were strengthened

We who worship Christ on the cross must try to grasp the greatness of his power and all the wonders he has wrought through the cross on our behalf; the holy David says: Our God and eternal King has wrought salvation throughout the world. For through the cross the nations were caught as in a net and the seeds of faith were sown everywhere. With the cross, as though with a plow, the disciples of Christ cultivated the unfruitful nature of humankind, revealed the Church's ever-green pastures, and gathered in an abundant harvest of believers in Christ. By the cross the martyrs were strengthened, and as they fell they smote down those who struck them. Through the cross Christ became known, and the Church of the faithful, with the scriptures ever open before her, introduces us to this same Christ, the Son of God, who is truly God and truly Lord, and who cries out: Any who wish to come after me must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

Andrew of Crete
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Daily Readings From "My Utmost for His Highest", Oswald Chambers
http://www.myutmost.org/

ARE YOU EVER DISTURBED?


"Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you." John 14:27

There are times when our peace is based upon ignorance, but when we awaken to the facts of life, inner peace is impossible unless it is received from Jesus. When Our Lord speaks peace, He makes peace, His words are ever "spirit and life." Have I ever received what Jesus speaks? "My peace I give unto you" - it is a peace which comes from looking into His face and realizing His undisturbedness.

Are you painfully disturbed just now, distracted by the waves and billows of God's providential permission, and having, as it were, turned over the boulders of your belief, are you still finding no well of peace or joy or comfort; is all barren? Then look up and receive the undisturbedness of the Lord Jesus. Reflected peace is the proof that you are right with God because you are at liberty to turn your mind to Him. If you are not right with God, you can never turn your mind anywhere but on yourself. If you allow anything to hide the face of Jesus Christ from you, you are either disturbed or you have a false security.

Are you looking unto Jesus now, in the immediate matter that is pressing and receiving from Him peace? If so, He will be a gracious benediction of peace in and through you. But if you try to worry it out, you obliterate Him and deserve all you get. We get disturbed because we have not been considering Him. When one confers with Jesus Christ the perplexity goes, because He has no perplexity, and our only concern is to abide in Him. Lay it all out before Him, and in the face of difficulty, bereavement and sorrow, hear Him say, "Let not your heart be troubled."
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Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/

Chapter 68: If a Sister Is Commanded to Do Impossible Things

If it happens
that difficult or impossible tasks are laid on a sister,
let her nevertheless receive the order of the one in authority
with all meekness and obedience.
But if she sees that the weight of the burden
altogether exceeds the limit of her strength,
let her submit the reasons for her inability
to the one who is over her
in a quiet way and at an opportune time,
without pride, resistance, or contradiction.
And if after these representations
the Superior still persists in her decision and command,
let the subject know that this is for her good,
and let her obey out of love,
trusting in the help of God.


Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html

An old Jewish proverb teaches, "When you have no choice, don't be afraid." A modern saying argues, "There's no way out but through." The straight and simple truth is that there are some things in life that must be done, even when we don't want to do them, even when we believe we can't do them. Is the rule cruel on this point? Not if there is any truth in experience at all. The reality is that we are often incapable of assessing our own limits, our real talents, our true strength, our necessary ordeals. If parents and teachers and employers and counselors and prioresses somewhere hadn't insisted, we would never have gone to college or stayed at the party or tried the work or met the person or begun the project that, eventually, changed our lives and made us more than we ever knew ourselves to be. Benedict understood clearly that the function of leadership is to call us beyond ourselves, to stretch us to our limits, to turn the clay into breathless beauty. But, first, of course, we have to allow it to happen.

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Dynamis http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orthodoxdynamis/
Dynamis is a daily Bible meditation based upon the lectionary of the Holy Orthodox Church.

Sunday, August 26, 2007 Tone 4 The Martyrs Adrian
and Natalia of Nicomedia
Kellia: Joshua 2:8-14 Epistle: 1 Corinthians 16:13-24
Gospel: St. Matthew 21:33-42

Rahab the Ancestor ~ 3: A Convert's Confession: Joshua 2:8-14 LXX,
especially vs. 11, "The Lord your God is God in heaven above, and on the
earth beneath." All that the Prophet Joshua recorded concerning Rahab
in today's passage reveals the truths that shaped her character and
prepared her to be an ancestor of the Lord after the flesh. Thus, we
have her heartfelt convictions that led her to shelter the spies of the
army of Israel. Her words, as we have them from the Soldier-Prophet,
clearly disclose a faith and God-inspired depth of soul which marks
those whose assertions and definitions we deem to be true theology.

What St. Maximos teaches us concerning Moses applies in full measure to
Rahab: "when [Moses] established his will and mind outside the world of
visible things he began to worship God." In her assertions, observe
that Rahab rejected the visible, tangible world of Jericho in her will
and mind with all its pagan loyalties. Further, she committed herself
to the Lord and the People to whom He had "given...the land" (vs. 9).
Rahab saw clearly that within the citizens of Jericho "there was no
longer any spirit" (vs. 11). However, after she heard what God had done
on Israel's behalf, her heart prompted her to aid and abet those who
were the natural enemies of her people after the flesh. Foreseeing
Jericho's annihilation, and with care for her loved ones, she pleaded in
the Name of the Lord that the spies "save alive" her entire family (vs.
13).

The theology that Rahab evinced, as Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos
notes of all Divine truth, was "not given by human knowledge and zeal,
but by the work of the Holy Spirit which dwells in the pure heart."
Examining Rahab's theological statements, we find that they contain in
them the seeds of that same Divine theology that emerged later in the
Nicene Creed. It is right to say that her assertions clearly establish
her as one being purified by the grace of God.

First, Rahab declared that God has a chosen People through whom He is
accomplishing what we might call His "master plan" for mankind She
perceived God acting in the history of nations and peoples, giving land
to the People of His choice (vs. 9), drying up the sea, and utterly
destroying kingdoms before these People (vs. 10). What else can we mean
when we say, "I believe in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church,"
than committing ourselves to the People of God and to what He is doing
in the destiny of nations and peoples? Ancient Rome was a mighty
empire, but is gone. Its successor, Byzantium, flourished for 1000
years, and was overrun. The Bolsheviks seized Russia, and they are
gone. The Holy Orthodox Church remains.

Rahab affirmed that God is the Lord of history and Governor of all, the
Lord Whom the sea obeys and against Whom no human or spiritual power can
finally prevail (vss. 9,10). Already in her words we may discern the
outline of Orthodox dogma: "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible."

In her declarations, Rahab accepted the invincibility of God: that
whatever He reveals as His will is as good as accomplished even before
it happens: "I know that the Lord has given you the land" (vs. 9). What
powers can oppose Him? There are none, as we know; for not even sin and
death can oppose Him, which is why we say, "And [we believe] in one
Lord, Jesus Christ....Who....was crucified also for us under Pontius
Pilate, and suffered and was buried." A defeat of God's will? Not at
all, for "the third day He rose again." What is more, "He shall come
again with glory to judge the quick and the dead, Whose kingdom shall
have no end."

In Rahab was true Divine theology, which in her Descendant was literally
completed!
O Christ our God, King of all and Creator of all, Who wast born from a
lineage of many forebears in the flesh, to renew the creation of us
earthly beings; glory to Thy condescension!

