10/10/07 Wed, 18th 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, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Most gracious God, you sent your beloved Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Raise up in your church witnesses who, after the example of your servant Vida Dutton Scudder, stand firm in proclaiming the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
++++++++++
Today's Scripture http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/
AM Psalm 119:145-176; PM Psalm 128, 129, 130
2 Kings 22:14-23:3; 1 Cor. 11:23-34; Matt. 9:9-17
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Matthew 9:9-17. Follow me.
When Jesus calls people to follow him there seems to be no single approach. One young man was told to give his wealth to the poor and then follow (Matthew 19:21). In today's reading Matthew is simply told to get up and get going. What could be the difference?
We know only that one was well-off and the other was a crook. Matthew was the latter. Tax collectors, in Jesus' day, were like loan sharks today, preying on the weak, vulnerable, and powerless. We do not know how the young man got his money. Let us assume that it was at least more honorable than Matthew's line of work. The only other thing we can reasonably guess is that Matthew was not a hypocrite. He was not a good man and he knew it. The rich young man could have been hypocritical to some degree. Wealth can fool us into thinking we are better than we are.
Matthew, who is dishonest in his dealings, is at least honest about himself. If he follows Jesus, that honesty will serve him well. Hypocrisy will trip you up at every step. What, if anything, would Jesus require of you as a condition for following him further on the path?
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://www.satucket.com/lectionary
Vida Dutton Scudder, http://tinyurl.com/24qdqq
Psalm 25:1-14
Isaiah 11:1-10; John 6:37-51
++++++++++
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Daejeon (Korea)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
Speaking to the Soul: http://www.episcopalcafe.com/
Provide a place
Daily Reading for October 10
You bishops, gather the faithful with much patience, and with doctrine and exhortation, as ministers of the kingdom everlasting. Hold your assemblies with all decent order, and appoint the places for the brethren with care and gravity.
And for the presbyters let there be assigned a place in the eastern part of the house; and let the bishop’s throne be set in their midst, and let the presbyters sit with him.
But of the deacons let one stand always by the oblations of the Eucharist; and let another stand without by the door and observe them that come in; and afterwards, when you offer, let them minister together in the church.
And if any one be found sitting out of his place, let the deacon who is within reprove him and make him rise up and sit in a place that is meet for him. And let the deacon also see that no one whispers, or falls asleep, or laughs, or makes signs.
For so it should be, that with decency and decorum they watch in the church, with ears attentive to the word of the Lord. But if, while young men or women sit, an older man or woman should rise and give up their place, do thou, O deacon, scan those who sit, and see which man or woman of them is younger than the rest, and make them stand up, and cause him to sit who had risen and given up his place; and him whom thou hast caused to stand up, lead away and make him to stand behind his neighbours: that others also may be trained and learn to give place to those more honourable than themselves.
But if a poor man or woman should come, especially if they are stricken in years, and there be no place for such, do thou, O bishop, with all thy heart provide a place for them, even if thou have to set upon the ground; that thou be not as one who respects the persons of men, but that thy ministry may be acceptable with God.
From the Didascalia Apostolorum, quoted in Deacons and the Church: Making Connections between Old and New by John N. Collins. Copyright © 2002. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com
++++++++++
Spiritual Practice of the Day http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/
What good is it for me if Mary gave birth to the Son of God 1400 years ago and I don't give birth to God's son in my person and my culture and my times?
— Meister Eckhart quoted in Original Blessing by Matthew Fox
To Practice This Thought:
++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
In the evening of this life you will be examined in love. Learn then to love as God desires to be loved and abandon your own ways of acting.
St John of the Cross
Sayings of Light and Love, 60.
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
from http://www.balamandmonastery.org.lb/fathers/indexsayings2.htm
The Lord of all gave to His apostles the power of the gospel, and
by them we also have learned the truth, that is, the teaching of
the Son of God - as the Lord said to them, `He who hears you hears
Me, and he who despises you despises Me, and Him Who sent Me'
[Lk.10:16]. For we learned the plan of our salvation from no other
than from those through whom the gospel came to us. The first
preached it abroad, and then later by the will of God handed it
down to us in Scriptures, to be the foundation and pillar of our
faith. For it is not right to say that they preached before they
had come to perfect knowledge, as some dare to say, boasting that
they are the correctors of the apostles. For after our Lord had
risen from the dead, and they were clothed with the power from on
high when the Holy Spirit came upon them, they were filled with
all things and had perfect knowledge. They went out to the ends of
the earth, preaching the good things that come to us from God, and
proclaiming peace from heaven to all men, all and each of them
equally being in possession of the gospel of God.
