knitternun

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

24/10/07 Wed after 21st week 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 and everlasting God, in Christ you have revealed your glory among the nations: Preserve the works of your mercy, that your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession 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 38; PM Psalm 119:25-48
Lam. 2:8-15; 1 Cor. 15:51-58; Matt. 12:1-14
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From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm

Matthew 12:1-14. The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.

Among the many struggles that go on in individual hearts and in society at large is that between rules and common sense. Do we obey a rule simply because it is there or do we use our heads and decide which rules to apply to a given situation? Obviously the latter course would lead to chaos, just as complete adherence to every rule would leave us like the Pharisees in today's reading who elevated Sabbath rules over human health and healing. Rules exist for reasons that are not always apparent to us, but we do have the right--responsibility, even--to make exceptions. That is what Jesus is doing in this story.


There is no rule that tells us when to disobey the rules. The burden of proof is on the disobedient. We must have good reasons and stand by them when we separate ourselves from the rules and norms of our community and our faith. It is also important to know that the exception does not make the rule go away.
If we decide there are reasons to disobey a rule, the exception applies only to that situation; the rule will still be with us tomorrow. The difference between chaos and creativity is that creativity has a norm to which it returns. Chaos does not. Be creative, not chaotic.
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Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Anglican Communion Observer at the United
Nations and the Diocese of Toamasina (Indian Ocean)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
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Speaking to the Soul: http://www.episcopalcafe.com/

Enclose us in your threefold wings

Daily Reading for October 24

Holy Wisdom in your power
Hold us fast in every hour.

Enclose us in your threefold wings
Spreading to embrace all things.

One pierces heaven’s heights above,
Another touches earth with love.

The other moves with tender care
In mystery through the cosmic air.

Holy Wisdom in your power
Enlighten us in every hour.

A prayer of Hildegard of Bingen, quoted in Invincible Spirits: A Thousand Years of Women’s Spiritual Writings, compiled by Felicity Leng (Eerdmans, 2006).
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Spiritual Practice of the Day http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/

I believe this is why truly spiritual people are in the habit of cultivating the nearly forgotten art of basic hospitality, perhaps because they realize that when we are able to make others feel comfortable, the pleasures of belonging are close at hand.
— Phillip L. Berman in The Journey Home

To Practice This Thought: Recall a time when you provided hospitality to others. How did this experience deepen your sense of community?
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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

from http://www.balamandmonastery.org.lb/fathers/indexsayings2.htm

This is the mark of Christianity--however much a man toils, and
however many righteousnesses he performs, to feel that he has done
nothing, and in fasting to say, "This is not fasting," and in
praying, "This is not prayer," and in perseverance at prayer, "I
have shown no perseverance; I am only just beginning to practice
and to take pains"; and even if he is righteous before God, he
should say, "I am not righteous, not I; I do not take pains, but
only make a beginning every day."

St. Macarius the Great
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Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/

Loving the Church

Loving the Church often seems close to impossible. Still, we must keep reminding ourselves that all people in the Church - whether powerful or powerless, conservative or progressive, tolerant or fanatic - belong to that long line of witnesses moving through this valley of tears, singing songs of praise and thanksgiving, listening to the voice of their Lord, and eating together from the bread that keeps multiplying as it is shared. When we remember that, we may be able to say, "I love the Church, and I am glad to belong to it."

Loving the Church is our sacred duty. Without a true love for the Church, we cannot live in it in joy and peace. And without a true love for the Church, we cannot call people to it.
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From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis: http://www.tssf.org/textonly/principles.shtml

Day Twenty Four - The First Note, cont'd

The faults that we see in others are the subject of prayer rather than of criticism. We take care to cast out the beam from our own eye before offering to remove the speck from another's. We are ready to accept the lowest place when asked, and to volunteer to take it. Nevertheless, when asked to undertake work of which we feel unworthy or incapable, we do not shrink from it on the grounds of humility, but confidently attempt it through the power that is made perfect in weakness.
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Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/

Risking the Unknown
October 24th, 2007
Wednesday’s Reflection

KEEPER OF OUR DAYS,
if only we can risk the unknown
and not cling to the familiar,
we will learn of your grace and strength.
Amen.

- Richard Morgan
Settling In: My First Year in a Retirement Community

From page 30 of Settling In: My First Year in a Retirement Community by Richard Morgan. Copyright © 2006 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


The Dreams of Youth

Hindus and Buddhists are way ahead of us Westerners in terms of what their young people idealize. They’re led to idealize holiness, inner freedom, inner truth, rather than simply outer success. Our drive for outer success has given us tremendous advantages in terms of the scientific and industrial revolutions, but Asia and Africa are more able to triumph over the inner world. Wisdom is still idealized as the value that binds them together.

During my travels I was glad to see, in Africa especially, the almost universal puberty rites and initiation rites still in place. Basically they are intense, three-month “CCD programs” that work. The young people are taken apart by the wise men or women of the tribe and taught what wisdom is: “This is what holds us together as a people. This is what we stand for, this is who we are, these are our values.” And when those young men and women return from those kind of groupings, they know who they are.

In our culture, we’re forever searching for our values, what we want to believe in, what we might want to commit ourselves to. Adolescence, the time of open options, now lasts until age thirty-two in the West! In some cultures, adolescence really ends as early as sixteen and seventeen. You often see that in the self-assurance of young people who find their ground and meaning much earlier.

I suspect we actually are stunted and paralyzed by having too many options. We are no longer the developed world; we are the overdeveloped world.

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

How can you believe that you share in eternal life?

If you acknowledge that the Lord's flesh is the bread of life and that it communicates life, and if you know that his blood also gives life to those who receive it and becomes like a spring of water welling up to eternal life in the one who drinks it, tell me how you can possibly receive them in communion without deriving any spiritual benefit, and even if you do perhaps experience a little joy, how you can soon afterwards continue to be the same as you were before, without seeing in yourself any increase of life, any bubbling spring or light of any kind?

To people who have not risen above the level of the senses this bread perceived by the senses seems to be only a fragment of food, but in the spiritual order it is light unapproachable and unbounded. And the wine likewise is light, life, fire, and living water. Therefore, if when you eat the holy bread and drink the wine of gladness you are unaware of having begun to live an incorruptible life, of having received within yourself bread which is luminous or fiery, of having drunk the blood of the Lord as though it were water leaping up and speaking, if you experience nothing whatever of this kind in contemplation and communion, how can you believe that you share in eternal life?

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

THE VIEWPOINT


"Now thanks be to God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ." 2 Corinthians 2:14

The viewpoint of a worker for God must not be as near the highest as he can get, it must be the highest. Be careful to maintain strenuously God's point of view, it has to be done every day, bit by bit; don't think on the finite. No outside power can touch the viewpoint.

The viewpoint to maintain is that we are here for one purpose only, viz., to be captives in the train of Christ's triumphs. We are not in God's showroom, we are here to exhibit one thing - the absolute captivity of our lives to Jesus Christ. How small the other points of view are - I am standing alone battling for Jesus; I have to maintain the cause of Christ and hold this fort for Him. Paul says - I am in the train of a conqueror, and it does not matter what the difficulties are, I am always led in triumph. Is this idea being worked out practically in us? Paul's secret joy was that God took him, a red-handed rebel against Jesus Christ, and made him a captive, and now that is all he is here for. Paul's joy was to be a captive of the Lord, he had no other interest in heaven or in earth. It is a shameful thing for a Christian to talk about getting the victory. The Victor ought to have got us so completely that it is His victory all the time, and we are more than conquerors through Him.

"For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ." We are enwheeled with the odour of Jesus, and wherever we go we are a wonderful refreshment to God.
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Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/

February 23, June 24, October 24
Chapter 18: In What Order the Psalms Are to Be Said

Vespers are to be sung with four Psalms every day.
These shall begin with Psalm 109 and go on to Psalm 147,
omitting those which are set apart for other Hours;
that is to say that
with the exception of Psalms 117 to 127 and Psalms 133 and 142,
all the rest of these are to be said at Vespers.
And since there are three Psalms too few,
let the longer ones of the above number be divided,
namely Psalms 138, 143 and 144.
But let Psalm 116 because of its brevity be joined to Psalm 115.

The order of the Vesper Psalms being thus settled,
let the rest of the Hour --
lesson, responsory, hymn, verse and canticle --
be carried out as we prescribed above.

At Compline the same Psalms are to be repeated every day,
namely Psalms 4, 90 and 133.


Insight for the Ages: A Commentary by Sr Joan Chittister
http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html

In determining the order of the psalms for the prayer life of his community, Benedict grounds Prime, Terce, Sext and None, the Little Hours of the Divine Office, in the Wisdom Psalm, 119. Wisdom psalms were not liturgical hymns of lament or praise. They were meant to instruct the assembly in divine truths and were often built on the alphabet in order to make memorization easier. Modern educators write children's books or songs in the same way and for the same reason. Psalm 119, therefore, has 22 sections, with each of the eight verses of each section beginning with one of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

It is this longest of all psalms, with its theme of the trustworthiness of God's law, the richness of God's will for us, the excellence of God's loving design for us that Benedict wants us to learn and say daily and never forget.
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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.