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Thursday, August 23, 2007

23/08/07 Thursday in the week of the 12th Sunday after Pentecost

Thursday, August 23, 2007 Hieromartyr Irenaios, Bishop of Lyons;
Apodosis - Dormition
Kellia: Joel 3:9-21 Epistle: 2 Corinthians
10:7-18 Gospel: St. Mark 3:28-35

Judgment & Restoration ~ Final Judgment and Restoration: Joel 3:9-21
LXX, especially vs. 12: "Let them be aroused, let all the nations go up
to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the
Gentiles round about." In Joel 2:28-3:8, the focus of the Prophet's
Divine message shifted from a local devastation and recovery experienced
by the people of Judah to worldwide judgment - a great gathering of all
peoples in "the valley of Jehoshaphat" before the Lord (Joel 3:2).
Jehoshaphat means "the Lord judges." Now, in the final verses of Joel,
God proclaims His last dread Judgment and also His final restoration of
His People. How God's final Judgment and His glorious Restoration stand
in marked contrast to each other!

The image of God treading the grapes expresses His wrath, "for their
wickedness is multiplied" and "the press is full" with their evil doings
(vs. 13). At the same time, "the Lord shall spare His people, and shall
strengthen the children of Israel" (vs. 16). God commands all the
peoples who have been at war with Him as well as His People, the Church,
to "declare war, arouse the warriors, draw near and go up, all ye men of
war. Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your sickles into spears:
let the weak say, I am strong. Gather yourselves together, and go in,
all ye nations round about, and gather yourselves there" in the valley
where the Lord judges (vss. 9-11).

Still, the Lord assures those who are His own, that He, "the Lord shall
spare His people, and shall strengthen the children of Israel. And ye
shall know that I Am the Lord your God, Who dwell in Sion My holy
mountain" (vss. 16,17). Make no mistake: the Lord "is our God, and we
are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand" (Ps. 94:7
LXX). Therefore, in the shocks and trials of the last days, the Lord
will be the only secure refuge to which the Faithful will be able to
cling, for the tribulation shall be such as "has not been since the
beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be" (Mt.
24:21). In fact, the Lord Jesus tells us that "unless those days were
shortened, no flesh would be saved" (Mt. 24:22).

Next, because great wickedness has been perpetrated against the Church,
desolation will come to whole nations "because of the wrongs," done to
the children of the Kingdom, "because they have shed righteous blood in
their land" (Joel 3:19). The Lord will avenge their blood, and not
clear the guilty" (Joel 3:21). God's Saints will be justified and
"Jerusalem" - the Church - "shall be holy, and strangers shall not pass
through her anymore" (vs. 17). The blood of the martyrs will be
reckoned to those who tortured and killed them. "Therefore," the Lord
counsels us, " be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do
not expect" (Mt. 24:44).

The great worldly kingdoms, including the enemies of the ancient People
of God, nations such as Egypt and Idumea, as well as all oppressors of
the Church through the ages, "shall become a desolation...a desolate
wilderness, for the violence done" to the People of God (Joel 3:19). In
contrast, the Lord promises that "in that day" of Judgment against the
enemies of God, the Saints will receive the opposite: "the mountains
shall drop sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the
fountains of Judah shall flow with water, and a fountain shall go forth
of the house of the Lord, and water the valley" (Joel 3:18). The Living
Fountain, Jesus, shall accomplish a glorious, eternal restoration.
"Judah," God's eternal Kingdom, "shall be inhabited forever, and
Jerusalem," the Church, "to all generations" (Joel 3:20).

Beloved of the Life-giving and Saving Christ, His grace of restoration
hath risen for us, like the sun, just as the Prophet promised. Let us
not come to the valley of Jehoshaphat as enemies, but repent and be
cleansed at the Fountain Who is our only refuge and true salvation.

O Christ our God, glorified in Thy Saints, in Thy mercy, save us by
their beseechings!

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Tuesday, August 21, 2007

21/08/07 Tuesday in the week of the 12th Sunday after Pentecost

Tuesday, August 21, 2007 Holy Apostle Thaddeus of the Seventy
Kellia: Joel 1:14-2:11 Epistle: 2 Corinthians 8:16-9:5 Gospel: St.
Mark3:13-19

Judgment & Restoration ~ Response to Judgment: Joel 1:14-2:11,
especially vs. 2:11: “The Lord shall utter His voice before His host:
for His camp is very great: for the execution of His words is mighty:
for the day of the Lord is great, very glorious, and who shall be able
to resist it?” In Joel 1:1-14, the Prophet described a plague of locusts
that awakened his heart and enabled him to receive “the word of the
Lord” (Joel 1:1). In turn, that which he heard impelled him to cry out
to his fellow countrymen: “Hear these words, ye elders, and hearken all
ye that inhabit the land.” (Joel 1:2). However, as his prophecy
developed, it became clear that the message was more than merely a plea
to “hear, awake, and be confounded” (Joel 1:2,5,11). Since the “word”
that Joel received came from God, he perceived that it was, in effect, a
command from the Lord Himself. The people were to “wail, lament, and
gird on sackcloth” (Joel 1:5,8,13) - to “sanctify a fast, call a solemn
assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the
house of the Lord your God; and cry to the Lord” (Joel 1:14). God’s
judgment revealed to the Prophet in a natural disaster was actually a
Divine command, requiring a response.

The present verses (1:14-2:11) continue the earlier passage (Joel
1:1-14), being connected by their sharing verse 14. This verse is the
Lord’s command to gather before Him for fasting and prayer in His
temple. The pattern of Joel’s presentation moves from a natural
disaster, to Divine judgment, and an expectation that God’s People
respond. The pattern is classically Biblical, and reveals how God
communicates with His People. Thus, when the two passages are read as
one, three truths emerge: 1) When a Prophet writes, it is the Lord Who
is speaking. 2) Catastrophes of this present life are windows for
glimpsing the Great Day of God’s final judgment. 3) Those blessed who
hear of the Great Judgment, also recognize the Lord’s demand to obey Him.

But do not overlook the demand - read the two passages on the basis of
the first verse of the Book of Joel - “the word of the Lord which came
to Joel.”

While one may read, “Joel teaches” or “the Prophet calls upon us to
cry,” yet putting aside what seems apparent, the meaning clearly is “the
Lord teaches” and “God calls upon us to cry.” Both forms of speech are
appropriate, for the Prophet was not as a mindless recorder nor a
“soulless pen” in the Divine hand. We are to pay attention to Joel as a
Spirit-filled, holy man of prayer, one whom the Holy Fathers call a
“true theologian,” a Prophet having Divine authority.

It was purity of heart in the Prophet that enabled him to be a clarion
voice for God, to be one through whom the Spirit of the Lord speaks.
There was little interference from Joel’s own ideas. Hence, the Prophet
moved easily from describing a local natural disaster to a declaration
of “the day of the Lord” (vs. 1:15), to a proclamation that ultimate,
Divine judgment is very near.

Reading the present passage thoughtfully we find it very difficult to
separate the temporal and the eternal. Is Joel calling the people of God
to sanctify a fast simply to seek amelioration from the ruinous
consequences of a disaster in which a swarm of locusts stripped the
countryside? Not entirely. He is calling God’s people through all time
to tremble for “the day of the Lord is near...a day of darkness and
gloominess, a day of cloud and mist” (vss. 2:1,2). On the Prophet’s
lips, historic events become transparent to reveal the grand, eternal
plan of God.