St. Irenaeus, Against the Heresies, III
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
Breaking Through the Boundaries
The sacrament of the Eucharist, as the sacrament of the presence of Christ among and within us, has the unique power to unite us into one body, irrespective of age, colour, race or gender, emotional condition, economic status, or social background. The Eucharist breaks through all these boundaries and creates the one body of Christ, living in the world as a vibrant sign of unity and community.
Jesus prays fervently to his Father: "May they all be one, just as, Father, you are in me and I am in you, so that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me" (John 17:21). The Eucharist is the sacrament of this divine unity lived out among all people.
++++++++++
The Merton Reflection for the Week of October 8, 2007
http://www.mertoninstitute.org/retreats.php
I came up here [to his hermitage] from the monastery last night, sloshing through the cornfield, said Vespers, and put some oatmeal on the Coleman stove for supper. It boiled over while I was listening to the rain and toasting a piece of bread at the log fire. The night became very dark. The rain surrounded the whole cabin with its enormous virginal myth, a whole world of meaning, of secrecy, of silence, of rumor. Think of it: all that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody, drenching the thick mulch of dead leaves, soaking the trees, filling the gullies and crannies of the wood with water, washing out the places where men have stripped the hillside! What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges, and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows!
Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, this rain. As long as it talks I am going to listen.
Thomas Merton. "Rain and the Rhinocerous" in Raids on the Unspeakable. New York: New Directions Publishing Co., 1964: 9-10.
Thought to Remember:
Philoxenos in his ninth memra (on poverty) to dwellers in solitude, says that there is no explanation and no justification for the solitary life, since it is without a law. To be a contemplative is therefore to be an outlaw. As was Christ. As was [Saint] Paul.
Contemplation in A World of Action: 287
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis: http://www.tssf.org/textonly/principles.shtml
Day Ten - The Third Aim
To live simply
The first Christians surrendered completely to our Lord and recklessly gave all that they had, offering the world a new vision of a society in which a fresh attitude was taken towards material possessions. This vision was renewed by Saint Francis when he chose Lady Poverty as his bride, desiring that all barriers set up by privilege based on wealth should be overcome by love. This is the inspiration for the third aim of the Society, to live simply.
++++++++++
Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/
Building Bridges
October 10th, 2007
Wednesday’s Reflection
GOD OF ALL PEOPLES, save us from the easy assumption that those who share our citizenship, our race, our faith, are those most likely to bear your love for us. Keep us building bridges. Amen.
- Brian W. Grant
The Upper Room Disciplines 2007
From page 295 of The Upper Room Disciplines 2007. Copyright © 2006 by Upper Room Books. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission. http://www.upperroom.org/bookstore/
+++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
It’s OK to Be Human
After the first couple months of living in community, many people fall apart. All of us have this skeleton in the closet, this bit of guilt, this big fear, this demon, whatever it might be, and in community we finally feel free to let it out. We finally feel free to yell and scream. To say, "I hate myself; I'm angry at God; I'm angry at the Church!" Or we might admit being restless in our marriage or other vows.
Now that's a messy way to live. If you're looking for a comfortable, neat, proper way to live, don't get involved in community. The great risk we have to take is the risk to be human, to realize it's OK to be human. A healthy community allows us and protects us while we "fall apart."
We've been trained to follow scriptural advice to become "perfect" (Matthew 5:48). [This passage must be seen as the conclusion to Jesus' teaching on the love of enemies, a seemingly impossible ideal.] So it's very hard to love and accept ourselves when we are imperfect, messy, broken, angry, or sad. Sometimes it's hard to accept one another.
You know what I think God is calling you to be? Simply a member of God's family. That's all. This is the training ground for heaven. Heaven is "forever-family" where God is father and mother, and we are brothers and sisters. God wants to know if you want family, and if you are willing to choose it now—and forever.
from The Spiritual Family and the Natural Family
++++++++++
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
It’s OK to Be Human
After the first couple months of living in community, many people fall apart. All of us have this skeleton in the closet, this bit of guilt, this big fear, this demon, whatever it might be, and in community we finally feel free to let it out. We finally feel free to yell and scream. To say, "I hate myself; I'm angry at God; I'm angry at the Church!" Or we might admit being restless in our marriage or other vows.
Now that's a messy way to live. If you're looking for a comfortable, neat, proper way to live, don't get involved in community. The great risk we have to take is the risk to be human, to realize it's OK to be human. A healthy community allows us and protects us while we "fall apart."
We've been trained to follow scriptural advice to become "perfect" (Matthew 5:48). [This passage must be seen as the conclusion to Jesus' teaching on the love of enemies, a seemingly impossible ideal.] So it's very hard to love and accept ourselves when we are imperfect, messy, broken, angry, or sad. Sometimes it's hard to accept one another.