Wed, October 24, 2007 Great-Martyr Arethas (al-Harith) and
Companions in Arabia
Kellia: Judges 5:19-31 Epistle: Colossians
3:17-4:1 Gospel: St. Luke 11:9-13

Synergy: Judges 5:19-31, especially vss. 20, 26: "From heaven fought
the stars, from their courses they fought against Sisera....She
stretched forth her left hand to the nail, and her right hand to the
workman's hammer, and she smote Sisera with it, she nailed through his
temples." St. John Chrysostom begs us consider how, through all of
Scripture, God sets down two points, "His part, and our part." What the
Lord does for us "is varied and numerous and diverse. For He died for
us and reconciled us; He brought us to Himself, and gave us grace
unspeakable." The response God expects is implementation, the use of
His grace, that we should grow in virtue and the Spirit. St. Seraphim
of Sarov encourages us to "accumulate capital from the superabundance of
God's grace, deposit it in God's eternal bank, which will
bring...immaterial interest, not four or six percent, but one hundred
percent for one spiritual rouble."

The liberation of the People of God from the tyranny of Jabin, king of
Canaan, that took place "in Taanach at the water of Megiddo...at the
brook Kishon" (vss. 19,21), did not come solely because the modest and
slight flow of the brook Kishon turned into a torrent that caught the
army of Sisera and "swept them away" (vs. 21). God Himself joined the
battle into which He had already sent the army of Deborah and Barak. He
unleashed a storm upstream that flooded the plains of Meggido and
"discomfited Sisera and all his army"(Jdgs 4:15). When Sisera saw that
"the hoofs of the horse were entangled" (Jdgs 5:22) he "descended from
off his chariot and fled...on his feet to the tent of Jael the wife of
Heber" (Jdgs. 4:15,17). Was all this an accident of weather, a random
stroke of fate where a tent was pitched, or the providence of God? God
did His part; and the armies of Israel and Jael did their part - God and
man in synergy.

Listen to St. Augustine of Hippo: "The Son of God assumed human nature,
and in it He endured all that belongs to the human condition. This is a
remedy for mankind of a power beyond our imagining....Do not fear
insults, crosses and death: for if they did man harm, the humanity which
God's Son assumed would not have endured them." God's gracious action
does us little good if we do not invest it, utilize it, put it to the
work of growing our hearts and minds into the likeness and image of
Christ Himself. Holding us accountable if we bury the talent received
in the ground, our Lord and Master will be fully in His rights to cast
us, like wicked servants, "into outer darkness: there shall be weeping
and gnashing of teeth" (Mt. 25:25-30).

Your opportunity is large, as boundless as God's grace. Who can
calculate all He has done for us? On what scale do you measure what He
has accomplished in rescuing you from the tyrannies of this earth - the
cruel Jabins, the assaults of demons, death, and your sins? Listen well
to St. John Chrysostom: "Baptism gives life to those who by sins were
made dead...Since then it has given us life, let us remain living and
not return again to the former deadness...He will not have us always
saved by grace, for so we will be empty of all things. Therefore, He
will have us contribute something from ourselves as well. Let us then
contribute, and preserve life for our soul." Robust Christianity is
synergistic, giving its labor to seal and develop God's grace.

Now consider the rhythm of the Book of Judges: God gives the grace for
doing man's part, but His People squander His grace. In misery they cry
to Him. In His grace He calls them to arms and pours out a flood
against the enemy. In synergy they gain liberation. St. Silouan says,
"He who keeps all the commandments will always feel grace present in his
soul...but grace is easily lost...through a single arrogant thought."
God's part is continuous; may ours be also!

O Lord, Thou seest how weak is my soul without Thy grace, and nowhere at
rest. Do Thou, our delight, our Heavenly Father, give us strength to
love Thee. Give us Thy holy fear.

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Tuesday, October 23, 2007

23/10/07 Tues after 21st week after Pentecost, Feast of St James of Jerusalem

[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 and everlasting God, in Christ you have revealed your glory among the nations: Preserve the works of your mercy, that your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession 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.

Grant, O God, that, following the example of your servant James the Just, brother of our Lord, your Church may give itself continually to prayer and to the reconciliation of all who are at variance and enmity; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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Today's Scripture http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/

AM Psalm 26, 28; PM Psalm 36, 39
Lam. 1:1-5(6-9)10-12; 1 Cor. 15:41-50; Matt. 11:25-30
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From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm

Matthew 13:54-58. Are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?

Modern Christians sometimes speak of "Jesus our brother," meaning that we are as close as family, but not that Jesus is our literal sibling. Can you imagine having Jesus as a family member? Did Jesus and James argue about whose turn it was to milk the goat? Did they squabble in the back of the donkey cart so that Joseph threatened to turn around and take them home? Did they spin dreams about what they would be or do when they grew up? How hard would it be to recognize the God-with-us uniqueness of such a brother? Jesus said a prophet is without honor in his own house. Maybe that's because his own people have to listen to him all the time. James (but not, as far as we know, Jesus' other brothers) came to recognize the divinity in Jesus and played a key role in the
Jerusalem church. It is hard to hear the voice of God through those whose words also deal with the trivia of day-to-day life.


Is there someone as close as family in your life who might actually have something of God's word for you? It is hard to speak God's word to those so close, and even harder to listen to them.
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Today we remember:
http://www.satucket.com/lectionary

St. James of Jerusalem:
AM: Psalm 119:145-168; Jeremiah 11:18-23; Matthew 10:16-22
PM: Psalm 122, 125; Isaiah 65:17-25; Hebrews 12:12-24


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Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Tirunelveli (South India)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
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Speaking to the Soul: http://www.episcopalcafe.com/

True community

Daily Reading for October 23 • St. James of Jerusalem, Brother of our Lord Jesus Christ and Martyr, c. 62

It is quite easy to found a community. There are always plenty of courageous people who want to be heroes, are ready to sleep on the ground, to work hard hours each day, to live in dilapidated houses. It’s not hard to camp—anyone can rough it for a time. So the problem is not in getting the community started—there’s always enough energy for take-off. The problem comes when we are in orbit and going round and round the same circuit. The problem is in living with brothers and sisters whom we have not chosen but who have been given to us, and in working ever more truthfully towards the goals of the community.

A community which is just an explosion of heroism is not a true community. True community implies a way of living and seeing reality; it implies above all fidelity in the daily round. And this is made up of simple things—getting meals, using and washing the dishes and using them again, going to meetings—as well as gifts, joy and celebration.

A community is only being created when its members accept that they are not going to achieve great things, that they are not going to be heroes, but simply live each day with new hope, like children, in wonderment as the sun rises and in thanksgiving as it sets. Community is only being created when they have recognized that human greatness is to accept our insignificance, our human condition and our earth, and to thank God for having put in a finite body the seeds of eternity which are visible in small and daily gestures of love and forgiveness. The beauty of humanity is in this fidelity to the wonder of each day.

From Community and Growth by Jean Vanier (Darton, Longman & Todd, 1979).
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Spiritual Practice of the Day http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/

May I never find myself yawning at life.
— Japanese Christian leader Toyohiko Kagawa quoted in Zen and the Art of Anything by Hal W. French

To Practice This Thought: Fight boredom with wonder.
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Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php

Our most holy King has much more to give: He would rejoice to do nothing but give could He find souls capable of receiving.
St Teresa of Jesus
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Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html

from http://www.balamandmonastery.org.lb/fathers/indexsayings2.htm

"Remember, O my soul, the terrible and frightful wonder: that your
Creator for your sake became Man, and deigned to suffer for the
sake of your salvation. His angels tremble, the Cherubim are
terrified, the Seraphim are in fear, and all the heavenly powers
ceaselessly give praise; and you, unfortunate soul, remain in
laziness. At least from this time forth arise and do not put off,
my beloved soul, holy repentence, contrition of heart and penance
for your sins."

St. Paisius Velichkovsky
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Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/

Being in the Church, Not of It

Often we hear the remark that we have live in the world without being of the world. But it may be more difficult to be in the Church without being of the Church. Being of the Church means being so preoccupied by and involved in the many ecclesial affairs and clerical "ins and outs" that we are no longer focused on Jesus. The Church then blinds us from what we came to see and deafens us to what we came to hear. Still, it is in the Church that Christ dwells, invites us to his table, and speaks to us words of eternal love.

Being in the Church without being of it is a great spiritual challenge.
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From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis: http://www.tssf.org/textonly/principles.shtml

Day Twenty Three - The First Note, cont'd

Humility confesses that we have nothing that we have not received and admits the fact of our insufficiency and our dependence upon God. It is the basis of all Christian virtues. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux said, "No spiritual house can stand for a moment except on the foundation of humility." It is the first condition of a joyful life within any community.
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Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/

Set Your Heart
October 23rd, 2007
Tuesday’s Reflection

WAIT FOR THE LORD. Set your face toward the East and your heart toward the One who is to come. Wait for the Lord. Anticipate his presence, for he is very near and he is coming to make all things new. Amen.

- Pamela C. Hawkins
Simply Wait: Cultivating Stillness in the Season of Advent

From page 23 of Simply Wait: Cultivating Stillness in the Season of Advent by Pamela C. Hawkins. 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


African Lessons

(Written in Africa) The missionaries here love to talk about their peoples. At every meal, I inquire about the ways of the different cultures: the hard-working Kikuyu, the fascinating Masai, the exotic and primitive tribes of Turkana and others. The more I travel, the more it becomes evident that it is culture what finally and firmly forms our attitudes—so deeply that we don’t recognize them as chosen attitudes. It is an emotional seeing that is not easily challenged or overcome. How will God ever make unity out of our extraordinary diversity, especially when each culture is so committed to its own pair of glasses? My best memory from this trip to Africa is the young man who gave me two of his carvings in exchange for my watch. I got the bargain: he gave me himself, his art, and took away a tyrant from my wrist. All I really gave him was my address, since he wanted to write. The poor don’t know how to lose.

from St. Anthony Messenger, “African Journal”
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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

Look into our own hearts

What the Master is saying is this: "If I do not pass judgment, neither must you, my disciple. You may be even more guilty of the faults of which you accuse another. Will you not be ashamed when you come to realize this?" The Lord uses another illustration for the same teaching when he says: Why do you look for the speck in your brother's eye?