Therefore, Brethren, let us heed the Prophet, for his call from God is
for us as well as for the people of Joel’s generation. The Lord utters
His voice, “go in, sleep in sackcloths...Sanctify a fast, and cry
earnestly to the Lord” (Joel 1:13,14). Repentance must be our way of life.

If I think upon the multitude of my evil deeds, I tremble for the
terrible Day of Judgment. But trusting the compassion of Thy mercy, I
shout to Thee, Have mercy upon me, O God.

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Monday, August 20, 2007

20/08/07 Monday in the week of the 12th Sunday after Pentecost

[PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A "MENU" FROM WHICH TO PICK AND CHOOSE ONE OR MORE MEDITATIONS. PLEASE DO NOT THINK YOU HAVE TO PRAY ALL OF IT. PLEASE THINK OF IT AS A BUFFET OF THE DIFFERENT FLAVORS OF CHRISTIANITY. IT IS HOPED THAT ALL WILL PRAY THE COLLECT, REFLECT ON THE DAY'S SCRIPTURES AND PRAY THE ANGLICAN CYCLE OF PRAYER. AFTER THAT, YOUR CHOICE. THANK YOU]




Blessed are those for whom Easter is...
not a hunt, but a find;
not a greeting, but a proclamation;
not outward fashions, but inward grace;
not a day, but an eternity.

Collect

Almighty God, you have given your only Son to be for us a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life: Give us grace to receive thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work, and to follow daily in the blessed steps of his most holy life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

O God, by whose grace your servant Bernard of Clairvaux, kindled with the flame of your love, became a burning and a shining light in your Church: Grant that we also may be aflame with the spirit of love and discipline, and walk before you as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
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Today's Scripture http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/

AM Psalm 106:1-18; PM Psalm 106:19-48
2 Samuel 17:24-18:8; Acts 22:30-23:11; Mark 11:12-26
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From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm

Acts 22:30-23:11. The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, or angel, or spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge all three.

The Sadducees and Pharisees might be more clearly understood in terms of our political system of parties that espouse a philosophy and hold offices of authority. They were two of the three recognized parties within organized Judaism at the time of Jesus, the third being the Herodians. The chief priests and scribes were Sadducees. We could say their philosophy was grab for the gusto since this is all there is.


While Jesus condemned the Pharisees' extreme legalism and the hardness of heart created by their rigid adherence to law, he attacked the Sadducees' ignorance of the scriptures and their twisting of the law to further their own wealth and agendas.


Are there contemporary Sadducees? I believe there are those who wear robes and collars, who preside over liturgies, courts, and financial boards, but who believe there is no resurrection, no angel, no spirit, and therefore, by extension, no heaven or hell; people who use scripture but lack understanding and cannot handle it rightly. Do they have the lion's share of authority in my congregation, my diocese, or my church? I hope not.
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Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm

Bernard of Clairvaux:
Psalm 139:1-9 or 19:7-11(12-14)
Ecclesiasticus 39:1-10; John 15:7-11
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Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Sao Paulo (Brazil)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
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Speaking to the Soul: http://www.episcopalcafe.com/


Bernard of Clairvaux

Daily Reading for August 20 • Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, 1153

As a theologian Bernard stood in the Augustinian tradition. Like Anselm before him, St. Bernard believed it was necessary to grasp religious truth by faith before one could probe its meaning. His personal mysticism caused Bernard to look from the mind (as in Anselm) to religious experience for certitude. His theology was deeply concerned about the reality of humans being created in the image of God, and the unity that remains between humans and their Creator. Bernard found this most powerfully expressed and experienced in terms of love (Latin caritas). His interior theology was often phrased in the language of romantic love and courtship. Bernard understood the love song of the Hebrew Scriptures, Canticles, as a vivid description of the soul’s relationship with God; his sermons on Song of Songs were among his most influential works.

From “Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)” in Invitation to Christian Spirituality: An Ecumenical Anthology, edited by John R. Tyson (Oxford University Press, 1999).
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Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php

Take God for your bridegroom and friend, and walk with him continually; and you will not sin and will learn to love, and the things you must do will work out prosperously for you.
St John of the Cross
Sayings of Light and Love, 68.
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Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html

Abba John gave this advice, 'Watching means to sit in the cell and be always mindful of God. This is what is meant by, "I was on the watch and God came to me." (Matt. 25:36)

One of the Fathers said of him, 'Who is this John, who by his humility has all Scetis hanging from his little finger?'
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Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/

The Treasure of the Poor

The poor have a treasure to offer precisely because they cannot return our favours. By not paying us for what we have done for them, they call us to inner freedom, selflessness, generosity, and true care. Jesus says: "When you have a party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; then you will be blessed, for they have no means to repay you and so you will be repaid when the upright rise again" (Luke 14:13-14).

The repayment Jesus speaks about is spiritual. It is the joy, peace, and love of God that we so much desire. This is what the poor give us, not only in the afterlife but already here and now.
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The Merton Reflection for the Week of August 20, 2007 http://www.mertoninstitute.org/

"[A] mature contemplative is far more simple than any child or any novice, because theirs is a more or less negative simplicity-the simplicity of those in whom potential complications have not yet had a chance to develop. But in the contemplative, all complexities have begun to straighten themselves out and dissolve into unity and emptiness and interior peace. The contemplative, nourished by emptiness, endowed by poverty and liberated from all sorrow by simple obedience, drinks fortitude and joy from the will of God in all things. Without any need for complicated reasoning or mental efforts or special acts, the contemplative's life is a prolonged immersion in the rivers of tranquility that flow from God into the whole universe and draw all things back to God. For God's love is like a river springing up in the depth of the Divine Substance and flowing endlessly through His creation, filling all things with life and goodness and strength. All things, except our own sins, are carried and come to us in the waters of this pure and irresistible stream."

Thomas Merton. New Seeds of Contemplation. New York: New Directions Press, 1961: 266.

Thought to Remember

"We become like vessels that have been emptied of water that they may be filled with wine. We are like glass cleansed of dust and grime to receive the sun and vanish into its light."

New Seeds of Contemplation: 264

From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis: http://www.tssf.org/textonly/principles.shtml

Day Twenty - The Third Way of Service, cont'd

Tertiaries endeavor to serve others in active work. We try to find expression for each of the three aims of the Order in our lives, and whenever possible actively help others who are engaged in similar work. The chief form of service which we have to offer is to reflect the love of Christ, who, in his beauty and power, is the inspiration and joy of our lives.
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Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/

Our Part
August 20th, 2007
Monday’s Reflection

OUR PART is to pray;
God’s part is to weave everything
into the tapestry
of the divine will.

- Steve Harper
Talking in the Dark: Praying When Life Doesn’t Make Sense

From page 95 of Talking in the Dark: Praying When Life Doesn’t Make Sense by Steve Harper. Copyright © 2007 by the author. Published by Upper Room Books. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission. http://www.upperroom.org/bookstore/
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Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html


"Transformation and Change"

There is a difference between change and transformation. Change happens when something old dies and something new begins. I am told that planned change is as troublesome to the psyche as unplanned change, often more so. We feel manipulated, forced, and impute it to some evil authorities, the change agents! But change might or might not be accompanied by transformation of soul. I'm afraid it is usually not. If change does not invite personal transformation, we lose our souls. Such is the modern malaise. We mass-produce neurotics and narcissists because there are so few medicine men and healing women and Spirit guides to walk us through transformation.

