Reading for November 27, 2007

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

March 28, July 28, November 27
Chapter 48: On the Daily Manual Labor

Idleness is the enemy of the soul.
Therefore the sisters should be occupied
at certain times in manual labor,
and again at fixed hours in sacred reading.
To that end
we think that the times for each may be prescribed as follows.

From Easter until the Calends of October,
when they come out from Prime in the morning
let them labor at whatever is necessary
until about the fourth hour,
and from the fourth hour until about the sixth
let them apply themselves to reading.
After the sixth hour,
having left the table,
let them rest on their beds in perfect silence;
or if anyone may perhaps want to read,
let her read to herself
in such a way as not to disturb anyone else.
Let None be said rather early,
at the middle of the eighth hour,
and let them again do what work has to be done until Vespers.

And if the circumstances of the place or their poverty
should require that they themselves
do the work of gathering the harvest,
let them not be discontented;
for then are they truly monastics
when they live by the labor of their hands,
as did our Fathers and the Apostles.
Let all things be done with moderation, however,
for the sake of the faint-hearted.

"Idleness is the enemy of the soul." What does that mean to you, gentle readers? One thing it tells me is that work is holy because it is the unholy that is the enemy of the soul. Of course this immediately raises the issue of what work is holy in today's post-modern world. i have Very Strong Opinions on this subject so please Don't Get Me Started.

Notice the flow of their days: prayer; work; reading; meal; nap; prayer; work; prayer. Prayer punctuates work. It is not an either/or work all day, pray all day. I could well stand to be reminded of this on a daily basis. I get a sort of tunnel vision. I start something and will power on through until it is finished, ignoring any hints to slow down or cease for a time. Sometimes I think I need a very fancy wrist watch that I could set with different chimes to remind me when to pray, take meds, knit, study. After all, we just read about the ringing of the bells in the monastery to recall them to this or that.





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

There is little room for excursion into the quixotic in the Rule of Benedict. If any chapter proves that point best, it may well be the chapter on work. Benedict doesn't labor the point but he clearly makes it: Benedictine life is life immersed in the sanctity of the real and work is a fundamental part of it. The function of the spiritual life is not to escape into the next world; it is to live well in this one. The monastic engages in creative work as a way to be responsible for the upbuilding of the community. Work periods, in fact, are specified just as prayer periods are. Work and prayer are opposite sides of the great coin of a life that is both holy and useful, immersed in God and dedicated to the transcendent in the human. It is labor's transfiguration of the commonplace, the transformation of the ordinary that makes co-creators of us all.

Benedictine spirituality exacts something so much harder for our century than rigor. Benedictine spirituality demands balance. Immediately after Benedict talks about the human need to work, to fill our lives with something useful and creative and worthy of our concentration, he talks about lectio, about holy reading and study. Then, in a world that depended on the rising and the setting of the sun to mark their days rather than on the artificial numbers on the face of a clock, Benedict shifts prayer, work and reading periods from season to season to allow for some of each and not too much of either as the days stretch or diminish from period to period. He wants prayer to be brief, work to be daily and study to be constant. With allowances for periodic changes, then, the community prayed and studied from about 2:00 am to dawn and then worked for a couple of hours until the hour of Terce at about 10:00 am. Then, after Terce they read for a couple of hours until Sext before the midday meal. After dinner they rested or read until about 2:30 and then went back to work for three or four hours until Vespers and supper in the late afternoon. After saying a very brief Compline or evening prayer they retired after sundown for the night. It was a gentle, full, enriching, regular, calm and balanced life. It was a prescription for life that ironically has become very hard to achieve in a world of light bulbs and telephones and cars but it may be more necessary than ever if the modern soul is to regain any of the real rhythm of life and so, its sanity as well.