With compelling arguments Christ persuades us that we should not want to judge others, but should rather examine our own hearts, and strive to expel the passions seated in them, asking this grace from God. He it is who heals the contrite of heart and frees us from our spiritual disorders. If your own sins are greater and worse than other people's, why do you censure them, and neglect what concerns yourself?

This precept, then, is essential for all who wish to live a holy life, and particularly for those who have undertaken the instruction of others. If they are virtuous and self-restrained, giving an example of the gospel way of life by their own actions, they will rebuke those who do not choose to live as they do in a friendly way, so as not to break their own habit of gentleness.

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

NOT A BIT OF IT!


"If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away." 2 Corinthians 5:17

Our Lord never nurses our prejudices, He mortifies them, runs clean athwart them. We imagine that God has a special interest in our particular prejudices; we are quite sure that God will never deal with us as He has to deal with other people. "God must deal with other people in a very stern way, but of course He knows that my prejudices are all right." We have to learn - "Not a bit of it!" Instead of God being on the side of our prejudices, He is deliberately wiping them out. It is part of our moral education to have our prejudices run straight across by His providence, and to watch how He does it. God pays no respect to anything we bring to Him. There is only one thing God wants of us, and that is our unconditional surrender.

When we are born again, the Holy Spirit begins to work His new creation in us, and there will come a time when there is not a bit of the old order left, the old solemnity goes, the old attitude to things goes, and "all things are of God." How are we going to get the life that has no lust, no self-interest, no sensitiveness to pokes, the love that is not provoked, that thinketh no evil, that is always kind? The only way is by allowing not a bit of the old life to be left; but only simple perfect trust in God, such trust that we no longer want God's blessings, but only want Himself. Have we come to the place where God can withdraw His blessings and it does not affect our trust in Him? When once we see God at work, we will never bother our heads about things that happen, because we are actually trusting in our Father in Heaven Whom the world cannot see.
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Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/

February 22, June 23, October 23
Chapter 18: In What Order the Psalms Are to Be Said

At Terce, Sext and None on Monday
let the nine remaining sections of Psalm 118 be said,
three at each of these Hours.

Psalm 118 having been completed, therefore,
on two days, Sunday and Monday,
let the nine Psalms from Psalm 119 to Psalm 127
be said at Terce, Sext and None,
three at each Hour,
beginning with Tuesday.
And let these same Psalms be repeated every day until Sunday
at the same Hours,
while the arrangement of hymns, lessons and verses
is kept the same on all days;
and thus Prime on Sunday will always begin with Psalm 118.

Insight for the Ages: A Commentary by Sr Joan Chittister
http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html

There is none for today.
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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.


Tuesday, October 23,
2007 Apostle James,
Brother of the Lord
Kellia: Judges 5:1-18 Epistle: Colossians
2:20-33 Gospel: St. Luke 11:1-10

Deborah II ~ Christ God, Victor: Judges 5:1-18 LXX, especially vss. 2,
3: "A revelation was made in Israel when the people were made willing:
Praise ye the Lord! Hear, ye kings, and hearken, rulers: I will sing,
it is I who will sing to the Lord, it is I, I will sing a psalm to the
Lord the God of Israel." The victory Song of Deborah and Barak is an
ancient ballad of triumph among the songs of the People of God, akin to
the Song of Moses (The First Ode: Exodus 15:1-19) and the Ninth Ode or
the Magnificat of the Theotokos (Lk 1:46-55). The message of all the
ballads of God's People sung to the Lord is one that lifts up praise to
"the Lord, the God of Israel" for great blessings received at His hand
(Jdg. 5:3). Blessings belongs to Him alone Who alone is blessed! He
blesses and leaders lead, people follow willingly, and "the kings of
Canaan fought in Taanach at the water of Megiddo; [but] they took no
gift of money" (vs. 19). Hear the music of Holy Scripture! The same
theme repeats all through Scripture: "Our God is the God of salvation,
and the pathways leading forth from death are those of the Lord's Lord"
(Ps. 67:21).

The Lord our God is presented as the Mighty One: "O Lord, in Thy going
forth on Seir, when Thou wentest forth out of the land of Edom, the
earth quaked and the heaven dropped dews, and the clouds dropped water.
The mountains were shaken before the face of the Lord Elohim, this Sinai
before the face of the Lord God of Israel" (Jdgs. 5:4-5). At His
presence, creation quakes, mountains are shaken, the earth trembles.
Man cannot rest and be at ease before the presence of God. When the
Lord is known in His power, fear and trembling are inevitable.

When Christ our God yielded up His spirit, "then, behold, the veil of
the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and
the rocks were split" (Mt. 27:51). Likewise, "as the first day of the
week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the
tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the
Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the
door, and sat on it" (Mt. 28:1-2). Tremble, O earth, for Christ is
risen as He foretold. "The guards shook for fear of [the angel] and
became like dead men" (Mt. 28:4).

However, when man dominates - Jabin, Herod, Caesar, Tamerlane, or Stalin
- it is always the same as it was in Israel: "men deserted the ways, and
went in by-ways; they went in crooked paths. The mighty men in Israel
failed" (Jdgs. 5:6,7). Man's control, when unchecked, oppresses. The
people choose new gods, cities of rulers fight among themselves, the arm
of the state disarms the people (vs. 8). Thus, by human logic, Pilate
asks, "Dost Thou not know that I have power to crucify Thee, and power
to release Thee? (Jn. 19:10). God's People plead: "O Lord, increase
righteous acts in Israel" (Jdgs 5:11). Yes, "Let God arise and let His
enemies be scattered, and let them that hate Him flee from before His
face" (Ps. 67:1 LXX).

Deborah's and Barak's victory is a type [a model, a foreshadowing] of
the Passion and Resurrection of Christ. "The kings of Canaan fought in
Taanach at the water of Megiddo" but "the stars from heaven set
themselves in array, they set themselves to fight with Sisera out of
their paths" (Jdgs. 5:19,20). God defeats them with His creations. The
"traitor...forgot that the whole world doth not equal one soul, as [he]
didst learn; for burning with despair, [he] didst hang [himself]." And
Sisera fled on foot in defeat, and "all the powers of heaven praise
Thee, and unto Thee we ascribe glory to the Father and to the Son and to
the Holy Spirit."

For "Christ is risen from the dead trampling down death by death and
upon those in the tombs bestowing life,"
Come all ye nations, learn the power of this awesome mystery; for Christ
our Savior was crucified for us, and was buried of His own will and
arose from the death to save us all.

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Monday, October 22, 2007

Reading for Feb 21, June 22, Oct 22

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

February 21, June 22, October 22
Chapter 18: In What Order the Psalms Are to Be Said

Let this verse be said:
"Incline unto my aid, O God;
O Lord, make haste to help me,"
and the "Glory be to the Father"
then the hymn proper to each Hour.

Then at Prime on Sunday
four sections of Psalm 118 are to be said;
and at each of the remaining Hours,
that is Terce, Sext and None,
three sections of the same Psalm 118.

At Prime on Monday let three Psalms be said,
namely Psalms 1, 2 and 6.
And so each day at Prime until Sunday
let three Psalms be said in numerical order, to Psalm 19,
but with Psalms 9 and 17 each divided into two parts.
Thus it comes about that the Night Office on Sunday
always begins with Psalm 20.

As I write this, uncontrolled wildfires are burning in the County and city of San Diego. In the background the TV news dominates. 100% of the firefigthers are at work fighting 7 fires. 100% of all the police cars in the City are in use to evacuate elderly from a retirement home. A major hospital has been evacuated. Winds are at 60 mph pushing the fires west. The firefighters are worried that they will all join up and burn through to the coast, taking out all of San Diego. And here I am, thoroughly distracted, trying to gather my thoughts about this section of the RB.

On the face of it, these details seem to be irrelevant given the conditions in the City. But they are not. As the song says "If we ever needed the Lord before, we sure do need Him now". I have sections of Psalms, the Eucharistic service of the Episcopal Church, hymns running through my head this morning. This is what I can take with me from today's reading: that which I have happened to have memorized is here for me as I pray to the Lord about the catastrophe devastating the countryside where i live.



Insight for the Ages: A Commentary by Sr Joan Chittister
http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html

Perhaps the most important point to be made about the structure of prayer during the day hours, during the periods of distraction and the times of work is simply this. Even then, prayer is to be prayer, not a glancing thought, not a shrug or a gesture or a mindless moment of empty daydreaming. It is to be brief, yes. It is not, however, to be superficial. Benedict wants us to pray the psalms. His own monks, many of them illiterate and all of them without manuscripts, memorized the psalms of the day hours so that they could be prayed in the fields as well as in the prayer place.

This chapter, consequently, of all the chapters in the Rule on prayer is a real challenge to a modern society. What psalm prayers can we say without reading? What prayers ring in our hearts? What do we think about when we're not thinking about anything special? Do we ever simply stop the work we are doing during the day, look straight ahead and pray? What memorized material does run through our minds and why do we memorize what we do but not our prayers?

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22/10/07 Mon after 21st week 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 and everlasting God, in Christ you have revealed your glory among the nations: Preserve the works of your mercy, that your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession 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 25; PM Psalm 9, 15
Jer. 44:1-14; 1 Cor. 15:30-41; Matt. 11:16-24
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From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm

Matthew 11:16-24. This generation...is like children.