You know what I think God is calling you to be? Simply a member of God's family. That's all. This is the training ground for heaven. Heaven is "forever-family" where God is father and mother, and we are brothers and sisters. God wants to know if you want family, and if you are willing to choose it now—and forever.
from The Spiritual Family and the Natural Family
++++++++++
Daily Readings From "My Utmost for His Highest", Oswald Chambers
http://www.myutmost.org/
WHEREBY SHALL I KNOW?
"I thank Thee, 0 Father . . . because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." Matthew 11:25
In spiritual relationship we do not grow step by step; we are either there or we are not. God does not cleanse us more and more from sin, but when we are in the light, walking in the light, we are cleansed from all sin. It is a question of obedience, and instantly the relationship is perfected. Turn away for one second out of obedience, and darkness and death are at work at once.
All God's revelations are sealed until they are opened to us by obedience. You will never get them open by philosophy or thinking. Immediately you obey, a flash of light comes. Let God's truth work in you by soaking in it, not by worrying into it. The only way you can get to know is to stop trying to find out and by being born again. Obey God in the thing He shows you, and instantly the next thing is opened up. One reads tomes on the work of the Holy Spirit, when one five minutes of drastic obedience would make things as clear as a sunbeam. "I suppose I shall understand these things some day!" You can understand them now. It is not study that does it, but obedience. The tiniest fragment of obedience, and heaven opens and the profoundest truths of God are yours straight away. God will never reveal more truth about Himself until you have obeyed what you know already. Beware of becoming "wise and prudent."
++++++++++
Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 7: On Humility
The twelfth degree of humility
is that a monk not only have humility in his heart
but also by his very appearance make it always manifest
to those who see him.
That is to say that whether he is at the Work of God,
in the oratory, in the monastery, in the garden, on the road,
in the fields or anywhere else,
and whether sitting, walking or standing,
he should always have his head bowed
and his eyes toward the ground.
Feeling the guilt of his sins at every moment,
he should consider himself already present at the dread Judgment
and constantly say in his heart
what the publican in the Gospel said
with his eyes fixed on the earth:
"Lord, I am a sinner and not worthy to lift up my eyes to heaven" (Luke 18:13; Matt. 8:8);
and again with the Prophet:
"I am bowed down and humbled everywhere" (Ps. 37:7,9; 118:107).
Having climbed all these steps of humility, therefore,
the monk will presently come to that perfect love of God
which casts out fear.
And all those precepts
which formerly he had not observed without fear,
he will now begin to keep by reason of that love,
without any effort,
as though naturally and by habit.
No longer will his motive be the fear of hell,
but rather the love of Christ,
good habit
and delight in the virtues
which the Lord will deign to show forth by the Holy Spirit
in His servant now cleansed from vice and sin.
Insight for the Ages: A Commentary by Sr Joan Chittister
http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
This paragraph is, at first reading, a very difficult excursion into the tension between the apparent and the real. Bowing and scraping have long since gone out of style. What is to be made today of a dictum that prescribes bowed heads and downcast eyes in a culture given to straight-shouldered, steady-eyed self-esteem?
What Benedict is telling us is that true humility is simply a measure of the self that is taken without exaggerated perfection or exaggerated guilt. Humility is the ability to know ourselves as God knows us and to know that it is the little we are that is precisely our claim on God. Humility is, then, the foundation for our relationship with God, our connectedness to others, our acceptance of ourselves, our way of using the goods of the earth and even our way of walking through the world, without arrogance, without domination, without scorn, without put-downs, without disdain, without self-centeredness. The more we know ourselves, the gentler we will be with others.
The chapter on humility is a strangely wonderful and intriguingly distressing treatise on the process of the spiritual life. It does not say, "Be perfect." It says, "Be honest about what you are and you will come to know God." It does not say, "Be flawless and you will earn God." It says, "If you recognize the presence of God in life, you will soon become more and more perfect." But this perfection is not in the twentieth-century sense of impeccability. This perfection is in the biblical sense of having become matured, ripened, whole.
The entire chapter is such a non-mechanistic, totally human approach to God. If we reach out and meet God here where God is, if we accept God's will in life where our will does not prevail, if we are willing to learn from others, if we can see ourselves and accept ourselves for what we are and grow from that, if we can live simply, if we can respect others and reverence them, if we can be a trusting part of our world without having to strut around it controlling it, changing it, wrenching it to our own image and likeness, then we will have achieved "perfect love that casts out fear (1 Jn 4:18.)" There will be nothing left to fear--not God's wrath, not the loss of human respect, not the absence of control, not the achievements of others greater than our own whose success we have had to smother with rejection or deride with scorn.