27/11/07 Tue last 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, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; 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 [120], 121, 122, 123; PM Psalm 124, 125, 126, [127]
Nahum 1:1-13; 1 Pet. 1:13-25; Matt. 19:13-22
++++++++++

From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm

Psalm 120. Deliver me, O LORD, from lying lips and from the deceitful tongue. What shall be done to you, and what more besides, O you deceitful tongue?

I have heard many victims of domestic abuse say that they recovered from the physical abuse, but the pain of verbal abuse was devastating and long-lasting. The Letter of James speaks of the power of the tongue and likens it to fire. Speaking untruths, lying, and spreading lies have terrible consequences. Sometimes it can lead to death. Ask a survivor of the Holocaust or anyone who has suffered as a result of prejudice.


There is an old Jewish wisdom tale of a man who told many lies about his rabbi. Later he repented and sought forgiveness. The rabbi gave him a pillow and told him to tear the pillow and release all the feathers in the wind. He did so and returned. The rabbi then said, "Now, go and collect all the feathers." This is how widespread and intractable a lie can be. Words once spoken are like the feathers--impossible to call back.


Those with the right perspective will not give ear to every tale they hear, for they understand that human beings are weak, that they tend to evil and are prone to slip in words.
--Thomas à Kempis (d. 1471)
++++++++++

Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of West Buganda (Uganda)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++

Speaking to the Soul: http://www.episcopalcafe.com/

From dark to light

Daily Reading for November 27

In the world of his day, Benedict’s monks would go to bed at 6:00 p.m., so that after eight full hours of sleep they would awaken at 2:00 a.m. They would thus start the day in the dark, and the slow coming of the dawn would be a symbolic daily reminder of the movement from dark to light, from sleep and death to new life. Anyone who has read what Thomas Merton has told us of his life in his hermitage at Gethsemani will know, even if they have not experienced it for themselves, that those hours before dawn are perhaps the best time of all for prayer. Merton himself would rise at 2:15 a.m., when the night was at its darkest and most silent.

It is necessary for me to see the first point of light which begins to dawn. It is necessary to be present alone at the resurrection of Day, in blank silence when the sun appears. In this completely neutral instant I receive from the eastern woods, the tall oaks, the one word “Day” which is never the same. It is never spoken in any known language.

From A Life-Giving Way: A Commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict by Esther de Waal (Liturgical Press, 1995).

++++++++++

Spiritual Practice of the Day http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/

A society based on universal compassion is not just our only hope; it is an evolutionary imperative.
— Marc Ian Barasch in Field Notes on the Compassionate Life: A Search for the Soul of Kindness

To Practice This Thought: Do your evolutionary imperative and be compassionate to someone.
++++++++++

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

Your heart is made to love Jesus, to love Him passionately.
St. Therese of the Child Jesus
++++++++++

Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html

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

When anyone is disturbed or saddened under the pretext of a good
and soul-profiting matter, and is angered against his neighbour,
it is evident that this is not according to God: for everything
that is of God is peaceful and useful and leads a man to humility
and to judging himself.

St. Barsanuphius the Great
++++++++++

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

Having Reverence and Respect for the Body

In so many ways we use and abuse our bodies. Jesus' coming to us in the body and his being lifted with his body in the glory of God call us to treat our bodies and the bodies of others with great reverence and respect.

God, through Jesus, has made our bodies sacred places where God has chosen to dwell. Our faith in the resurrection of the body, therefore, calls us to care for our own and one another's bodies with love. When we bind one another's wounds and work for the healing of one another's bodies, we witness to the sacredness of the human body, a body destined for eternal life.
++++++++++

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

Day Twenty Seven - The Second Note, cont'd

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

Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/

A Simple, Holy Word
November 27th, 2007
Tuesday’s Reflection

HOW DO YOU practice contemplative prayer? The method itself is disarmingly simple. …

You pick a simple holy word that captures your desire to know God; perhaps choose that word for yourself right now. Then you bring it to your attention and focus your desire for God upon that word. Each time your mind wanders, bring your attention back to this word. Unlike the Jesus Prayer, this word is not to be repeated over and over. Rather the word serves as a focal point to which you can return your attention whenever you have strayed into the land of thought. That is all.