In the lesson for today Jesus has had it with people. You know how it feels. John was criticized for being too strict; Jesus got the same treatment for being too lax. Wonderful things were done, and nobody seemed to recognize or acknowledge it. How could people be so perverse and picky, so needy and so ungrateful?


We have all felt that way at one time or another. We suffer unjust criticism and make great efforts that go unnoticed. It happens at work and it happens
at home. We might take some comfort in knowing that Jesus had the same feelings. We might also take some direction from seeing what he did about those feelings. In this text he grumped and murmured something about things going better for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah on Judgment Day than for these folks. But then he returned to his ministry of teaching, healing, loving, and serving. He went right back to the same people who were so frustrating because the bottom line is what God expected of him, not how people appreciated him.


Frustration does not make us bad any more than enthusiasm makes us good. Feelings are just that-feelings-and nothing more. What we do, often in spite of our feelings, is what counts.
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Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Thika (Kenya)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
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Speaking to the Soul: http://www.episcopalcafe.com/

Perseverance

Daily Reading for October 22

Perseverance is not merely the crown and stamp of perfection, it must accompany every step in the growth of every grace; just as the texture of the tree must be woven firm in every stage of its growth, so perseverance has to watch over the growth of each virtue day by day; every day in which it fails, the graces which are under its care begin to droop and lose their bloom.

Thus perseverance is not only a virtue in itself, but it is one without whose constant presence and assistance no other virtue can develop on step in its growth. If charity, then, be the soil into which all must spread their roots, perseverance is the cohesive force that gives form and consistency to all over whose development it presides. And thus temptation will often leave all the graces that the soul is trying to form unassailed, and attack the one grace of perseverance; for it knows well that if it can destroy this, all else must fail with it. We often meet with people with very high aspirations and the beginnings of many graces and with great possibilities, but nothing in them matures, nothing attains its full bloom, for they are lacking in the one grace which is the guardian and protector of all—they have no perseverance.

From Some Principles and Practices of the Spiritual Life (1899) by B. W. Maturin, quoted in The Westminster Collection of Christian Meditations, compiled by Hannah Ward and Jennifer Wild (Westminster John Knox Press, 1998).
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Spiritual Practice of the Day http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/

There is an Indian proverb or axiom that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional, and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but, unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person.
— Rumer Godden in A House with Four Rooms

To Practice This Thought: Assess the condition of your four rooms. Which one looks like you visit it regularly? Which needs airing out?
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Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php

O living flame of love, that tenderly wounds my soul, in it deepest centre! Since now you are not oppressive, now consummate! if it be your will: tear through the veil of this sweet encounter!
St John of the Cross
Living Flame, stanza 1.
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Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html

from http://www.balamandmonastery.org.lb/fathers/indexsayings2.htm

I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world and I
said groaning, "What can get through from such snares?" Then I
heard a voice saying to me, "Humility."

St. Anthony the Great
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Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/

The Garden of the Saints

The Church is a very human organization but also the garden of God's grace. It is a place where great sanctity keeps blooming. It is a place where great sanctity keeps blooming. Saints are people who make the living Christ visible to us in a special way. Some saints have given their lives in the service of Christ and his Church; others have spoken and written words that keep nurturing us; some have lived heroically in difficult situations; others have remained hidden in quiet lives of prayer and meditation; some were prophetic voices calling for renewal; others were spiritual strategists setting up large organizations or networks of people; some were healthy and strong; others were quite sick, and often anxious and insecure.

But all of them in their own ways lived in the Church as in a garden where they heard the voice calling them the Beloved and where they found the courage to make Jesus the center of their lives.
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The Merton Reflection for the Week of October 22, 2007

One of the most disturbing facts that came out in the [Adolf] Eichmann trial was that a psychiatrist examined him and pronounced him perfectly sane. I do not doubt it at all, and that is precisely why I find it disturbing. . . . .
  The sanity of Eichmann is disturbing. We equate sanity with a sense of justice, with humaneness, with prudence, with the capacity to love and understand other people. We rely on the sane people of the world to preserve it from barbarism, madness, destruction. And now it begins to dawn on us that it is precisely the sane ones who are the most dangerous.
  It is the sane ones, the well-adapted ones, who can without qualms and without nausea aim the missiles and press the buttons that will initiate the great festival of destruction that they, the sane ones, have prepared. What makes us so sure, after all, that the danger comes from a psychotic getting into a position to fire the first shot in a nuclear war? Psychotics will be suspect. The sane ones will keep them far from the button. No one suspects the sane, and the sane ones will have perfectly good reasons, logical, well-adjusted reasons, for firing the shot. They will be obeying sane orders that have come sanely down the chain of command. And because of their sanity they will have no qualms at all. When the missiles take off, then, it will be no mistake.

Thomas Merton. "A Devout Meditation in Memory of Adolf Eichmann" in Raids on the Unspeakable. New York: New Directions Publishing Co., 1964: 45, 46-47.

Thought to Remember:

[T]hose who have invented and developed atomic bombs, thermonuclear bombs, missiles; who have planned the strategy of the next war; who have evaluated the various possibilities of using bacterial and chemical agents: these are not the crazy people, they are the sane people.

Raids on the Unspeakable: 48.
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From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis: http://www.tssf.org/textonly/principles.shtml

Day Twenty Two - The First Note -

Humility

We always keep before us the example of Christ, who emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and who, on the last night of his life, humbly washed his disciples' feet. We likewise seek to serve one another with humility.
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Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/

Silent Waiting
October 22nd, 2007
Monday’s Reflection

WE NEED TIMES of silent waiting, alone, when the busy intellect is not leaping from problem to problem, and from puzzle to puzzle. If we learn the secret of carrying a living silence in the center of our being we can listen on the run. The listening silence can become intertwined with all our inward prayers. A few moments of relaxed silence, alone, every day, are desperately important.

- Thomas Kelly
The Sanctuary of the Soul

From page 47 of The Sanctuary of the Soul: Selected Writings of Thomas Kelly, edited by Keith Beasley-Topliffe. Copyright © 1997 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 Negative Sacrament?

During my sabbatical retreat at the Gethsemani Trappist monastery in Kentucky, I spent a lot of time sitting on the front porch of the hermitage where Thomas Merton lived. I would ponder one thought for twenty minutes, and then for the next twenty minutes it was another thing. By the time I was to the third one or the fourth one, I didn’t even remember the first one anymore. In the silence, they were able to come and go because there was nothing I could do with them. There was no one I could yell at, or work out a problem with. I couldn’t go write a nasty letter, I couldn’t get on the phone and chew someone out or love someone, whatever it might be. I had to let it be. I couldn’t attach myself to it.

Now, if I were living in society, I would have probably acted upon my feeling, gossiping to someone else about a difficult situation. Gossip is a kind of negative sacrament. Remember our old definition of sacrament? We said sacraments, once you do them, effect what they symbolize. It’s the same way with gossip. When you talk negatively, you invest in your negativism. You justify it, and it becomes harder to avoid. The most nasty and irrational judgments I have received from people have often followed upon a negative bull-session.

For me, the way to break it is silence. In silence, I see my negative feelings passing before me like mist. All of these paranoid and self-pitying feelings were not really justified by the situation out there as much as they were needed by myself. They were attachments that I created to define and validate myself. In the hermitage, they meant nothing.

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

The Christian mystery

Just as the letters on a page are meaningless to a child who has not learned to read, so it is with the Christian mystery. Unbelievers are deaf to what they hear, whereas the experience of the Spirit empowers believers to perceive its hidden meaning. Paul made this clear when he said: Our preaching is obscure, but only for those on the way to perdition. Something proclaimed everywhere without being understood by those lacking an upright spirit is undoubtedly a mystery. For to the extent that we are able to receive it, it is revealed not by human wisdom but by the Holy Spirit. Rightly, therefore, is the mystery said to be a secret, for even we believers have not been given a completely clear and accurate knowledge of it. As Paul said: Our knowledge and our prophesying are imperfect. We see now as it were a dim reflection in a mirror, but then face to face. This is why he said: We impart the wisdom of God in a mystery predestined by God before all ages for our glory.

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

THE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT


"The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit. . ." Romans 8:16 (R.V.)

We are in danger of getting the barter spirit when we come to God, we want the witness before we have done what God tells us to do. "Why does not God reveal Himself to me?" He cannot, it is not that He will not, but He cannot, because you are in the road as long as you won't abandon absolutely to Him. Immediately you do, God witnesses to Himself, He cannot witness to you, but He witnesses instantly to His own nature in you. If you had the witness before the reality, it would end in sentimental emotion. Immediately you transact on the Redemption, and stop the impertinence of debate, God gives on the witness. As soon as you abandon reasoning and argument, God witnesses to what He has done, and we are amazed at our impertinence in having kept Him waiting. If you are in debate as to whether God can deliver from sin, either let Him do it, or tell Him He cannot. Do not quote this and that person, try Matthew 11:28 - "Come unto Me." Come, if you are weary and heavy laden; ask, if you know you are evil (Luke 11:13).

The Spirit of God witnesses to the Redemption of Our Lord, He does not witness to anything else; He cannot witness to our reason. The simplicity that comes from our natural common-sense decisions is apt to be mistaken for the witness of the Spirit, but the Spirit witnesses only to His own nature, and to the work of Redemption, never to our reason. If we try to make Him witness to our reason, it is no wonder we are in darkness and perplexity. Fling it all overboard, trust in Him, and He will give the witness.
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Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/

February 21, June 22, October 22
Chapter 18: In What Order the Psalms Are to Be Said

Let this verse be said:
"Incline unto my aid, O God;
O Lord, make haste to help me,"
and the "Glory be to the Father"
then the hymn proper to each Hour.