At times of change, the agents of transformation must work overtime, even though few will hear them. The ego would sooner play victim or too-quick victor than take the ambiguous road of transformation. We change-agents need a simple virtue: faith. It still is the rarest of commodities because it feels like nothing, at least nothing that satisfies our need to know, to fix, to manage, to understand. Faith goes against the grain.

Transformation in times of change is the exception, but it is also the norm. Deutero-Isaiah was written in exile; Francis of Assisi emerged as the first clocks turned time into money; and the martyrs of El Salvador spilled their blood during the last gasps of colonial and economic oppression. Nothing new seems to happen except when the old dies. But the old does not die gracefully: It always takes hostages. These have the potential of building bridges to the next coming of Christ.

from from Radical Grace, A Transitional Generation
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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

Inner peace flows from love

The way to attain the perfection of divine love is thus stated. Do you think that I have come to bring peace on earth? In other words: Do not imagine that I have come to offer people a sensual, worldly, and unruly peace that will enable them to be united in their vices and achieve earthly prosperity. No, I tell you, I have not come to offer that kind of peace, but rather division — a good, healthy kind of division, physical as well as spiritual. Love for God and desire for inner peace will set those who believe in me at odds with wicked men and women, and make them part company with those who would turn them from their course of spiritual progress and from the purity of divine love, or who attempt to hinder them.

Good, interior, spiritual peace consists in the repose of the mind in God, and in a rightly ordered harmony. To bestow this peace was the chief reason for Christ's coming. This inner peace flows from love. It is an unassailable joy of the mind in God, and it is called peace of heart. It is the beginning and a kind of foretaste of the peace of the saints in heaven — the peace of eternity.

Denis the Carthusian
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Daily Readings From "My Utmost for His Highest", Oswald Chambers
http://www.myutmost.org/

COMPLETENESS


"And I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once and ask Him to establish rest. Never allow anything to remain which is making the dis-peace. Take every element of disintegration as something to wrestle against, and not to suffer. Say - Lord, prove Thy consciousness in me, and self-consciousness will go and He will be all in all. Beware of allowing self-consciousness to continue because by slow degrees it will awaken self-pity, and self-pity is Satanic. Well, I am not understood; this is a thing they ought to apologize for; that is a point I really must have cleared up. Leave others alone and ask the Lord to give you Christ-consciousness, and He will poise you until the completeness is absolute.

The complete life is the life of a child. When I am consciously conscious, there is something wrong. It is the sick man who knows what health is. The child of God is not conscious of the will of God because he is the will of God. When there has been the slightest deviation from the will of God, we begin to ask - What is Thy will? A child of God never prays to be conscious that God answers prayer, he is so restfully certain that God always does answer prayer.

If we try to overcome self-consciousness by any common-sense method, we will develop it tremendously. Jesus says, "Come unto Me and I will give you rest," i.e., Christ-consciousness will take the place of self-consciousness. Wherever Jesus comes He establishes rest, the rest of the perfection of activity that is never conscious of itself.
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G. K. Chesterton Day by Day
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/gkcday/gkcday.html

SURELY the vilest point of human vanity is exactly that; to ask to be admired for admiring what your admirers do not admire.

Introduction to 'Bleak House.'
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Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/

Chapter 64: On Constituting an Abbess

In the constituting of an Abbess
let this plan always be followed,
that the office be conferred on the one who is chosen
either by the whole community unanimously in the fear of God
or else by a part of the community, however small,
if its counsel is more wholesome.

Merit of life and wisdom of doctrine
should determine the choice of the one to be constituted,
even if she be the last of the order of the community.

But if (which God forbid)
the whole community should agree to choose a person
who will acquiesce in their vices,
and if those vices somehow become known to the Bishop
to whose diocese the place belongs,
or to the Abbots, Abbesses or the faithful of the vicinity,
let them prevent the success of this conspiracy of the wicked,
and set a worthy steward over the house of God.
They may be sure
that they will receive a good reward for this action
if they do it with a pure intention and out of zeal for God;
as, on the contrary, they will sin if they fail to do it.

Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html

The way an abbot or prioress is chosen is, like most other things in the rule, left up to the changing needs of the group. Why an abbot or prioress is chosen is not. As far as the rule is concerned, only "those who show goodness of life and wisdom in teaching" are fit for the position. Fund raisers and business people, efficiency experts and pious ascetics, administrators and philosophers are not ruled out, they are simply not defined in as categories that demand consideration. The implication is that if we choose those good of life and wise of heart then everything else will follow. We, of course, are always tempted to look for short cuts to success: we look for the people who can trim our organizations or shape up our projects or stabilize our ministries. Benedictine spirituality cautions us always to follow only the good and the wise, only those who call us to our best selves, our fullest selves, knowing that if we live according to the scriptures and choose according to the deepest and highest and greatest of human ideals, then life cannot fail for us, whatever its struggles, whatever its cost. "If I do not acquire ideals in my youth, " Maimonides wrote, "when will I? Not in old age."

Benedictine spirituality tells us to choose for ideals at every turn, even at those times when management seems more important than vision.
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Dynamis http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orthodoxdynamis/
Dynamis is a daily Bible meditation based upon the lectionary of the Holy Orthodox Church.

Monday, August 20,
2007
The Holy Prophet Samuel
Kellia: Joel 1:1-14 Epistle: 2 Corinthians
8:7-15 Gospel: St. Mark 3:6-12

Judgment & Restoration ~ Judgment Foreshadowed: Joel 1:1-14 LXX,
especially vss. 12, 13: "The vine is dried up, and the fig-trees are
become few; the pomegranate, and palm-tree, and apple, and all trees of
the field are dried up: for the sons of men have abolished joy. Gird
yourselves with sackcloth, and lament, ye priests: mourn, ye that serve
at the altar: go in, sleep in sackcloths." Unimaginable degradation and
butchery have stalked the earth in our time. Unforgiving upheavals of
nature wreak dark calamities. Brutal men unleash savage wars, terrors,
and bloody revolutions. These scourges haunt our news or direct
experiences; our hearts and minds reel. How shall we, People of Faith,
understand these shocks of evil along with God's love and providence
given as blessings from nature, the artistry of men and women, and the
findings and application of science? The Prophets teach us to heed both
God's judgment in calamities and to "rejoice and be glad...in the Lord
your God" (Joel 2:23).

Joel emphasizes both aspects of the Lord's activity in the fabric of
history, "the blood and fire and columns of smoke" (Joel 2:30), as well
as "the sweet wine and the hills" flowing with milk (Joel 3:18). In
this opening passage of his Prophecies, he describes a natural disaster
that swept over Judah, withering life and consuming everything before it
- "the swarming locust" (Joel 1:4). These devouring insects consumed
standing grain in the fields and stripped vineyards and fruit trees
bare. A wave of insects removed food from man and beast. These
invaders were fierce in their destructiveness. Hence, Joel urges us to
"tell your children concerning them, and let your children tell their
children, and their children another generation " (vs. 3). He could
remember nothing like it in his lifetime nor ever before (vs. 2). We
understand him in our time.