- Daniel Wolpert
Creating a Life with God

From pp. 67-68 of Creating a Life with God: The Call of Ancient Prayer Practices by Daniel Wolpert. Copyright © 2003 by the author. Published 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


Unconditional Love

Most people think we repent and then we experience redemption. Actually it's exactly opposite in the Bible (read Ezekiel 16, the allegory of Israel, for example). You really repent, you truly turn again to the lord for new life, after you've experienced redemption. First you experience God's saving love, and that's what gives you the power for true repentance: "Not our love for God, but God's love for us" (1 John 4:10).

Many people are incapable of true repentance because they are trying too hard. They get into breast beating and putting themselves down. It will never work, but only deaden and paralyze. That's never God's work. God enters into our sin and redeems it. God loves us first before we can do anything. And from that experience of unearned love, unprepared-for love, comes within us the power to begin again. We end up looking good and getting the credit, but we know better inside!

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

Be on the watch

Christ's final coming will be like his first. As prophets and people of upright life expected him and thought that he might reveal himself in their own day, so also today, because he did not disclose the day of his coming, all believers desire to welcome him in their own lifetime.

But his chief reason for secrecy was so that no one would think that he who ordains times and seasons was himself subject to a decree or a time. He himself determined the time of his coming and told us what its signs would be. How then could it have been concealed from him? He drew attention to those signs so that from that day on all generations and ages would expect him to come in their own time.

Be on the watch. When the body sleeps our nature takes control of us and our actions are performed not by our own will but through the compulsion of natural impulse. And when the soul is overpowered by the heavy sleep of faintheartedness and dejection, the enemy takes control and performs through it actions which are against its will. Nature is governed by instinct; the soul by the enemy.

The vigilance enjoined by the Lord, therefore, is prescribed for both parts of the human person: the body should stint itself of sleep; the soul should guard itself against lethargy and timidity.

Ephrem of Edessa
++++++++++

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

THE CONSECRATION OF SPIRITUAL ENERGY


"By whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Galatians 6:14

If I brood on the Cross of Christ, I do not become a subjective pietist, interested in my own whiteness; I become dominantly concentrated on Jesus Christ's interests. Our Lord was not a recluse nor an ascetic, He did not cut Himself off from society, but He was inwardly disconnected all the time. He was not aloof, but He lived in an other world. He was so much in the ordinary world that the religious people of His day called Him a glutton and a wine-bibber. Our Lord never allowed anything to interfere with His consecration of spiritual energy.

The counterfeit of consecration is the conscious cutting off of things with the idea of storing spiritual power for use later on, but that is a hopeless mistake. The Spirit of God has spoiled the sin of a great many, yet there is no emancipation, no fullness in their lives. The kind of religious life we see abroad to-day is entirely different from the robust holiness of the life of Jesus Christ. "I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil." We are to be in the world but not of it; to be disconnected fundamentally, not externally.

We must never allow anything to interfere with the consecration of our spiritual energy. Consecration is our part, sanctification is God's part; and we have deliberately to determine to be interested only in that in which God is interested. The way to solve perplexing problems is to ask - Is this the kind of thing in which Jesus Christ is interested, or the kind of thing in which the spirit that is the antipodes of Jesus is interested?
++++++++++

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

March 28, July 28, November 27
Chapter 48: On the Daily Manual Labor

Idleness is the enemy of the soul.
Therefore the sisters should be occupied
at certain times in manual labor,
and again at fixed hours in sacred reading.
To that end
we think that the times for each may be prescribed as follows.