Then at Prime on Sunday
four sections of Psalm 118 are to be said;
and at each of the remaining Hours,
that is Terce, Sext and None,
three sections of the same Psalm 118.

At Prime on Monday let three Psalms be said,
namely Psalms 1, 2 and 6.
And so each day at Prime until Sunday
let three Psalms be said in numerical order, to Psalm 19,
but with Psalms 9 and 17 each divided into two parts.
Thus it comes about that the Night Office on Sunday
always begins with Psalm 20.

Insight for the Ages: A Commentary by Sr Joan Chittister
http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html

Perhaps the most important point to be made about the structure of prayer during the day hours, during the periods of distraction and the times of work is simply this. Even then, prayer is to be prayer, not a glancing thought, not a shrug or a gesture or a mindless moment of empty daydreaming. It is to be brief, yes. It is not, however, to be superficial. Benedict wants us to pray the psalms. His own monks, many of them illiterate and all of them without manuscripts, memorized the psalms of the day hours so that they could be prayed in the fields as well as in the prayer place.

This chapter, consequently, of all the chapters in the Rule on prayer is a real challenge to a modern society. What psalm prayers can we say without reading? What prayers ring in our hearts? What do we think about when we're not thinking about anything special? Do we ever simply stop the work we are doing during the day, look straight ahead and pray? What memorized material does run through our minds and why do we memorize what we do but not our prayers?
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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, October 22, 2007 The Seven Youths (Seven Sleepers)
Martyred in Ephesos
Kellia: Judges 4:4-23 Epistle: Colossians
2:13-20 Gospel: St. Luke 10:22-24

Deborah I ~ Faith and Obedience: Judges 4:4-23 LXX, especially vss. 15,
16: "Sisera descended from off his chariot, and fled on his feet. And
Barak pursued after the chariots and after the army, into Harosheth of
the Gentiles; and the whole army of Sisera fell by the edge of the
sword, there was not one left." Immediately before this passage, it is
recorded that a certain Jabin, the king of Canaan, maintained a large
army of iron chariots by which "he mightily oppressed Israel twenty
years" (Jdg. 4:2,3). His general, Sisera, equipped the king's chariots
with whirling knives on the wheels - for dashing in among infantry and
cutting up opponents on foot while protecting their drivers and
warriors. A whole generation of ancient Israel's populace had been
subdued by these deadly, mobile squadrons. However, to deliver His
People while they were living under Jabin's hand, God raised up a
Prophetess, Deborah, who kept informal court under a palm tree in the
northern hills of the Holy Land (Jdg. 4:4-5).

Twenty years was enough! God roused Deborah and "she sent and called
Barak" from Naphtali, one of the northernmost tribes of Israel and were
living immediately under Jabin's control (vs. 6). Notice why God chose
this moment to act: He had a Servant whose will was open to His
commands, whose heart was close to the people, and whose mind was
committed to act. She heard as "the children of Israel cried to the
Lord" (Jdg. 4:3). God does encourage His People. Therefore, always
turn to Him for strength and willingness - yes, even when you are
overwhelmed by the powers of this present life. The powers may seem
invincible; but remember that when you seek help from the Lord, also
seek unfettered trust to obey Him.

In considering trust and obedience, think about Barak. He had faith to
obey God's command, but his was not an unquestioning faith. His trust
was bridled, restrained; he was willing to obey, but with conditions.
As a result the glory of victory would go to an unarmed woman of
unhesitating faith (vss. 9,21-23). Truly, there are bitter powers in
life, insistent sinful desires in our hearts, and nagging suggestions
from Satan. These all speak against action and victory. But cry to
God! Pray, recognizing your need for help in struggling against
defeat. Ask for unbridled faith, willingness to act as God expects,
readiness without conditions.

God assured Barak. He gave explicit orders concerning the number of
troops for battle. He promised to lead Sisera's army into a tactical
check, intervene Himself, and give Sisera into Barak's hands (vs. 7).
But, Barak set conditions. As he said to Deborah, "If you will go with
me, I will go" (vs. 8). There was readiness in him, but not a robust,
unquestioning faith to risk, to believe in God's promises and do what
was commanded. Prayer often starts from limited trust, but ask the Lord
to unleash your faith and strengthen your will to obey without hesitation.

Like Barak, you know God's commandments in your heart. Our Lord Jesus,
in His Sermon on the Mount, reveals the full scope of those
commandments. He shows that their sole purpose is to defeat the powers
arrayed against you, forgive the sins that limit your obedience, and
silence Satan's nagging. Prayer is the means for gaining faith in the
battles of this life. Prayer gives you the ability to act with full,
unqualified trust in God.

Consider Jael, the wife of Heber. Be ready to put to death in your own
tent - within yourself - pride, the enemy's chief general that obstructs
the Holy Spirit from giving you victory. Christ our God has already
defeated him on the battlefield. He trampled down death by death. He
rose in victory. Take in hand your opportunity to share in His victory!

O Lord save Thy People, and bless Thine inheritance, granting to Thy
People victory over all their enemies, and by the power of Thy Cross,
preserving Thy kingdom.

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Saturday, October 20, 2007

Reading for Feb 19, June 20, Oct 20

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

February 19, June 20, October 20
Chapter 16: How the Work of God Is to Be Performed During the Day

"Seven times in the day," says the Prophet,
"I have rendered praise to You" (Ps. 118:164).
Now that sacred number of seven will be fulfilled by us
if we perform the Offices of our service
at the time of the Morning Office,
of Prime, of Terce, of Sext, of None,
of Vespers and of Compline,
since it was of these day Hours that he said,
"Seven times in the day I have rendered praise to You."
For as to the Night Office the same Prophet says,
"In the middle of the night I arose to glorify You" (Ps. 118:62).

Let us therefore bring our tribute of praise to our Creator
"for the judgments of His justice" (Ps. 118:164)
at these times:
the Morning Office, Prime, Terce, Sext, None,
Vespers and Compline;
and in the night let us arise to glorify Him.

It seems to me as if prayer punctuates the Benedictine day. There is a rhythm I love. Prayer, work, prayer, meal, prayer, study, prayer. It's as if prayer brackets the other activities and makes them an offering to the Lord.

In addition to the Prayerbook, I use the Jesus Prayer frequently: Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Walking across parking lots, standing in line at the market or Post Office, any time I am waiting, I try to remember to pray the Jesus Prayer. For one thing, it can take my mind off of seemingly interminable stop lights. For another, it is a reminder of Whom it is that I love and to Whom I given my life.

Insight for the Ages: A Commentary by Sr Joan Chittister
http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html


"Prayer is the service of the heart," the Talmud says. Benedict clearly thought the same. In forming his communities in prayer, Benedict had two realities with which to deal. The first was the biblical injunction "to pray always" around which the monastics of the desert had centered their lives. The second was the reality of community life itself: "We earn our bread by the toil of our hands," the Rule says.

The problem was that Benedict's monks were not hermits who scratched their daily fare out of a dry desert, living on locusts and honey. They were not gyrovagues, wandering monks, who, to demonstrate their dependence on God, begged their way through life. Benedict's monks were cenobites, community people with a family to support. They were each as responsible for their inexperienced young and worn out elderly as they were for themselves. They were, in other words, just like us.

To sanctify both situations Benedict instructs his communities to rise early in the night, as his culture allowed, to study and to pray and then, during the day, to recite brief, simple, scriptural prayers at regular intervals, easy enough to be recited and prayed even in the workplace, to wrench their minds from the mundane to the mystical, away from concentration on life's petty particulars to attention on its transcendent meaning.

Benedict scheduled prayer times during the day to coincide with the times of the changing of the Roman imperial guard. When the world was revering its secular rulers Benedict taught us to give our homage to God, the divine ruler of heaven and earth. There was to be no stopping at the obvious, at the lesser, for a Benedictine.

The point is clear: there is to be no time, no thing, that absorbs us so much that we lose contact with the God of life; no stress so tension-producing, no burden so complex, no work so exhausting that God is not our greatest agenda, our constant companion, our rest and our refuge. More, whatever other people worship, we are to keep our minds and hearts on God.

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20/10/07 Sat after 20ith week 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

Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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Today's Scripture http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/

AM Psalm 20, 21:1-7(8-14); PM Psalm 110:1-5(6-7), 116, 117
2 Kings 25:8-12,22-26; 1 Cor. 15:12-29; Matt. 11:7-15
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From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm

Matthew 11:7-15. What did you go out into the wilderness to look at?

Jesus is talking about John the Baptist, a rough sort of a guy,confrontational and combative. He called people vipers and brashly told them they were way
off God's track. He attacked royalty and the common folk alike. Needless to say, people had a mixed reaction to him, generally approving his attacks on others while squirming at his attacks on them. Jesus asks them what they expected. John was not a mind-soothing screen saver or a smooth-talking politician. He was a prophet, and prophets are supposed to be in your face.