The Prophet teaches us to wake up (vs. 5) and perceive "the word of the
Lord" (vs. 1), to allow the events of life to rouse us, much as the
locust plague awakened him (vs. 1). We learn from Joel to be
historians, and not to reduce events of life to mere "news stories," but
also not to see what happens only with the eyes of the flesh. Indeed,
"hear what the Spirit says" (Rev. 2:7)! "Hear this, you aged men, give
ear, all inhabitants of the land!" (vs. 2).

Attentiveness in the heart to what the Lord says opens the inner eye to
deeper, spiritual levels of existence, to a Divine vision of the history
of nations and peoples. Deadened by routine and the enjoyment of the
good things of life, we are apt to discover no interior blessings, being
virtual dead souls walking about in dying bodies: "Awake, you drunkards"
(vs. 5)!

The conditions of life often change overnight and catch us unaware.
Locusts devastate a whole region. HIV infects half the population of an
entire nation. An annual physical exposes metastatic cancer raging
throughout the body. Friday afternoon comes, with a bitter pink slip
and a final pay check. A note on the kitchen table announces, "I have
left you and gone away. I will not be back. Hug the kids for me." Oh,
yes, "the sweet wine" often is "cut off from your mouth" (vs. 5) when
you least expect it. Perhaps you will not be ready to accept all from God.

Observe the admonitions of the Prophet Joel. Then, may his experience
be a wake-up call, that we not be startled by unexpected and sore
calamities. Rather, let us "lament" (vs. 8), and "mourn" (vs. 9) and
"wail" (vs. 11), "gird on sackcloth" (vs. 13), and sanctify the Church's
holy seasons of fasting and Her regular week-day fasts. Above all let
us "gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house
of [our] God, and cry earnestly to the Lord (vs. 14).

Grant, O Lord Jesus Christ, that we may complete the remaining time of
our life in peace and repentance, ending this present life with a good
defense before Thy dread Judgment Seat.

Labels:

Sunday, August 19, 2007

19/08/07 12th Sunday after Pentecost

[PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A "MENU" FROM WHICH TO PICK AND CHOOSE ONE OR MORE MEDITATIONS. PLEASE DO NOT THINK YOU HAVE TO PRAY ALL OF IT. PLEASE THINK OF IT AS A BUFFET OF THE DIFFERENT FLAVORS OF CHRISTIANITY. IT IS HOPED THAT ALL WILL PRAY THE COLLECT, REFLECT ON THE DAY'S SCRIPTURES AND PRAY THE ANGLICAN CYCLE OF PRAYER. AFTER THAT, YOUR CHOICE. THANK YOU]




Blessed are those for whom Easter is...
not a hunt, but a find;
not a greeting, but a proclamation;
not outward fashions, but inward grace;
not a day, but an eternity.

Collect
Almighty God, you have given your only Son to be for us a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life: Give us grace to receive thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work, and to follow daily in the blessed steps of his most holy life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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Today's Scripture http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/

AM Psalm 118; PM Psalm 145
2 Samuel 17:1-23; Gal. 3:6-14; John 5:30-47
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From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm

Hebrews 12:1-14. My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him; for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves and chastises every child whom he accepts.

The late Erma Bombeck described the funny side of parenting and life in '60s suburbia. Occasionally she wrote a serious piece which went straight to the heart of her subject. One such piece, entitled "I Loved You Enough,"lists some of the ways she and her husband disciplined their children. It included things like setting and enforcing bedtimes and curfews, requiring baths and completed chores, expressing expectations and disappointment when behavior fell short.


Each of us can make a list of family rules which when broken brought unpleasant punishment and isolation. We may have felt hatred, expressed or not, toward our parents during the times of punishment. Hopefully, each of us can remember a turning point when we were able to say, "Thank God, you made me do this," or "wouldn't let me do that."


God is a father. Thankfully, he loves us enough to set boundaries, standards, and expectations, to instruct and correct. He gives us the freedom to make choices and mistakes, to slam the door as we leave home, but also to return home to his loving arms.
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Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Santiago (Philippines)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
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Speaking to the Soul: http://www.episcopalcafe.com/

The consecrated life

Daily Reading for August 19 • The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

There is a profound sense in which all of one’s life is lived out in God’s presence, and this recognition becomes a powerful tool for understanding all of one’s life as being consecrated unto God. The Carmelite lay brother Nicholas Herman (1611-91), known as “Brother Lawrence,” cultivated and practiced this sort of life, and its character has been preserved for us under the title Practice of the Presence of God (1692). Without forsaking the mysterium tremendum, Brother Lawrence advocated a style of spirituality that developed a continual sense of being in God’s presence, and the practice of returning to God’s presence through deliberate acts of prayer. He aspired to a habitual sense of God’s presence that penetrated and invigorated all of a Christian’s life. Brother Lawrence wrote: “This presence of God, if practiced faithfully, works secretly in the soul and produces marvelous effects, and leads it insensibly to the simple grace, that long sight of God every where present, which is the most holy, the most solid, the easiest, the most efficacious manner of prayer.”

From Invitation to Christian Spirituality: An Ecumenical Anthology, edited by John R. Tyson (Oxford University Press, 1999).
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Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php

She lived in solitude, and now in Solitude has built her nest; and in Solitude her beloved alone guides her, who also bears in solitude the wound of love.
St John of the Cross
Spiritual Canticle, 35.
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Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html

Abba John said, 'We have put the light burden on one side, that is to say, self-accusation, and we have loaded ourselves with a heavy one, that is to say, self-justification.'

He also said, 'Humility and the fear of God are above all virtues.'
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Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/

Focussing Our Minds and Hearts

How can we stay in solitude when we feel that deep urge to be distracted by people and events? The most simple way is to focus our minds and hearts on a word or picture that reminds us of God. By repeating quietly: "The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want," or by gazing lovingly at an icon of Jesus, we can bring our restless minds to some rest and experience a gentle divine presence.

This doesn't happen overnight. It asks a faithful practice. But when we spend a few moments every day just being with God, our endless distractions will gradually disappear.
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From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis: http://www.tssf.org/textonly/principles.shtml

Jesus took on himself the form of a servant. He came not to be served, but to serve. He went about doing good: healing the sick, preaching good news to the poor, and binding up the broken hearted.
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Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/

Expressing Vulnerability
August 19th, 2007
Sunday’s Reflection

THE CAPACITY TO EXPRESS vulnerability is a great human strength. We sometimes wish our vulnerabilities would disappear so we wouldn’t have to worry about hiding them. Without these pesky vulnerabilities, we could convince the world that we have it all together, that we have no unsatisfied needs, that we can care constantly for others and never need care ourselves. It is hard to let people see our vulnerable parts — our fears and insecurities, our sadness and shame. To express vulnerability requires courage. Only in exercising this courage, in bravely showing our “weakness” to another, do we achieve a form of real power — the power to ask for help when needed.

- Sarah Parsons
A Clearing Season

From page 38 of A Clearing Season: Reflections for Lent by Sarah Parsons. Copyright © 2005 by the author. Published by Upper Room Books. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission. http://www.upperroom.org/bookstore/.
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Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html



"Your Name-place"

God gives you two names: yours and God's. Listen for that place deep within where God has given you God's own name, that name lovers reveal to one another in intimate moments, where God has told you who God is for you. Who is God for you? It's unlike anybody else. You reflect a part of God that no one else will ever reflect. You reflect back to God a part of the mystery that no one else will understand.