Humility, the lost virtue of the twentieth century, is crying to heaven for rediscovery. The development of nations, the preservation of the globe, the achievement of human community may well depend on it.
++++++++++
Dynamis http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orthodoxdynamis/
Dynamis is a daily Bible meditation based upon the lectionary of the Holy Orthodox Church.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007 The Martyrs of the
Theban Legion on the Rhine
Kellia: Jeremiah 45:1-13 Epistle: Philippians
2:24-30 Gospel: St. Luke 8:22-25
Saving Truth: Jeremiah 45:1-13 LXX, especially vs. 6: "And they cast
him into the dungeon of
Malchiah the king's son, which was in the court of the prison; and they
let him down into the pit:
and there was no water in the pit, but mire: and he was in the mire."
The truth is that the
leaders of Judah were themselves in the mire. The siege of Jerusalem
lasted from January, 588
until July, 587 BC, being interrupted briefly during the summer of 588
BC when the Babylonians
turned to defeat an Egyptian army advancing against them. In that
momentary respite from the
conflict, Jeremiah was arrested and detained. Thereafter, the assault
on Jerusalem resumed.
The courtiers favoring a pro-Egyptian policy continued to prevail:
the city must hold out!
For those officials, Jeremiah was no Prophet, but a seditious threat to
the morale of the troops
fighting off the army surrounding the city: "Let that man, we pray thee,
be slain, for he weakens
the hands of the fighting men that are left in the city, and the hands
of all the people...." (vs. 4).
The king, weak-willed and having little real power, gave the
officials leave to do what
they would with Jeremiah (vs. 5). Being summertime, the water in the
cistern in the house of
king's son was depleted, so they dropped him down into that cistern to
sink in the mire and meet
his death with the insects that live in such reservoirs (vs. 6). During
the whole sequence of
events, the eyewitness account records that the Prophet said nothing.
Like the Lord Jesus in the
hands of His opponents before Pontius Pilate (Lk. 23), Jeremiah remained
silent.
Can the word of God be so easily silenced - by dropping a Prophet
into a miry storage
basin? The jarring, abrasive voice often disrupts life, but will not be
stifled! Lord, in Thy mercy,
keep us from the self-assured sin of opposing truth! We know in our
bones that God's truth
cannot be swept away, muzzled, or hidden by the fiat of mere mortals.
Never give in to wicked
schemes to dispatch the word of God as did King Zedekiah (vs. 7). Puny
men may think they
have better ideas than God, but woe to those who imagine they can muffle
His word!
Observe that it was a foreigner, an outsider, a slave in the king's
household, an
emasculated man, one without great power who responded to the Prophet's
plight. He was
moved in his heart to save Jeremiah. This marginal man did three simple
things that anyone can
do to lift unpleasant truth up into the light: 1) he appealed to one
capable of reversing the order to
silence Jeremiah (vss. 8-9). 2) He took the necessary actions to raise
the Prophet from the cistern
(vss. 11-13). 3) He saw that no harm came to Jeremiah in pulling him
from the mire (vs. 12).
It is always possible to speak up when truth is thrown down into the
mire, out of sight.
Appeal to those capable of correcting the situation if truth is
smothered. Begin the redress of
grievances by exposing the suppression of truth to those who can support
the release of the truth.
Elected officials, appointed officers, presidents, kings, legislators,
rulers, directors, managers,
and owners need to hear appeals on behalf of God's truth. Speak up!
You can act.
With others helping, the eunuch assembled a few "old rags and old
ropes" (vs. 11) and
these he threw to the stranded Prophet in the mire. By acting directly,
only a few were needed to
pull Jeremiah out of death and silence. With a few others you may act
using whatever God
places in your hands, but do so gently! Do not further abuse the truth
to save it. Ebed-melech
kept Jeremiah from further distress by using old clothes to pad his
armpits when he was tugged
out of the mire into the open air and light. As you act to save truth,
treat it gently (vs. 12).
O Master, Christ our God, lift up my downcast mind and heart to
Thee, and draw them
out of the mire of perdition, lifting me with the sure ropes of
repentance and Thy gentle gift of
consoling tears, that I may, by Thine aid, raise others of Thy servants
to their true heritage.
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, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Most gracious God, you sent your beloved Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Raise up in your church witnesses who, after the example of your servant Vida Dutton Scudder, stand firm in proclaiming the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
++++++++++
Today's Scripture http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/
AM Psalm 119:145-176; PM Psalm 128, 129, 130
2 Kings 22:14-23:3; 1 Cor. 11:23-34; Matt. 9:9-17
++++++++++
From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm
Matthew 9:9-17. Follow me.