Who is the John the Baptist in your spiritual life? Who confronts and challenges you? Who reminds you of the guilt and responsibility that make it clear you need a savior? Some of us have washed that kind of voice out of our faith so that we are left with only bumper stickers and sweet music. Others have a tendency to let that voice crowd out all others so that anger becomes the centerpiece of faith. Both are wrong. Jesus says that John plays a key role in salvation's story, but he is not the key to the kingdom of God.
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Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of The Murray (South Australia, Australia)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
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Speaking to the Soul: http://www.episcopalcafe.com/

The prayer of power

Daily Reading for October 20

We have never run or knowingly patronized sweat shops, or underpaid workers; the struggle between organized labor and company unions is wholly out of our picture. Indeed, we have really no direct contact with these great abuses and injustices which wise men are denouncing. We live within the capitalistic order, to be sure; and we are being taught not to approve of it; yet we can not run away. We could not escape the profit system for that matter, even if we wove cloth for our own garments on Gandhi’s spinning wheels. There are always a few interesting idealists who are trying to run away but they are very partially successful. We can not escape; we do not feel responsible for the system; we agree with our spiritual guides that it is a very bad system. Then they tell us that “we” must change it, and we inevitably ask them, “how?” No answer comes. . . .

The responsibility for social intercession is not satisfied by vague aspiration, “Thy Kingdom Come.” That petition, to be sure, covers all our desires; but if we pray specifically for the recovery to health of a beloved friend, for example, we should be equally specific in our prayers for the health of the body politic. Now we can not be specific unless we have some conviction and some intelligence. There is a type of purely formal prayer; not wholly, useless, we hope. But most Christian people have some little experience at least of another kind of prayer, the prayer of power. That kind of a prayer must be enlightened; it must be lit at the torch of knowledge. The chief reason why all Christian people should be making themselves intelligent about the great issues of the day, is that they may learn to pray with fervor and to use the prayer of power.

To cultivate social imagination; to study; to pray; here even if no practical activity is possible to us, are outlets for that need of action native to men, here is sure release from bewildered and unworthy private-mindedness. . . . But let us not suppose that what lies before us will be easy. To evolve that “new economic order” which the Churches desire, will mean heavy cost to every single man. Let us rejoice; for tests of heroism and of readiness for sacrifice await us. The fate of our whole Western civilization hangs today in the balance; and on the Church, that is, on the body of her children, this fate may well depend.

From “Social Problems Facing the Church” by Vida Dutton Scudder, 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.
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Spiritual Practice of the Day http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/

O God, help me to believe the truth about myself no matter how beautiful it is!
— Macrina Wiederkehr quoted in A Grateful Heart edited by M. J. Ryan

To Practice This Thought: Identify one beautiful truth about yourself.
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Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php

Prayer of a soul enkindled with love. My Way is the way of trust and love.
St. Therese of the Child Jesus
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Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html

from http://www.balamandmonastery.org.lb/fathers/indexsayings2.htm

Every day you provide your bodies with good to keep them from
failing. In the same way your good works should be the daily
nourishment of your hearts. Your bodies are fed with food and your
spirits with good works. You aren't to deny your soul, which is
going to live forever, what you grant to your body, which is going
to die.

St. Gregory the Great
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Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/

Superabundant Grace

Over the centuries the Church has done enough to make any critical person want to leave it. Its history of violent crusades, pogroms, power struggles, oppression, excommunications, executions, manipulation of people and ideas, and constantly recurring divisions is there for everyone to see and be appalled by.

Can we believe that this is the same Church that carries in its center the Word of God and the sacraments of God's healing love? Can we trust that in the midst of all its human brokenness the Church presents the broken body of Christ to the world as food for eternal life? Can we acknowledge that where sin is abundant grace is superabundant, and that where promises are broken over and again God's promise stands unshaken? To believe is to answer yes to these questions.
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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/

Wisdom and Instruction
October 20th, 2007
Saturday’s Reflection

LET US ONLY intend to see and hear, and then the whole world becomes a book of wisdom and instruction to us. All that is regular in the order of nature, all that is accidental in the course of things, all the mistakes and disappointments that happen to us, and all the miseries and errors that we see in other people become so many plain lessons of advice to us. …

If you would only carry this intention of profiting by the follies of the world and of learning the greatness of religion from the littleness and vanity of every other way of life, you would find every day, every place, and every person, a fresh proof of the wisdom of those who choose to live wholly to God.

- William Law
Total Devotion to God

From pages 40-41 of Total Devotion to God: Selected Writings of William Law, edited by Keith Beasley-Topliffe. Copyright © 2001 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


Living Sacraments!-- InstanceEndEditable -->

We’re learning how to embrace and cherish our inner brokenness and violence. So it’s no accident that our Church is rising to the occasion and addressing the great global issues of social justice. Brokenness doesn’t terrify us so much anymore. We see the disabled one as a sacrament. He or she is an icon and a mirror image of our own souls. When I look, I see not only the person, but I see my self that I’m afraid of.

The retarded woman is not simply an accident of history over there, but someone we must gather into our midst and let teach us. Our soul asks, Why would God create someone like you? You can’t be educated the same way we can. What value are you? Why would God bother with you?

When we see the refugee, we recognize the terror in our own soul at not having a place to lay our head and not having a home. When we see the homosexual, we see the male and female parts of our selves that we are so afraid of. Yet these are the ones we push to the edge, whom we run from and call names. We lock them up in prisons where we can just assume that they are evil and bad, and that we are good.

Humility is the only appropriate response once we take the inner journey. What do we have to boast about? Who are we? We are fragmented and fractured to the core. We rail against that and fight it every day because there’s a very large part of us that wants the world to be right and perfect in a way it will never be. And maybe it doesn’t need to be.

The only truth I find is the humiliating truth. The little ones are icons of our own souls. The outsiders are sacraments of the eternally rejected Christ.

from Embracing Christ As Francis Did: In the Church of the Poor
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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

Perfect faith

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. What does it mean to enter into temptation? It means to turn one's back on faith. Temptation grows stronger in proportion as faith weakens, and becomes weaker in proportion as faith grows strong. To convince you, beloved, that Jesus was speaking of the weakening and loss of faith when he told his disciples to watch and pray that they might not enter into temptation, the Lord said in this same passage of the gospel: This night Satan has demanded to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith may not fail. Is the protector to pray, while the person in danger has no need to do so?

But in asking whether the Son of Man would find faith on earth at his coming, the Lord was speaking of perfect faith. That kind of faith is indeed hardly to be found on earth. Look at God's Church: it is full of people. Who would come here if faith were non-existent? But who would not move mountains if that faith were present in full measure? Mark the apostles: they would never have left everything they possessed and spurned worldly ambition to follow the Lord unless their faith had been great; and yet that faith of theirs could not have been perfect, otherwise they would not have asked the Lord to increase it.

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

IS GOD'S WILL MY WILL?


"This is the will of God, even your sanctification." 1 Thessalonians 4:3

It is not a question of whether God is willing to sanctify me; is it my will? Am I willing to let God do in me all that has been made possible by the Atonement? Am I willing to let Jesus be made sanctification to me, and to let the life of Jesus be manifested in my mortal flesh? Beware of saying - Oh, I am longing to be sanctified. You are not, stop longing and make it a matter of transaction - "Nothing in my hands I bring." Receive Jesus Christ to be made sanctification to you in implicit faith, and the great marvel of the Atonement of Jesus will be made real in you. All that Jesus made possible is made mine by the free loving gift of God on the ground of what He performed, my attitude as a saved and sanctified soul is that of profound humble holiness (there is no such thing as proud holiness), a holiness based on agonizing repentance and a sense of unspeakable shame and degradation; and also on the amazing realization that the love of God commended itself to me in that while I cared nothing about Him, He completed everything for my salvation and sanctification (see Rom. 5:8. R.V.). No wonder Paul says nothing is "able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Sanctification makes me one with Jesus Christ, and in Him one with God, and it is done only through the superb Atonement of Christ. Never put the effect as the cause. The effect in me is obedience and service and prayer, and is the out come of speechless thanks and adoration for the marvellous sanctification wrought out in me because of the Atonement.
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Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/

February 19, June 20, October 20
Chapter 16: How the Work of God Is to Be Performed During the Day

"Seven times in the day," says the Prophet,
"I have rendered praise to You" (Ps. 118:164).
Now that sacred number of seven will be fulfilled by us
if we perform the Offices of our service
at the time of the Morning Office,
of Prime, of Terce, of Sext, of None,
of Vespers and of Compline,
since it was of these day Hours that he said,
"Seven times in the day I have rendered praise to You."
For as to the Night Office the same Prophet says,
"In the middle of the night I arose to glorify You" (Ps. 118:62).

Let us therefore bring our tribute of praise to our Creator
"for the judgments of His justice" (Ps. 118:164)
at these times:
the Morning Office, Prime, Terce, Sext, None,
Vespers and Compline;
and in the night let us arise to glorify Him.

Insight for the Ages: A Commentary by Sr Joan Chittister
http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html


"Prayer is the service of the heart," the Talmud says. Benedict clearly thought the same. In forming his communities in prayer, Benedict had two realities with which to deal. The first was the biblical injunction "to pray always" around which the monastics of the desert had centered their lives. The second was the reality of community life itself: "We earn our bread by the toil of our hands," the Rule says.

The problem was that Benedict's monks were not hermits who scratched their daily fare out of a dry desert, living on locusts and honey. They were not gyrovagues, wandering monks, who, to demonstrate their dependence on God, begged their way through life. Benedict's monks were cenobites, community people with a family to support. They were each as responsible for their inexperienced young and worn out elderly as they were for themselves. They were, in other words, just like us.

To sanctify both situations Benedict instructs his communities to rise early in the night, as his culture allowed, to study and to pray and then, during the day, to recite brief, simple, scriptural prayers at regular intervals, easy enough to be recited and prayed even in the workplace, to wrench their minds from the mundane to the mystical, away from concentration on life's petty particulars to attention on its transcendent meaning.