Where God has given you God's intimate name, you also have been given your own name. It takes awhile; it takes some listening, some silence, some suffering, probably. It takes some waiting, desiring; it takes some hoping. But finally we discover that place where we know who we are; we know what God said.

That place-where-the-names-are-One, God's name and your name, that's the place of inner authority. That's the place where the Spirit is able to be heard and received. It's the only place big enough and grand enough to be able to believe the daring gospel of Christ.

I hope someone has given you the freedom and permission to trust your own experience, to listen, and believe your name. It speaks and evokes you and no one else.

from from The Passion of God and the Passion Within
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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

Relying on the goodness of God

Our beloved Savior assures us in various places in his holy scriptures that he never ceases to watch over and care for us, and that he carries us and will always carry us in his own bosom, in his heart, and in his soul. Even if there were a mother who came to forget the child she bore in her womb, he would never forget us; he has written us on his hands, so as to have us always before his eyes; whoever touches us touches the apple of his eye; we should never be anxious about what we need to live on and to wear, for he knows very well that we need these things and takes care to provide them for us.

Let us beware of ever relying on the influence or favor of our friends, on our possessions, intelligence, knowledge, strength, good desires, and resolutions; on our prayers, or even on the confidence we are aware of having in God; on human resources or on any created thing, but solely on the mercy of God. It is not that we should make no use of the things I have mentioned, and bring to our aid everything we can to help us overcome our faults, practice virtue, manage and carry out the work God has put into our hands, and fulfill the duties of our station in life. But we must give up all idea of expecting support from these things, and all the confidence we might have in them, and rely entirely on the goodness of our Lord.

John Eudes
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Daily Readings From "My Utmost for His Highest", Oswald Chambers
http://www.myutmost.org/

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS


Come unto Me." Matthew 11:28

God means us to live a fully-orbed life in Christ Jesus, but there are times when that life is attacked from the outside, and we tumble into a way of introspection which we thought had gone. Self-consciousness is the first thing that will upset the completeness of the life in God, and self-consciousness continually produces wrestling. Self-consciousness is not sin; it may be produced by a nervous temperament or by a sudden dumping down into new circumstances. It is never God's will that we should be anything less than absolutely complete in Him. Anything that disturbs rest in Him must be cured at once, and it is not cured by being ignored, but by coming to Jesus Christ. If we come to Him and ask Him to produce Christ-consciousness, He will always do it until we learn to abide in Him.

Never allow the dividing up of your life in Christ to remain without facing it. Beware of leakage, of the dividing up of your life by the influence of friends or of circumstances; beware of anything that is going to split up your oneness with Him and make you see yourself separately. Nothing is so important as to keep right spiritually. The great solution is the simple one - "Come unto Me." The depth of our reality, intellectually, morally and spiritually, is tested by these words. In every degree in which we are not real, we will dispute rather than come.
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Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/

Chapter 63: On the Order of the Community

The juniors, therefore, should honor their seniors,
and the seniors love their juniors.

In the very manner of address,
let no one call another by the mere name;
but let the seniors call their juniors Brothers,
and the juniors call their seniors Fathers,
by which is conveyed the reverence due to a father.
But the Abbot,
since he is believed to represent Christ,
shall be called Lord and Abbot,
not for any pretensions of his own
but out of honor and love for Christ.
Let the Abbot himself reflect on this,
and show himself worthy of such an honor.

And wherever the brethren meet one another
the junior shall ask the senior for his blessing.
When a senior passes by,
a junior shall rise and give him a place to sit,
nor shall the junior presume to sit with him
unless his senior bid him,
that it may be as was written,
"In honor anticipating one another."

Boys, both small and adolescent,
shall keep strictly to their rank in oratory and at table.
But outside of that, wherever they may be,
let them be under supervision and discipline,
until they come to the age of discretion.


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Dynamis http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orthodoxdynamis/
Dynamis is a daily Bible meditation based upon the lectionary of the Holy Orthodox Church.

Sunday, August 19, 2007 Tone 3 The Martyr Andrew the General
and 2,593 Soldiers
Kellia: Ruth 4:1-22 Epistle: 1
Corinthians15:1-11 Gospel: St. Matthew 19:16-26

A Family Saga ~ Duty: Ruth 4:1-22 LXX, especially vs. 6: "I shall not
be able to redeem it for myself, lest I mar my own inheritance; do thou
redeem my right for thyself, for I shall not be able to redeem it." It
helps to keep the virtue of duty in mind while reading this passage.
Under the Mosaic Law, it was a duty to redeem a family's heritage in
land when the property might be sold outside the clan (Lev. 25:23-28).
God commanded redemption as part of a larger principle involving the
entire Promised Land: "land shall not be sold for a permanence; for the
land is Mine...ye shall allow ransoms for the land. (Lev. 25:23,24).

The man Elimelech died while living away from Bethlehem in Moab. The
expectation that his sons would keep claim to the family property in
Bethlehem was threatened by their untimely deaths (Ru. 1:5). How could
the family allotment be retained in Elimelech's extended family in
perpetuity (Lev. 25:25-28)? Being poor, Naomi was without the means to
protect the land of her deceased husband, and the rights of Elimelech's
family to the property were endangered. It is not clear if Naomi was
forced to sell out of poverty, or whether Elimelech had sold the land
before he died in Moab. What ever the case, Naomi's return pressed the
extended family with the obligation to buy it back. Thus, Boaz
declares: "the field which was our brother Elimelech's" must be redeemed
(Ru. 4:3,4). He understood the duty of the family.

Boaz went to the gate of the city, where public business was transacted,
and approached the nearest kin of Elimelech. He put the matter to this
relative: "if thou wilt redeem it, redeem it, but if thou wilt not
redeem it, tell me, and I shall know; for there is no one beside thee to
do the office of a kinsman, and I am after thee: and he said, I am here,
I will redeem it." (vs. 4). The relative closest to Elimelech was
willing to buy until Boaz reminded him of the additional obligation:
"thou must also buy her [Ruth], so as to raise up the name of the dead
upon his inheritance." (vs. 5). She would be included with the land
purchase. Duty aside, the next of kin demurred, "I shall not be able to
redeem it for myself, lest I mar my own inheritance" (vs. 6). His
unwillingness passed the right of redemption to Boaz, the next in line.

"Boaz said to the elders and to all the people, Ye are this day
witnesses, that I have bought all that was Elimelech's, and all that
belonged to Chilion and Mahlon, of the hand of Naomi. Moreover I have
bought for myself for a wife Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, to
raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance; so the name of the
dead shall not be destroyed from among his brethren...ye are this day
witnesses'" (vss. 9,10). The matter was now public record. The
witnesses sealed Boaz' action with a blessing (vss. 11,12) that reads
much like the blessing in the Orthodox marriage service: "Bless them, O
Lord our God, as Thou didst bless Abraham and Sarah. Bless them, O Lord
our God as Thou didst bless Isaac and Rebecca...."

The philosopher, Aristotle, observed that "we become what we are as
persons by the decisions that we ourselves make." Ruth chose to leave
her native land and adopt the People of God (Ru. 1:16). Naomi chose to
direct Ruth to Boaz with a proposal of marriage (Ru. 3:1-4); and Ruth
chose to obey (Ru. 3:5). Boaz chose to "do the part of the next of kin"
if possible (Ru. 3:13). The nearest kinsman declined the duty of
redemption when it entailed marriage to Ruth (Ru. 4:6). Thus, in the
providence of God, Ruth and Boaz became great-grandparents to the holy
Prophet, David. They are immortalized for trust, loyalty, industry,
kindness, submission, and fulfillment of duty, and, thus, became the
ancestors-in-the-flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us all celebrate the memory of the revered forefathers, extolling
their lives by which they were made great and ask of Christ our God that
we may walk in their holy footsteps.