From Easter until the Calends of October,
when they come out from Prime in the morning
let them labor at whatever is necessary
until about the fourth hour,
and from the fourth hour until about the sixth
let them apply themselves to reading.
After the sixth hour,
having left the table,
let them rest on their beds in perfect silence;
or if anyone may perhaps want to read,
let her read to herself
in such a way as not to disturb anyone else.
Let None be said rather early,
at the middle of the eighth hour,
and let them again do what work has to be done until Vespers.

And if the circumstances of the place or their poverty
should require that they themselves
do the work of gathering the harvest,
let them not be discontented;
for then are they truly monastics
when they live by the labor of their hands,
as did our Fathers and the Apostles.
Let all things be done with moderation, however,
for the sake of the faint-hearted.

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

There is little room for excursion into the quixotic in the Rule of Benedict. If any chapter proves that point best, it may well be the chapter on work. Benedict doesn't labor the point but he clearly makes it: Benedictine life is life immersed in the sanctity of the real and work is a fundamental part of it. The function of the spiritual life is not to escape into the next world; it is to live well in this one. The monastic engages in creative work as a way to be responsible for the upbuilding of the community. Work periods, in fact, are specified just as prayer periods are. Work and prayer are opposite sides of the great coin of a life that is both holy and useful, immersed in God and dedicated to the transcendent in the human. It is labor's transfiguration of the commonplace, the transformation of the ordinary that makes co-creators of us all.

Benedictine spirituality exacts something so much harder for our century than rigor. Benedictine spirituality demands balance. Immediately after Benedict talks about the human need to work, to fill our lives with something useful and creative and worthy of our concentration, he talks about lectio, about holy reading and study. Then, in a world that depended on the rising and the setting of the sun to mark their days rather than on the artificial numbers on the face of a clock, Benedict shifts prayer, work and reading periods from season to season to allow for some of each and not too much of either as the days stretch or diminish from period to period. He wants prayer to be brief, work to be daily and study to be constant. With allowances for periodic changes, then, the community prayed and studied from about 2:00 am to dawn and then worked for a couple of hours until the hour of Terce at about 10:00 am. Then, after Terce they read for a couple of hours until Sext before the midday meal. After dinner they rested or read until about 2:30 and then went back to work for three or four hours until Vespers and supper in the late afternoon. After saying a very brief Compline or evening prayer they retired after sundown for the night. It was a gentle, full, enriching, regular, calm and balanced life. It was a prescription for life that ironically has become very hard to achieve in a world of light bulbs and telephones and cars but it may be more necessary than ever if the modern soul is to regain any of the real rhythm of life and so, its sanity as well.
++++++++++

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

Tuesday, November 27, 2007 Nativity Fast
Great-Martyr James the Persian
Kellia: 2 Kings LXX (2 Samuel MT) 11:14-27 Epistle: 1 Timothy
5:11-21 Gospel: St. Luke 19:45-48

Slavery to Sin: 2 Kings 11:14-27 LXX, especially vs.15: "And he wrote in
the letter, saying, Station Uriah in front of the severe part of the
fight, and retreat from behind him, so shall he be wounded and die."
Our Lord Jesus Christ warns us plainly about the power of sin to control
the person who sins: "Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin
is a slave of sin" (Jn. 8:34). While the truth of this saying of the
Lord applies to all sins, the account of King David's adultery with
Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, underscores St. Basil's
refinement of the point that "if...we can safely speak of small and
great sin, it is incontrovertibly evident to everyone that a great sin
is one that holds anyone in its power, whereas a small sin is one which
does not get the upper hand." The first thirteen verses of the Second
Kings account of David's sin with Bathsheba clearly reveal that great
sin was driving the man.

Already, our reflections on David's sin have shown how easily sin
proliferates, with one wrong action as a gateway to further offenses.
But be sure to distinguish the expanding nature of sin from its most
dangerous capacity - to become life-dominating. No doubt, the
punishments called for in the codes of the ancient People of God ought
alert us to the fact that adultery is one of the great sins, being an
offense with vigorous capacity to get the upper hand over the sinner.
Thus it was mandated to "remove the wicked one out of Israel," no doubt
to keep society and the family pure: "And if a man be found lying with a
woman married to a man, ye shall kill them both, the man that lay with
the woman, and the woman" (Lev. 20:10; see also Deut. 22:22).