Benedict scheduled prayer times during the day to coincide with the times of the changing of the Roman imperial guard. When the world was revering its secular rulers Benedict taught us to give our homage to God, the divine ruler of heaven and earth. There was to be no stopping at the obvious, at the lesser, for a Benedictine.

The point is clear: there is to be no time, no thing, that absorbs us so much that we lose contact with the God of life; no stress so tension-producing, no burden so complex, no work so exhausting that God is not our greatest agenda, our constant companion, our rest and our refuge. More, whatever other people worship, we are to keep our minds and hearts on God.
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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, October 20,
2007 Great Martyr
Artemios at Antioch
Kellia: Judges 2:1-5, 11-23 Epistle: 2 Corinthians
3:12-18 Gospel: St. Luke 7:1-10

Overview: Judges 2:1-5, 11-23, especially vss. 16-17 LXX: "And the Lord
raised up judges, and the Lord saved them out of the hands of them that
spoiled them: and yet they hearkened not to the judges, for they went a
whoring after other gods, and worshiped them; and they turned quickly
out of the way in which their fathers walked to hearken to the words of
the Lord; they did not so." This early passage from the Book of Judges
provides an overview of the whole work. The Angel of the Lord, Who
"went up from Gilgal to Bochim," as the Holy Fathers teach, was God the
Word as a pre-incarnate revelation. Appropriate to a theophany, the
Lord first reviewed His relationship with the People: "I brought you up
out of Egypt" (vs. 1). Then, He reminded them of His commandments:
"make no covenant with them that dwell in this land, neither shall ye
worship their gods" (vs. 2). However, since they had disobeyed, He
pronounced His judgment: "I will not drive them out from before you, but
they shall be for a distress to you" (vs. 3). And so the people wept
(vs. 4), which is why that place was named "weeping" or Bochim in Hebrew
(vs. 5). Beware of the attractions of this world which, as enemies,
will ultimately distress your soul!

Observe where the Angel spoke: under Joshua's leadership, God's People
had entered the land and encamped at Gilgal as their first center of
operations (Jos. 4:19). At Gilgal, they set up twelve stones "that all
the nations of the earth" and their own posterity might know that "the
Lord is mighty" - that they should "worship the Lord our God in every
work" (Jos. 4:21).

The Divine Messenger did not judge them at Gilgal. Rather, He "went up"
from Gilgal with its memorial of what God achieved for them, to Bethel
(here called, "Bochim," Jdg. 2:1), a memory of God's judgment and
called "the house of God" (Beth-el). There the Lord promised to give
the land to Jacob's descendants and make them a blessing to "all the
tribes of the earth" (Gen. 28:14-17). But, they joined in the pagan
worship of the peoples of the land who were under God's judgment. His
promise to Israel remained, but their sin of religious syncretism would
bring them difficulties afterwards. Hence, they must weep. The
promises you and I have in Christ are far greater than land, but they
require our tears and struggle to attain purity.

Understand what led the Lord to test Israel's walk before Him (Jdg.
2:21-23). Of course, it was because they "wrought evil before the Lord,
and served Baalim" (vs. 11). Sins always are the cause of the trials
that the Lord allows to come upon you. Examine the worship of "Baal and
the Ashtaroth" thoughtfully (vs. 13). Baal* is a word for "a lord" or
"an owner" in Hebrew, and so the name of pagan deities, Baalim*. These
gods were known to the Canaanite peoples by various names including
Hadad and Adad. They were believed to give fertility to the womb, and
so prostitution was a regular part of their worship, with occasional
infant sacrifice. Ashtaroth, a goddess, also known as Astarte,
Aphrodite, or Venus, was a specific deity whose worship included all
sorts of lascivious practices, including sodomy and bestiality.

The worship of these gods explains why serving them "provoked the Lord"
(vs. 12). The world around us today worships these same gods but under
different names, perhaps hidden to their minds: "sex" and "lust." This
culture is saturated in sensuality, but life in Christ requires us to
struggle to keep "unspotted from the world" (Jas. 1:27). The Lord left
the pagans in place to test Israel, and He is allowing hedonism today,
to see if you will "keep the way of the Lord" (Jdg. 2:22). Out of
distress, "the Lord raised up judges" to save Israel (vs. 16).
Likewise, He gives you the Church, His teachings in Scripture and the
Fathers, and the Holy Mysteries to save you.

O my Lord, may Thy Communion cause all evil and passion to flee away
from me as from fire, through the intercession of all the Saints, the
Bodiless Powers and Thy pure Mother.

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Friday, October 19, 2007

Reading for Feb 18, June 19, Oct 19

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

February 18, June 19, October 19
Chapter 15: At What Times "Alleluia" Is to Be Said

From holy Easter until Pentecost without interruption
let "Alleluia" be said
both in the Psalms and in the responsories.
From Pentecost to the beginning of Lent
let it be said every night
with the last six Psalms of the Night Office only.
On every Sunday, however, outside of Lent,
the canticles, the Morning Office, Prime, Terce, Sext and None
shall be said with "Alleluia,"
but Vespers with antiphons.

The responsories are never to be said with "Alleluia"
except from Easter to Pentecost.

Why do we say "Alleluia"? What is its purpose? Do we know what the word means? I looked it up in the Merriam -Webster online dictionary. Alleluia means "praise you".

Insight for the Ages: A Commentary by Sr Joan Chittister
http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html

The Navahos wrote,"We felt like talking to the ground, we loved it so." Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "The earth laughs in flowers." Benedict of Nursia wrote, say "alleluia" always, no matter the time of day, no matter the season of life.

The use of the alleluia dates back to the earliest of liturgical formularies, both Jewish and Christian, as an endless, chant of joy. In the Christian community it was an expression of praise and a foretaste of eternal gladness. "We are an Easter people," Augustine wrote, "and Alleluia is our cry."

Benedict of Nursia did not originate the use of the alleluia but one thing he did do was to extend its use to every day of the year except Lent.

The prescription is a telling one. To the Benedictine mind, life in all its long nights and weary days is something to be praised, death is the rivet of joy, there is no end to the positive. Even life in hot fields and drab offices and small houses is somehow one long happy thought when God is its center, and blessings, however rare, however scant, are blessed.

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19/10/07 Fri after 20ith week after Pentecost,Henry Martyn

[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

Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

O God of the nations, you gave your faithful servant Henry Martyn a brilliant mind, a loving heart, and a gift for languages, that he might translate the Scriptures and other holy writings for the peoples of India and Persia: Inspire in us a love like his, eager to commit both life and talents to you who gave them; 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 16, 17; PM Psalm 22
Jer. 38:14-28; 1 Cor. 15:1-11; Matt. 11:1-6
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From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm

Matthew 11:1-6. Are you the one who is to come?

John the Baptist had a particular idea about how the work of God would unfold. He was, like many of us, a little bit right and a lot wrong. John recognized that Jesus was the Messiah, but not that he would be the kind of Messiah he turned out to be. John was angry at people on God's behalf. In God's name he threatened dire consequences and he expected God's Messiah to carry them out. But Jesus came healing instead of hating, teaching instead of thrashing, loving instead of leveling. John was confused. How could God miss a path that was so obvious?


Haven't we all wondered the same things? How could God fail to let this lovely person live longer, fail to punish this evil, fail to reward this goodness? When it seems so clear to us, why does God not do it? The answer, of course, is in Isaiah: " 'Your ways are not my ways,' says the Lord." But it is hard to accept. Let us remember what John did when God failed to take the path that seemed so obvious to John. John did not stop believing, vent his disappointment, or find a more agreeable church. He asked what he, John, had missed. May we remember that humility when God fails to do what seems obvious to us.
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Today we remember:
http://www.satucket.com/lectionary

Henry Martyn:
Psalm 98:1-4 or 96:1-7
Isaiah 49:1-6; John 4:22-26
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Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of The Arctic (Rupert's Land, Canada)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
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Speaking to the Soul: http://www.episcopalcafe.com/

Already in heaven

Daily Reading for October 19 • Henry Martyn, Priest, and Missionary to India and Persia, 1812

O send thy light and thy truth, that we may live always near to thee, our God. Let us feel thy love, that we may be as it were already in heaven, that we may do all our work as the angels do theirs. Let us be ready for every work, be ready to go out or come in, to stay or to depart, just as thou shalt appoint. Lord, let us have no will of our own, or consider our true happiness as depending in the slightest degree on anything that can befall us outwardly, but as consisting altogether in conformity to thy will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A prayer of Henry Martyn (1781-1812), quoted in 2000 Years of Prayer, compiled by Michael Counsell. Copyright © 1999. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com
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Spiritual Practice of the Day http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/

Keep close to Nature's heart . . . and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.
— John Muir quoted in Leather Tramp Journal by Richard Broderick

To Practice This Thought: Spend some quality time outdoors.
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Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php

Mine are the heavens and mine is the earth. Mine are the nations, the just are mine, and mine are the sinners. The angels are mine, and the Mother of God, and all things are mine; and God Himself is mine and for me, because Christ is mine and all for me.
St John of the Cross
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Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html

from http://www.balamandmonastery.org.lb/fathers/indexsayings2.htm

In the matter of piety, poverty serves us better than wealth, and
work better than idleness, especially since wealth becomes an
obstacle even for those who do not devote themselves to it. Yet,
when we must put aside our wrath, quench our envy, soften our
anger, offer our prayers, and show a disposition which is
reasonable, mild, kindly, and loving, how could poverty stand in
our way? For we accomplish these things not by spending money but
by making the correct choice. Almsgiving above all else requires
money, but even this shines with a brighter luster when the alms
are given from our poverty. The widow who paid in the two mites
was poorer than any human, but she outdid them all.