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Saturday, August 18, 2007

18/08/07 Saturday in the week of the 11th Sunday after Pentecost

[PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A "MENU" FROM WHICH TO PICK AND CHOOSE ONE OR MORE MEDITATIONS. PLEASE DO NOT THINK YOU HAVE TO PRAY ALL OF IT. PLEASE THINK OF IT AS A BUFFET OF THE DIFFERENT FLAVORS OF CHRISTIANITY. IT IS HOPED THAT ALL WILL PRAY THE COLLECT, REFLECT ON THE DAY'S SCRIPTURES AND PRAY THE ANGLICAN CYCLE OF PRAYER. AFTER THAT, YOUR CHOICE. THANK YOU]

If you would like these meditations to come directly to your in box, please click here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KnitternunMeditation/


Blessed are those for whom Easter is...
not a hunt, but a find;
not a greeting, but a proclamation;
not outward fashions, but inward grace;
not a day, but an eternity.

Collect

Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Almighty God, who gave to your servant William Porcher DuBose special gifts of grace to understand the Scriptures and to teach the truth as it is in Christ Jesus: Grant that by this teaching we may know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
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Today's Scripture http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/

AM Psalm 107:33-43, 108:1-6(7-13); PM Psalm 33
2 Samuel 16:1-23; Acts 22:17-29; Mark 11:1-11
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From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm

Psalm 108. Grant us your help against the enemy, for vain is the help of man!

The grim headlines for today's lessons might reads "King Cursed While Fleeing," "Absalom Occupies Jerusalem," "Mob Violence at Temple, One Arrest," "Sect Leader Given Warm Welcome for Passover."


Those who cursed David desired to reestablish Saul's kingdom through Absalom, David's estranged son. Having curried the favor and support of this group, Absalom intended to kill his father and assume the throne. David is unsure of God's will and favor as well as the loyalty of those whom he has governed.


Paul, falsely accused by foreign Jews and the target of a death plot, has been taken into Roman custody. While the last headline seems benign, it is the signal
to the religious elite that Jesus must be eliminated. Soon "Hosannas" will be replaced by "Crucify him!"


This is high drama, life and death, each man in a struggle with spiritual and political powers that will impact many lives. Where is God in these circumstances, and what does he require of his chosen?


We know the endings of each of these men whose lives are opened to us in the scriptures. In our own times of uncertainty and questioning we can take heart and model our responses after theirs. Read on!
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Today we remember: http://satucket.com/lectionary/Calendar.htm

William Porcher DuBose:
Psalm 19:7-11(12-14) or 37:3-6,32-33
2 Timothy 1:11-14; Luke 24:25-32
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Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of San Joaquin (United States)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
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Speaking to the Soul: http://www.episcopalcafe.com/

William Porcher DuBose

Daily Reading for August 18 • William Porcher DuBose, 1918

We have our religion through the medium of languages that have been long dead, and that present tendencies in education threaten to render more and more dead to us. Along with the languages, there is a growing disposition to relegate the ideas, the entire symbolic expression and form, of Christianity to the past. The modern world calls for modern modes of thought and modern forms of speech. We have to meet that demand and be able to answer and satisfy whatever of reason or truth there is in it.

There are two tasks before us as students and teachers of Christianity. The first is to know and understand our sources. To begin with, we must know our Old Testament as we have never known it before, if we are to take part in the new interpretation of our New Testament that the times demand. For each time must have its own living interpretation, since the interpretation cannot but be, in half measure at least, relative to the time. If the divine part in it is fixed, the human is progressive and changing just in so far as it is living.

We must cease to treat the phraseology, the forms, definitions, and dogmas of Christianity as sacred relics, too sacred to be handled. We must take them out of their napkins, strip them of their cerements, and turn them into current coin. We must let them do business in the life that is living now, and take part in the thought and feeling and activity of the men of the world of today.

From High Priesthood and Sacrifice by William Porcher DuBose, quoted in A Year With American Saints by G. Scott Cady and Christopher L. Webber. Copyright © 2006. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org

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Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php

Scattering a thousand graces, he passed through these groves in haste, and looking on them as he went, with his glance alone, he clothed them in beauty.
St John of the Cross
Spiritual Canticle, 5.
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Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html

Abba Poemen said of Abba John the Dwarf that he had prayed God to take his passions away from him so that he might become free from care. He went and told an old man this; 'I find myself in peace, without an enemy,' he said. The old man said to him, 'Go beseech God to stir up warfare so that you may regain the affliction and humility that you used to have, for it is by warefare that the soul makes progress.' So he besought God and when warfare came, he no longer prayed that it might be taken away, but said, 'Lord, give me strength for the fight.'
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Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/

Our Poverty, God's Dwelling Place

How can we embrace poverty as a way to God when everyone around us wants to become rich? Poverty has many forms. We have to ask ourselves: "What is my poverty?" Is it lack of money, lack of emotional stability, lack of a loving partner, lack of security, lack of safety, lack of self-confidence? Each human being has a place of poverty. That's the place where God wants to dwell! "How blessed are the poor," Jesus says (Matthew 5:3). This means that our blessing is hidden in our poverty.

We are so inclined to cover up our poverty and ignore it that we often miss the opportunity to discover God, who dwells in it. Let's dare to see our poverty as the land where our treasure is hidden.
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From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis: http://www.tssf.org/textonly/principles.shtml

Day Eighteen - The Second Way of Service, cont'd

As well as the devotional study of Scripture, we all recognize our Christian responsibility to pursue other branches of study, both sacred and secular. In particular, some of us accept the duty of contributing, through research and writing, to a better understanding of the church's mission in the world: the application of Christian principles to the use and distribution of wealth; questions concerning justice and peace; and of all other questions concerning the life of faith.
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Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/

Created to Love
August 18th, 2007
Saturday’s Reflection

GOD CREATED US for a purpose more astonishing and sublime than we can imagine. Every great Christian theologian and saint has borne witness to this high purpose. The human being is created in the divine image and likeness in order to have continual and intimate communion with the One who made us. We are created to love and be loved by God, born to serve and be served by Christ, destined to enjoy the vitality of the Holy Spirit and in turn receive God’s delight in us forever! Such is God’s good pleasure and our highest bliss.

- Marjorie J. Thompson
The Way of Forgiveness

From page 243 of The Way of Forgiveness, Participant’s Book by Marjorie J. Thompson. Copyright © 2002 by Upper Room Books. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission. http://www.upperroom.org/bookstore/.
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Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html

"A Week of Prayers: Jesus Is Our Love"

God of life, bless our days. Keep us alive and in love. Keep us listening. Keep us growing, Mother-God. Keep drawing us closer to you. Help our words, Father-God, not get in the way of your Spirit. Help the words we use not become too many or too confusing. Our faith, Holy One, is in you and not in any words or in any teaching. We just want these words to open us up to you and to your Spirit among us.