The legal demand in ancient Israel for the death sentence in cases of
adultery helps us better understand what was driving King David to cover
up his sin. His position as King probably would have given him
immunity, but Bathsheba had no such shield. His first line of action,
therefore, was to "sweep the matter under the carpet," by using Uriah's
home visit to explain Bathsheba's pregnancy; but the soldier's integrity
prevented that obvious solution. Thus, the slavery to sin took full
sway over David. He conspired with Joab in murder. By arranging
Uriah's honorable death in combat, David became free to protect himself
and Bathsheba by marrying her; and "the time of mourning expired...David
sent and took her into his house, and she became his wife, and bore him
a son" (2 Kngs. 11:27).

Sin places those who violate the Divine Law before the bench of Divine
judgment: "but the thing which David did was evil in the eyes of the
Lord" (vs. 27). However, David remained liable before God, and was so
even before he "sent and enquired about the woman" (2 Kngs. 11:3),
especially given the Lord Jesus' standard of measurement: "But I say to
you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed
adultery with her in his heart" (Matt. 5:28). And where was the court
of the Lord that would come later, in which the Judge would say,
"Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more" (Jn. 8:11)? The terrible
sadness, the grief, the pain that comes in the heart at what the
messenger reported to David: "Uriah the Hittite is dead" (2 Kngs.
11:24). King David, slave to his own sin, arranged a good man's death.

Beloved, listen to St. Symeon the New Theologian: "in relation to
spiritual matters. First we must lay the spiritual foundations of the
house, that is to say, we must watch over the heart and curtail the
passions arising from it. Then...we must repulse the turbulence of the
evil spirits that fight us by means of the external senses, and must
free ourselves as quickly as possible from their attacks. Then we
must...give ourselves wholly to God."

Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy; and according to
the multitude of Thy compassions blot out my transgression...and cleanse
me from my sin (Ps. 50:1,2 LXX).

Reading for Nov 23

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

March 24, July 24, November 23
Chapter 44: How the Excommunicated Are to Make Satisfaction

One who for serious faults is excommunicated
from oratory and table
shall make satisfaction as follows.
At the hour when the celebration of the Work of God is concluded
in the oratory,
let her lie prostrate before the door of the oratory,
saying nothing, but only lying prone with her face to the ground
at the feet of all as they come out of the oratory.
And let her continue to do this
until the Abbess judges that satisfaction has been made.
Then, when she has come at the Abbess's bidding,
let her cast herself first at the Abbess's feet
and then at the feet of all,
that they may pray for her.

And next, if the Abbess so orders,
let her be received into the choir,
to the place which the Abbess appoints,
but with the provision that she shall not presume
to intone Psalm or lesson or anything else in the oratory
without a further order from the Abbess.

Moreover, at every Hour,
when the Work of God is ended,
let her cast herself on the ground in the place where she stands.
And let her continue to satisfy in this way
until the Abbess again orders her finally to cease
from this satisfaction.

But those who for slight faults are excommunicated
only from table
shall make satisfaction in the oratory,
and continue in it till an order from the Abbess,
until she blesses them and says, "It is enough."

There is a tremendous freedom, I think, in admitting one has made a mistake, done wrong. An openness, an honesty, a transparency that could only do us good. "I was wrong. I am sorry for my wrong. Let me make reparation, if possible." I find it freeing myself. I have learned the hard way to be willing to admit I goofed up and to take responsibility for it. To do otherwise leaves me feeling like a fraud wondering when I will be found out and i can't live with the tension of pretending to be what I am not.