When Jesus calls people to follow him there seems to be no single approach. One young man was told to give his wealth to the poor and then follow (Matthew 19:21). In today's reading Matthew is simply told to get up and get going. What could be the difference?
We know only that one was well-off and the other was a crook. Matthew was the latter. Tax collectors, in Jesus' day, were like loan sharks today, preying on the weak, vulnerable, and powerless. We do not know how the young man got his money. Let us assume that it was at least more honorable than Matthew's line of work. The only other thing we can reasonably guess is that Matthew was not a hypocrite. He was not a good man and he knew it. The rich young man could have been hypocritical to some degree. Wealth can fool us into thinking we are better than we are.
Matthew, who is dishonest in his dealings, is at least honest about himself. If he follows Jesus, that honesty will serve him well. Hypocrisy will trip you up at every step. What, if anything, would Jesus require of you as a condition for following him further on the path?
++++++++++
Today we remember: http://www.satucket.com/lectionary
Vida Dutton Scudder, http://tinyurl.com/24qdqq
Psalm 25:1-14
Isaiah 11:1-10; John 6:37-51
++++++++++
Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Daejeon (Korea)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++
Speaking to the Soul: http://www.episcopalcafe.com/
Provide a place
Daily Reading for October 10
You bishops, gather the faithful with much patience, and with doctrine and exhortation, as ministers of the kingdom everlasting. Hold your assemblies with all decent order, and appoint the places for the brethren with care and gravity.
And for the presbyters let there be assigned a place in the eastern part of the house; and let the bishop’s throne be set in their midst, and let the presbyters sit with him.
But of the deacons let one stand always by the oblations of the Eucharist; and let another stand without by the door and observe them that come in; and afterwards, when you offer, let them minister together in the church.
And if any one be found sitting out of his place, let the deacon who is within reprove him and make him rise up and sit in a place that is meet for him. And let the deacon also see that no one whispers, or falls asleep, or laughs, or makes signs.
For so it should be, that with decency and decorum they watch in the church, with ears attentive to the word of the Lord. But if, while young men or women sit, an older man or woman should rise and give up their place, do thou, O deacon, scan those who sit, and see which man or woman of them is younger than the rest, and make them stand up, and cause him to sit who had risen and given up his place; and him whom thou hast caused to stand up, lead away and make him to stand behind his neighbours: that others also may be trained and learn to give place to those more honourable than themselves.
But if a poor man or woman should come, especially if they are stricken in years, and there be no place for such, do thou, O bishop, with all thy heart provide a place for them, even if thou have to set upon the ground; that thou be not as one who respects the persons of men, but that thy ministry may be acceptable with God.
From the Didascalia Apostolorum, quoted in Deacons and the Church: Making Connections between Old and New by John N. Collins. Copyright © 2002. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com
++++++++++
Spiritual Practice of the Day http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/
What good is it for me if Mary gave birth to the Son of God 1400 years ago and I don't give birth to God's son in my person and my culture and my times?
— Meister Eckhart quoted in Original Blessing by Matthew Fox
To Practice This Thought:
++++++++++
Carmelite.com: Reflections http://www.carmelite.com/spirituality/reflection.php
In the evening of this life you will be examined in love. Learn then to love as God desires to be loved and abandon your own ways of acting.
St John of the Cross
Sayings of Light and Love, 60.
++++++++++
Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html
from http://www.balamandmonastery.org.lb/fathers/indexsayings2.htm
The Lord of all gave to His apostles the power of the gospel, and
by them we also have learned the truth, that is, the teaching of
the Son of God - as the Lord said to them, `He who hears you hears
Me, and he who despises you despises Me, and Him Who sent Me'
[Lk.10:16]. For we learned the plan of our salvation from no other
than from those through whom the gospel came to us. The first
preached it abroad, and then later by the will of God handed it
down to us in Scriptures, to be the foundation and pillar of our
faith. For it is not right to say that they preached before they
had come to perfect knowledge, as some dare to say, boasting that
they are the correctors of the apostles. For after our Lord had
risen from the dead, and they were clothed with the power from on
high when the Holy Spirit came upon them, they were filled with
all things and had perfect knowledge. They went out to the ends of
the earth, preaching the good things that come to us from God, and
proclaiming peace from heaven to all men, all and each of them
equally being in possession of the gospel of God.