St. John Chrysostom
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Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/

The Two Sides of One Faith

Our faith in God who sent his Son to become God-with-us and who, with his Son, sent his Spirit to become God-within-us cannot be real without our faith in the Church. The Church is that unlikely body of people through whom God chooses to reveal God's love for us. Just as it seems unlikely to us that God chose to become human in a young girl living in a small, not very respected town in the Middle East nearly two thousand years ago, it seems unlikely that God chose to continue his work of salvation in a community of people constantly torn apart by arguments, prejudices, authority conflicts, and power games.

Still, believing in Jesus and believing in the Church are two sides of one faith. It is unlikely but divine!
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From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis: http://www.tssf.org/textonly/principles.shtml

Day Nineteen - The Third Way of Service - Work

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/

Live Magnificently
October 19th, 2007
Friday’s Reflection

GOD WANTS US to live magnificently. “Offering the obstacles” of our nature for transformation helps us become more freely cooperative with God’s purposes for the world. We are created to be the mediators of God’s own justice, love, wisdom, and creativity in all our relationships: to self, to others, and to the world.

- Robert Corin Morris
Wrestling with Grace: A Spirituality for the Rough Edges of Daily Life

From page 177 of Wrestling with Grace: A Spirituality for the Rough Edges of Daily Life by Robert Corin Morris. Copyright © 2003 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


Outlaws and Outcasts

Why are we afraid of mentally and physically disabled people? What is it that happens in us when we’re in front of the homeless? What is it that happens to us when we’re close to people of another ethnic group who don’t use our language or jargon? What is it that happens to us when we hear of refugees coming into our cities; when we’re in the presence of an addicted person, a homosexual, a prisoner, or any person who’s failed in our social or economic success system? Why is it that we surround ourselves with other white, middle-class American Catholics? Why do all the others threaten us?

The Lord, in his goodness, offers us a blessing. And many are beginning to recognize it. I think the little ones of this world represent what we are most afraid of within ourselves. We need to embrace them even more than they need to be embraced. As Umberto Eco says in The Name of the Rose, “The people of God cannot be changed until the outcasts are restored to its body.”

from Embracing Christ As Francis Did: In the Church of the Poor
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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

Abide in Jesus Christ

Like the stones of a temple, cut for a building of God the Father, you have been lifted up to the top by the crane of Jesus Christ, which is the cross, and the rope of the Holy Spirit. For your faith has drawn you up and charity has been the road leading to God. You are all fellow pilgrims, carrying with you God and his temple; you are bearers of Christ and of holy offerings, decked out in the commandments of Jesus Christ.

And so do not cease to pray for all other people, for there is hope of their conversion and of their finding God. Give them the chance to be instructed, at least by the way you behave. When they are angry with you, be meek; answer their words of pride by your humility, their blasphemies by your prayers, their error by your steadfastness in faith, their bullying by your gentleness. Let us not be in a hurry to give them tit for tat, but, by our sweet reasonableness, show that we are their brothers and sisters. Let us rather be eager to imitate the Lord, striving to be the first in bearing wrongs, in suffering loss, in being despised, so that no weed of the evil one may be found among you; but abide in Jesus Christ in perfect purity and temperance of body and soul.

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

THE UNHEEDED SECRET


"My kingdom is not of this world." John 18:36

The great enemy to the Lord Jesus Christ in the present day is the conception of practical work that has not come from the New Testament, but from the Systems of the world in which endless energy and activities are insisted upon, but no private life with God. The emphasis is put on the wrong thing. Jesus said, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation, for lo the kingdom of God is within you," a hidden, obscure thing. An active Christian worker too often lives in the shop window. It is the innermost of the innermost that reveals the power of the life.

We have to get rid of the plague of the spirit of the religious age in which we live. In Our Lord's life there was none of the press and rush of tremendous activity that we regard so highly, and the disciple is to be as His Master. The central thing about the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a personal relationship to Himself, not public usefulness to men.

It is not its practical activities that are the strength of this Bible Training College, its whole strength lies in the fact that here you are put into soak before God. You have no idea of where God is going to engineer your circumstances, no knowledge of what strain is going to be put on you either at home or abroad, and if you waste your time in over-active energies instead of getting into soak on the great fundamental truths of God's Redemption, you will snap when the strain comes; but if this time of soaking before God is being spent in getting rooted and grounded in God on the unpractical line, you will remain true to Him what ever happens.
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Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/

February 18, June 19, October 19
Chapter 15: At What Times "Alleluia" Is to Be Said

From holy Easter until Pentecost without interruption
let "Alleluia" be said
both in the Psalms and in the responsories.
From Pentecost to the beginning of Lent
let it be said every night
with the last six Psalms of the Night Office only.
On every Sunday, however, outside of Lent,
the canticles, the Morning Office, Prime, Terce, Sext and None
shall be said with "Alleluia,"
but Vespers with antiphons.

The responsories are never to be said with "Alleluia"
except from Easter to Pentecost.

Insight for the Ages: A Commentary by Sr Joan Chittister
http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html

The Navahos wrote,"We felt like talking to the ground, we loved it so." Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "The earth laughs in flowers." Benedict of Nursia wrote, say "alleluia" always, no matter the time of day, no matter the season of life.

The use of the alleluia dates back to the earliest of liturgical formularies, both Jewish and Christian, as an endless, chant of joy. In the Christian community it was an expression of praise and a foretaste of eternal gladness. "We are an Easter people," Augustine wrote, "and Alleluia is our cry."

Benedict of Nursia did not originate the use of the alleluia but one thing he did do was to extend its use to every day of the year except Lent.

The prescription is a telling one. To the Benedictine mind, life in all its long nights and weary days is something to be praised, death is the rivet of joy, there is no end to the positive. Even life in hot fields and drab offices and small houses is somehow one long happy thought when God is its center, and blessings, however rare, however scant, are blessed.
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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.


Friday, October 19, 2007
John the Wonderworker of Kronstadt
Kellia: Jeremiah 51:24-30 Epistle: Colossians
2:1-7 Gospel: St. Luke 10:1-15

Jeremiah's Later Ministry VII ~ God Warns and Appeals: Jeremiah 51:24-30
LXX, especially vs. 29: "And this shall be a sign to you, that I will
visit you for evil." After this prediction the Lord reveals the
overthrow of Pharaoh Hophra and the invasion of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar
(see vs. 30). These two events occurred between 586 BC and 568 BC.
Hophra was forced to share his throne with one of his officers, Ahmose,
who revolted against him and then reigned jointly with him. Ahmose,
having become the real power of the Egyptian throne, rebelled against
Nebuchadnezzar in 570 BC. As a result, the Babylonians once again
invaded Egypt and then subjugated the country. Then Hophra was
strangled by some of his subjects; thus all portions of the prophecy
were fulfilled. The Lord foretold these events as a sign to those who
persisted in mixing paganism into His worship, and to warn them that
they would "perish by sword and by famine," with the exception of a few
individuals (vs. 27,28).

God is ever willing, amidst all the exigencies of this present life, to
place His word against the proud words of men to see "Whose word shall
stand " (vs. 28). In this passage you have a firm reminder that "the
word of our God abides for ever" (Is. 40:8 LXX), especially in those
epochs when His People have defied Him. Observe that God foretells, in
the prophetic words that follow the opening quote, exactly what would
befall the stubborn rebels who fled to Egypt for safety: they will live
out their lives in Egypt, clinging to pagan errors (Jer. 51:26). They
will experience the very horrors that induced them to flee to Egypt in
the first place (vs. 27). Also, their descendants, a few of whom will
return to Judah, shall know from bitter experience that what God told
them was correct and that they and their fathers erred (vs. 28).

What does God anticipate from His People? "My Name shall no longer be
in the mouth of every Jew to say, The Lord lives, in all the land of
Egypt" (vs. 26). The Lord makes a rather matter of fact statement. If
you are determined to offer incense to the popular goddess, the queens
of the media, then that is what you are going to do rather than to call
on the living Lord God. Jeremiah's is a sad prophecy of a loss of faith
in the Source of truth. The Lord always sees our stubbornness. The
remnant of His People in Egypt were determined to burn incense and pour
out libations. Thus, he says, "Do it! Confirm your vows and perform
your vows!" (vs. 25).

Recall what the refugees feared when they faced the choice of remaining
in their own land or fleeing into Egypt: "the sword, famine and
pestilence" (Jer. 51:17); and recall further that God encouraged them
not to fear these things, but rather to know that "I will grant you
mercy" (Jer. 49:12). But they were a defiant and self-willed people who
knew they were right. Thus, they would fly in the face of the Lord's
prophecy and flee directly into what they feared most. "All the Jews
dwelling in the land of Egypt shall perish by sword and by famine, until
they are utterly consumed" (Jer. 44:27). Their fears were realized - a
sad, but true, fact of history.

The Lord also predicted that they would have survivors, but their
children, having lived for years in great bitterness as refugees, would
know "Whose word" stood the test of time (vs. 28). Beloved of Christ,
do not defy the eternal God. His word shall outlive all the madness in
this world. Do not think that you are smarter than God. He knows all
things from before time and forever. Do not needlessly throw yourself
against the revealed word of God! Do not let your descendants shake
their heads in disbelief at your errors. Our compassionate Lord Jesus
ever ministers to us with an appeal to, "Repent, for the Kingdom of
Heaven is at hand" (Matt. 4:17).

O Master, preserve pure and unpolluted the garment of incorruption,
wherewith Thou hast endowed us, upholding us inviolate in Thy grace by
the Spirit in Whom Thou hast sealed us

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