On the flip side of that is also the willingness to forgive. It may actually be easier to admit one has done wrong than it is to forgive. I know I want to hold onto my grudges, sometimes. I feel so outraged that I am unable to hear "I am sorry, please forgive me" from another. I want more than that. I want my wrong righted. And i am not the only one who feels this way. I see it around me everyday.

Having long puzzled over why this this, I've come to a conclusion. I think the thing that makes it so hard for us to forgive is our desire to have the hurt undone, to go back to before the time when we were offended, betrayed, robbed, etc. An unwillingness to forgive may come from our denial of the inability of the offender to make it as if it had never happened. An unwillingness on our part that our reality has been changed and we must learn to live with the results.

Jesus tells us to forgive as we would ourselves be forgiven. Cause and effect is at work. If we do not forgive, we make ourselves people who cannot be forgiven in our turn. I imagine that the monastics, as they walk by their sister or brother on the ground at their feet, are reminded that it could be they themselves on the ground the next time. We all err. We are all sources of offence to others at some time or the other. We are powerless to go back in time and make it as if the offence, the wrong, had never happened. We have to learn to live with what we have done just as we have to learn to live with what others have done to us.

We forgive. We are forgiven. It is enough.



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


"A community is too heavy for any one to carry alone," the rabbis say. Benedict argues that the community enterprise is such an important one that those who violate their responsibilities to it must serve as warning to others of the consequences of failing to carry the human community. The point, of course, is not that the group has the power to exclude us. The point is that we must come to realize that we too often exclude ourselves from the relationships we promised to honor and to build by becoming the center of our own lives and ignoring our responsibilities to theirs.

The correction seems harsh and humiliating by modern standards but the Rule is working with the willing if not with the ready who seek to grow rather than to accommodate. The ancients tell the story of the distressed person who came to the Holy One for help. "Do you really want a cure?" the Holy One asked. "If I did not, would I bother to come to you?" the disciple answered. "Oh, yes," the Master said. "Most people do." And the disciple said, incredulously, "But what for then?" And the Holy One answered, "Well, not for a cure. That's painful. They come for relief."
This chapter forces us to ask, in an age without penances and in a culture totally given to individualism, what relationships we may be betraying by selfishness and what it would take to cure ourselves of the self-centeredness that requires the rest of the world to exist for our own convenience.

23/11/07 Fri, 25th week after Pentecost, Clement of Rome

[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

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Almighty God, you chose your servant Clement of Rome to recall the Church in Corinth to obedience and stability; Grant that your Church may be grounded and settled in your truth by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; reveal to it what is not yet known; fill up what is lacking; confirm what has already been revealed; and keep it blameless in your service; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
++++++++++

Today's Scripture http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/

AM Psalm 102; PM Psalm 107:1-32
1 Macc. 4:36-59; Rev. 22:6-13; Matt. 18:10-20
++++++++++

From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm

Psalm 102. LORD, hear my prayer, and let my cry come before you; hide not your face from me in the day of my trouble. Incline your ear to me; when I call, make haste to answer me.

The impassioned plea of the psalmist evokes a common despair. Nearly all of us have experienced that feeling of helplessness and hopelessness. Many of our prayers have been expressed with tears and sobbing and cries of outrage. Some things feel too horrible to bear. In our despair we may feel that God has abandoned us. The psalms reassure us we are not alone--people have always felt what we are feeling.


God does not hide from us, and he always hears our prayers. God is compassionate and weeps with us in our sorrow. His love and power are sufficient to help us bear all things. Ours is a God of resurrection who will bring help and hope and new life after the travail. May we keep our face turned toward God during our distress with the sure knowledge that God hears us and will respond.