St. Irenaeus, Against the Heresies, III
++++++++++
Daily Meditation (Henri Nouwen) http://www.henrinouwen.org/home/free_eletters/
Breaking Through the Boundaries
The sacrament of the Eucharist, as the sacrament of the presence of Christ among and within us, has the unique power to unite us into one body, irrespective of age, colour, race or gender, emotional condition, economic status, or social background. The Eucharist breaks through all these boundaries and creates the one body of Christ, living in the world as a vibrant sign of unity and community.
Jesus prays fervently to his Father: "May they all be one, just as, Father, you are in me and I am in you, so that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me" (John 17:21). The Eucharist is the sacrament of this divine unity lived out among all people.
++++++++++
The Merton Reflection for the Week of October 8, 2007
http://www.mertoninstitute.org/retreats.php
I came up here [to his hermitage] from the monastery last night, sloshing through the cornfield, said Vespers, and put some oatmeal on the Coleman stove for supper. It boiled over while I was listening to the rain and toasting a piece of bread at the log fire. The night became very dark. The rain surrounded the whole cabin with its enormous virginal myth, a whole world of meaning, of secrecy, of silence, of rumor. Think of it: all that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody, drenching the thick mulch of dead leaves, soaking the trees, filling the gullies and crannies of the wood with water, washing out the places where men have stripped the hillside! What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges, and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows!
Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, this rain. As long as it talks I am going to listen.
Thomas Merton. "Rain and the Rhinocerous" in Raids on the Unspeakable. New York: New Directions Publishing Co., 1964: 9-10.
Thought to Remember:
Philoxenos in his ninth memra (on poverty) to dwellers in solitude, says that there is no explanation and no justification for the solitary life, since it is without a law. To be a contemplative is therefore to be an outlaw. As was Christ. As was [Saint] Paul.
Contemplation in A World of Action: 287
++++++++++
From the Principles of the Third Society of St. Francis: http://www.tssf.org/textonly/principles.shtml
Day Ten - The Third Aim
To live simply
The first Christians surrendered completely to our Lord and recklessly gave all that they had, offering the world a new vision of a society in which a fresh attitude was taken towards material possessions. This vision was renewed by Saint Francis when he chose Lady Poverty as his bride, desiring that all barriers set up by privilege based on wealth should be overcome by love. This is the inspiration for the third aim of the Society, to live simply.
++++++++++
Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/
Building Bridges
October 10th, 2007
Wednesday’s Reflection
GOD OF ALL PEOPLES, save us from the easy assumption that those who share our citizenship, our race, our faith, are those most likely to bear your love for us. Keep us building bridges. Amen.
- Brian W. Grant
The Upper Room Disciplines 2007
From page 295 of The Upper Room Disciplines 2007. Copyright © 2006 by Upper Room Books. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission. http://www.upperroom.org/bookstore/
+++++++++++
Richard Rohr's Daily Reflection
http://cacradicalgrace.org/getconnected/getconnected_index.html
It’s OK to Be Human
After the first couple months of living in community, many people fall apart. All of us have this skeleton in the closet, this bit of guilt, this big fear, this demon, whatever it might be, and in community we finally feel free to let it out. We finally feel free to yell and scream. To say, "I hate myself; I'm angry at God; I'm angry at the Church!" Or we might admit being restless in our marriage or other vows.
Now that's a messy way to live. If you're looking for a comfortable, neat, proper way to live, don't get involved in community. The great risk we have to take is the risk to be human, to realize it's OK to be human. A healthy community allows us and protects us while we "fall apart."
We've been trained to follow scriptural advice to become "perfect" (Matthew 5:48). [This passage must be seen as the conclusion to Jesus' teaching on the love of enemies, a seemingly impossible ideal.] So it's very hard to love and accept ourselves when we are imperfect, messy, broken, angry, or sad. Sometimes it's hard to accept one another.
You know what I think God is calling you to be? Simply a member of God's family. That's all. This is the training ground for heaven. Heaven is "forever-family" where God is father and mother, and we are brothers and sisters. God wants to know if you want family, and if you are willing to choose it now—and forever.
from The Spiritual Family and the Natural Family
++++++++++
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
It’s OK to Be Human
After the first couple months of living in community, many people fall apart. All of us have this skeleton in the closet, this bit of guilt, this big fear, this demon, whatever it might be, and in community we finally feel free to let it out. We finally feel free to yell and scream. To say, "I hate myself; I'm angry at God; I'm angry at the Church!" Or we might admit being restless in our marriage or other vows.
Now that's a messy way to live. If you're looking for a comfortable, neat, proper way to live, don't get involved in community. The great risk we have to take is the risk to be human, to realize it's OK to be human. A healthy community allows us and protects us while we "fall apart."