Help us not to be afraid of Jesus, the companion you have given us for our journey toward you. As St. Bernard prayed, Jesus, you are honey in our mouth. You are music in our ear. You are a leap of joy in our heart.

from from The Price of Peoplehood and Days of Renewal
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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

Our will wants God

Our lover is eternity, and has made us for himself alone, has restored us by his blessed passion, and keeps us in his blessed love. And all because he is goodness. Our lover desires indeed that our soul should cleave to him with all its might, and ever hold on to his goodness. Beyond our power to imagine does this most please God, and speed the soul on its course.

The love of God Most High for our soul is so wonderful that it surpasses all knowledge. No created being can know the greatness, the sweetness, the tenderness of the love that our Maker has for us. By his grace and help therefore let us in spirit stand and gaze, eternally marveling at the supreme, surpassing, single-minded, incalculable love that God, who is goodness, has for us. Then we can ask reverently of our lover whatever we will. For by nature our will wants God, and the good will of God wants us. We shall never cease wanting and longing until we possess him in fullness and joy. Then we shall have no further wants. Meanwhile his will is that we go on knowing and loving until we are perfected in heaven.

Julian of Norwich
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Daily Readings From "My Utmost for His Highest", Oswald Chambers
http://www.myutmost.org/

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN EXPRESSIONLESS WITH SORROW?


"And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich." Luke 18:23

The rich young ruler went away expressionless with sorrow; he had not a word to say. He had no doubt as to what Jesus said, no debate as to what it meant, and it produced in him a sorrow that had not any words. Have you ever been there? Has God's word come to you about something you are very rich in - temperament, personal affinity, relationships of heart and mind? Then you have often been expressionless with sorrow. The Lord will not go after you, He will not plead, but every time He meets you on that point He will simply repeat - If you mean what you say, those are the conditions.

"Sell all that thou hast," undress yourself morally before God of everything that might be a possession until you are a mere conscious human being, and then give God that. That is where the battle is fought - in the domain of the will before God. Are you more devoted to your idea of what Jesus wants than to Himself? If so, you are likely to hear one of His hard sayings that will produce sorrow in you. What Jesus says is hard, it is only easy when it is heard by those who have His disposition. Beware of allowing anything to soften a hard word of Jesus Christ's.

I can be so rich in poverty, so rich in the consciousness that I am nobody, that I shall never be a disciple of Jesus; and I can be so rich in the consciousness that I am somebody that I shall never be a disciple. Am I willing to be destitute of the sense that I am destitute? This is where discouragement comes in. Discouragement is disenchanted self-love, and self-love may be love of my devotion to Jesus.
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Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/

Chapter 63: On the Order of the Community

Let all keep their places in the monastery
established by the time of their entrance,
the merit of their lives and the decision of the Abbot.
Yet the Abbot must not disturb the flock committed to him,
nor by an arbitrary use of his power ordain anything unjustly;
but let him always think
of the account he will have to render to God
for all his decisions and his deeds.

Therefore in that order which he has established
or which they already had,
let the brethren approach to receive the kiss of peace and Communion,
intone the Psalms and stand in choir.
And in no place whatever should age decide the order
or be prejudicial to it;
for Samuel and Daniel as mere boys judged priests.

Except for those already mentioned, therefore,
whom the Abbot has promoted by a special decision
or demoted for definite reasons,
all the rest shall take their order
according to the time of their entrance.
Thus, for example,
he who came to the monastery at the second hour of the day,
whatever be his age or his dignity,
must know that he is junior
to one who came at the first hour of the day.
Boys, however, are to be kept under discipline
in all matters and by everyone.

Commentary: http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html

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Dynamis http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orthodoxdynamis/
Dynamis is a daily Bible meditation based upon the lectionary of the Holy Orthodox Church.

Saturday, August 18, 2007 The Repose of
John, Abbot of Rila in Bulgaria
Kellia: Ruth 3:1-8 Epistle: 1 Corinthians
1:26-29 Gospel: St. Matthew 20:29-34

A Family Saga ~ Submission: Ruth 3:1-18 LXX, especially vs. 5: "And
Ruth said to her, All that thou shalt say, I will do." In the present
passage, let us recognize a type of the Mystery by which each Christian
is united to Christ: before a Catechumen is exorcised, he is presented
to the Priest by his sponsor, indicating a manifest desire to "flee unto
[God's] Holy Name, and...take refuge under the shelter of [His] wings."
On the Lord's behalf, "the Priest who breathes thrice in the face of the
Catechumen, at the same time making the sign of the Cross thrice upon
his brow and breast, and says, "In the Name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen." Then, the Priest lays his hand upon
the candidate's head, acknowledging that he is worthy to be united to
the flock of God's inheritance, bow down also before Him, and submit to
Him as "King and God." Thus all submit to Christ as Bridegroom, opening
the path to "the Bridal chamber."

While Ruth labored as a beggar in the fields of Boaz, she learned the
stature and character of this "near kinsman" (vs. 12), that he was kind
and of great mercy, that he was an honorable man, and that she had found
favor in his sight. Much in the same manner, a Christian inquirer finds
the same to be true of Christ our God - and much, much more. This
discovery prepares one to submit to the prompting of the Holy Spirit Who
directs all the Faithful to Christ (Jn. 15:26), Who, "with His winnowing
fan...in His hand...will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and
gather His wheat into the barn..." (Mt. 3:17).

In this type, Ruth is instructed by the grace of the Holy Spirit through
Naomi, her mother-in-law. Naomi tells her how she might be espoused to
the godly Boaz: "My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it
may be well with thee?" (Ru. 3:1) St. Augustine notes a like step for
approaching the Church to be joined to the Faithful: "Thou hast made us
for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in
Thee."

The Moabite woman "came secretly, and lifted up the covering of his
feet" (Ru. 3:7). She modestly placed herself in submission to him,
expressing her readiness to be united to him as his bride and wife.
Each of the Lord's own likewise places himself beneath Christ's feet.
Note: God the Father has seated Christ at His right hand, as He declared
through the Prophet, "till I make Thine enemies Thy footstool" (Mt.
22:44). As Ruth sealed her decision to be no longer a Moabite apart
from God's People, but to prostrate herself at the feet of a son of
Israel, so each Catechumen "renounces Satan" and places himself under
Christ, bowing down before Him.

Notice that when Boaz beheld Ruth's presence at Midnight and identified
who she was, she freely admitted her purpose and begged him to "spread
therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid, for thou art a near relation"
(Ru. 3:9). Her words to him said in effect, As nearest of kin, you are
in the position to marry me, the childless widow of a kinsman who
perished in Moab. As we have already noted, in the Baptismal Mystery,
the Church declares to Christ, through His Priest, that the candidate
"hath been found worthy to take refuge under the shelter of [His]
wings," and become a true member of the Jerusalem that is above (Mt.
23:37).

In the fashion of our Lord Jesus Christ, the elder Boaz spoke kindly to
Ruth, blessing her and calling her "daughter" (Ru. 3:10), as the Lord
speaks kindly to the souls of all who seek Him. Further, the man
promised the possibility of marriage, but declared that he must fulfill
the Law completely and determine whether a nearer kinsman would not
exercise his right (vs. 13). Likewise, the Lord came "under the law, to
redeem them that were under the law" (Gal. 4:4,5).

I behold Thy bridal chamber, richly adorned, O my Savior; but I have no
wedding garment to worthily enter. Make radiant the garment of my soul
and save me.

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