We've been trained to follow scriptural advice to become "perfect" (Matthew 5:48). [This passage must be seen as the conclusion to Jesus' teaching on the love of enemies, a seemingly impossible ideal.] So it's very hard to love and accept ourselves when we are imperfect, messy, broken, angry, or sad. Sometimes it's hard to accept one another.
You know what I think God is calling you to be? Simply a member of God's family. That's all. This is the training ground for heaven. Heaven is "forever-family" where God is father and mother, and we are brothers and sisters. God wants to know if you want family, and if you are willing to choose it now—and forever.
from The Spiritual Family and the Natural Family
++++++++++
Daily Readings From "My Utmost for His Highest", Oswald Chambers
http://www.myutmost.org/
WHEREBY SHALL I KNOW?
"I thank Thee, 0 Father . . . because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." Matthew 11:25
In spiritual relationship we do not grow step by step; we are either there or we are not. God does not cleanse us more and more from sin, but when we are in the light, walking in the light, we are cleansed from all sin. It is a question of obedience, and instantly the relationship is perfected. Turn away for one second out of obedience, and darkness and death are at work at once.
All God's revelations are sealed until they are opened to us by obedience. You will never get them open by philosophy or thinking. Immediately you obey, a flash of light comes. Let God's truth work in you by soaking in it, not by worrying into it. The only way you can get to know is to stop trying to find out and by being born again. Obey God in the thing He shows you, and instantly the next thing is opened up. One reads tomes on the work of the Holy Spirit, when one five minutes of drastic obedience would make things as clear as a sunbeam. "I suppose I shall understand these things some day!" You can understand them now. It is not study that does it, but obedience. The tiniest fragment of obedience, and heaven opens and the profoundest truths of God are yours straight away. God will never reveal more truth about Himself until you have obeyed what you know already. Beware of becoming "wise and prudent."
++++++++++
Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/
Chapter 7: On Humility
The twelfth degree of humility
is that a monk not only have humility in his heart
but also by his very appearance make it always manifest
to those who see him.
That is to say that whether he is at the Work of God,
in the oratory, in the monastery, in the garden, on the road,
in the fields or anywhere else,
and whether sitting, walking or standing,
he should always have his head bowed
and his eyes toward the ground.
Feeling the guilt of his sins at every moment,
he should consider himself already present at the dread Judgment
and constantly say in his heart
what the publican in the Gospel said
with his eyes fixed on the earth:
"Lord, I am a sinner and not worthy to lift up my eyes to heaven" (Luke 18:13; Matt. 8:8);
and again with the Prophet:
"I am bowed down and humbled everywhere" (Ps. 37:7,9; 118:107).
Having climbed all these steps of humility, therefore,
the monk will presently come to that perfect love of God
which casts out fear.
And all those precepts
which formerly he had not observed without fear,
he will now begin to keep by reason of that love,
without any effort,
as though naturally and by habit.
No longer will his motive be the fear of hell,
but rather the love of Christ,
good habit
and delight in the virtues
which the Lord will deign to show forth by the Holy Spirit
in His servant now cleansed from vice and sin.
Insight for the Ages: A Commentary by Sr Joan Chittister
http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html
This paragraph is, at first reading, a very difficult excursion into the tension between the apparent and the real. Bowing and scraping have long since gone out of style. What is to be made today of a dictum that prescribes bowed heads and downcast eyes in a culture given to straight-shouldered, steady-eyed self-esteem?
What Benedict is telling us is that true humility is simply a measure of the self that is taken without exaggerated perfection or exaggerated guilt. Humility is the ability to know ourselves as God knows us and to know that it is the little we are that is precisely our claim on God. Humility is, then, the foundation for our relationship with God, our connectedness to others, our acceptance of ourselves, our way of using the goods of the earth and even our way of walking through the world, without arrogance, without domination, without scorn, without put-downs, without disdain, without self-centeredness. The more we know ourselves, the gentler we will be with others.
The chapter on humility is a strangely wonderful and intriguingly distressing treatise on the process of the spiritual life. It does not say, "Be perfect." It says, "Be honest about what you are and you will come to know God." It does not say, "Be flawless and you will earn God." It says, "If you recognize the presence of God in life, you will soon become more and more perfect." But this perfection is not in the twentieth-century sense of impeccability. This perfection is in the biblical sense of having become matured, ripened, whole.
The entire chapter is such a non-mechanistic, totally human approach to God. If we reach out and meet God here where God is, if we accept God's will in life where our will does not prevail, if we are willing to learn from others, if we can see ourselves and accept ourselves for what we are and grow from that, if we can live simply, if we can respect others and reverence them, if we can be a trusting part of our world without having to strut around it controlling it, changing it, wrenching it to our own image and likeness, then we will have achieved "perfect love that casts out fear (1 Jn 4:18.)" There will be nothing left to fear--not God's wrath, not the loss of human respect, not the absence of control, not the achievements of others greater than our own whose success we have had to smother with rejection or deride with scorn.
Humility, the lost virtue of the twentieth century, is crying to heaven for rediscovery. The development of nations, the preservation of the globe, the achievement of human community may well depend on it.
++++++++++
Dynamis http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orthodoxdynamis/
Dynamis is a daily Bible meditation based upon the lectionary of the Holy Orthodox Church.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007 The Martyrs of the
Theban Legion on the Rhine
Kellia: Jeremiah 45:1-13 Epistle: Philippians
2:24-30 Gospel: St. Luke 8:22-25
Saving Truth: Jeremiah 45:1-13 LXX, especially vs. 6: "And they cast
him into the dungeon of
Malchiah the king's son, which was in the court of the prison; and they
let him down into the pit:
and there was no water in the pit, but mire: and he was in the mire."
The truth is that the
leaders of Judah were themselves in the mire. The siege of Jerusalem
lasted from January, 588
until July, 587 BC, being interrupted briefly during the summer of 588
BC when the Babylonians
turned to defeat an Egyptian army advancing against them. In that
momentary respite from the
conflict, Jeremiah was arrested and detained. Thereafter, the assault
on Jerusalem resumed.
The courtiers favoring a pro-Egyptian policy continued to prevail:
the city must hold out!
For those officials, Jeremiah was no Prophet, but a seditious threat to
the morale of the troops
fighting off the army surrounding the city: "Let that man, we pray thee,
be slain, for he weakens
the hands of the fighting men that are left in the city, and the hands
of all the people...." (vs. 4).
The king, weak-willed and having little real power, gave the
officials leave to do what
they would with Jeremiah (vs. 5). Being summertime, the water in the
cistern in the house of
king's son was depleted, so they dropped him down into that cistern to
sink in the mire and meet
his death with the insects that live in such reservoirs (vs. 6). During
the whole sequence of
events, the eyewitness account records that the Prophet said nothing.
Like the Lord Jesus in the
hands of His opponents before Pontius Pilate (Lk. 23), Jeremiah remained
silent.
Can the word of God be so easily silenced - by dropping a Prophet
into a miry storage
basin? The jarring, abrasive voice often disrupts life, but will not be
stifled! Lord, in Thy mercy,
keep us from the self-assured sin of opposing truth! We know in our
bones that God's truth
cannot be swept away, muzzled, or hidden by the fiat of mere mortals.
Never give in to wicked
schemes to dispatch the word of God as did King Zedekiah (vs. 7). Puny
men may think they
have better ideas than God, but woe to those who imagine they can muffle
His word!
Observe that it was a foreigner, an outsider, a slave in the king's
household, an
emasculated man, one without great power who responded to the Prophet's
plight. He was
moved in his heart to save Jeremiah. This marginal man did three simple
things that anyone can
do to lift unpleasant truth up into the light: 1) he appealed to one
capable of reversing the order to
silence Jeremiah (vss. 8-9). 2) He took the necessary actions to raise
the Prophet from the cistern
(vss. 11-13). 3) He saw that no harm came to Jeremiah in pulling him
from the mire (vs. 12).
It is always possible to speak up when truth is thrown down into the
mire, out of sight.
Appeal to those capable of correcting the situation if truth is
smothered. Begin the redress of
grievances by exposing the suppression of truth to those who can support
the release of the truth.
Elected officials, appointed officers, presidents, kings, legislators,
rulers, directors, managers,
and owners need to hear appeals on behalf of God's truth. Speak up!
You can act.
With others helping, the eunuch assembled a few "old rags and old
ropes" (vs. 11) and
these he threw to the stranded Prophet in the mire. By acting directly,
only a few were needed to
pull Jeremiah out of death and silence. With a few others you may act
using whatever God
places in your hands, but do so gently! Do not further abuse the truth
to save it. Ebed-melech
kept Jeremiah from further distress by using old clothes to pad his
armpits when he was tugged
out of the mire into the open air and light. As you act to save truth,
treat it gently (vs. 12).
O Master, Christ our God, lift up my downcast mind and heart to
Thee, and draw them
out of the mire of perdition, lifting me with the sure ropes of
repentance and Thy gentle gift of
consoling tears, that I may, by Thine aid, raise others of Thy servants
to their true heritage.
Labels: meditation
posted by Gloriamarie Amalfitano @ 9:54 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home