Would you know your Lord's meaning in this? Know it well: Love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. What did he show you? Love. Why did he show it? For love....Thus was I taught that Love is our Lord's meaning.
--Julian of Norwich (d. ca . 1416)
++++++++++

Today we remember:
http://www.satucket.com/lectionary

Clement of Rome
Psalm 78:3-7 or 85:8-13
2 Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 6:37-4
++++++++++

Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Washington (United States)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++

Speaking to the Soul: http://www.episcopalcafe.com/

Breach of unity

Daily Reading for November 23 • Clement, Bishop of Rome, c. 100

Because of our recent series of unexpected misfortunes and set-backs, my dear friends, we feel there has been some delay in turning our attention to the causes of dispute in your community. We refer particularly to the odious and unholy breach of unity among you, which is quite incompatible with God’s chosen people, and which a few hot-headed and unruly individuals have inflamed to such a pitch that your venerable and illustrious name, so richly deserving of everyone’s affection, has been brought into serious disrepute.

There was a time when nobody could spend even a short while among you without noticing the excellence and constancy of your faith. Who ever failed to be impressed by your sober and selfless Christian piety, to tell of your generous spirit of hospitality, or to pay tribute to the wide range and soundness of your knowledge? It was your habit at all times to act without fear or favour, living by the laws of God and deferring with correctness to those who were set over you.

Humility, too, and a complete absence of self-assertion were common to you all; you preferred to offer submission rather than extort it, and giving was dearer to your hearts than receiving. Asking no more than what Christ had provided for your journey through life, you paid careful heed to His words, treasured them in your hearts, and kept His sufferings constantly before your eyes. The reward was a deep and shining peace, a quenchless ardour for well-doing, and a rich outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon you all.

From the First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, in Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers, translated by Maxwell Staniforth (Penguin Books, 1968).
++++++++++

Spiritual Practice of the Day http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/

When Cambodians greet persons of special importance, they offer a long and warm embrace. Then they gently lift the honored one into the air. This gesture places the honored one's head above the head of the greeter. It says, "I have deep reverence for your being."
— Maha Ghosananda in Step by Step

To Practice This Thought: Find a gesture which expresses your reverence for others by putting them higher — or first.
++++++++++

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

Without love, deeds, even the most brilliant, count as nothing.
St. Therese of the Child Jesus
++++++++++

Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html

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

When anyone is disturbed or saddened under the pretext of a good
and soul-profiting matter, and is angered against his neighbour,
it is evident that this is not according to God: for everything
that is of God is peaceful and useful and leads a man to humility
and to judging himself.

St. Barsanuphius the Great
++++++++++

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

Waiting for Christ to Come

If we do not wait patiently in expectation for God's coming in glory, we start wandering around, going from one little sensation to another. Our lives get stuffed with newspaper items, television stories, and gossip. Then our minds lose the disciline of discerning between what leads us closer to God and what doesn't, and our hearts gradually lose their spiritual sensitivity.

Without waiting for the second coming of Christ, we will stagnate quickly and become tempted to indulge in whatever gives us a moment of pleasure. When Paul asks us to wake from sleep, he says: "Let us live decently, as in the light of day; with no orgies or drunkenness, no promiscuity or licentiousness, and no wrangling or jealousy. Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ, and stop worrying about how your disordered natural inclinations may be fulfilled" (Romans 13:13-14). When we have the Lord to look forward to, we can already experience him in the waiting.

When we have the Lord to look forward to we can already experience him in the waiting.
++++++++++

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

Waiting for Christ to Come

If we do not wait patiently in expectation for God's coming in glory, we start wandering around, going from one little sensation to another. Our lives get stuffed with newspaper items, television stories, and gossip. Then our minds lose the disciline of discerning between what leads us closer to God and what doesn't, and our hearts gradually lose their spiritual sensitivity.

Without waiting for the second coming of Christ, we will stagnate quickly and become tempted to indulge in whatever gives us a moment of pleasure. When Paul asks us to wake from sleep, he says: "Let us live decently, as in the light of day; with no orgies or drunkenness, no promiscuity or licentiousness, and no wrangling or jealousy. Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ, and stop worrying about how your disordered natural inclinations may be fulfilled" (Romans 13:13-14). When we have the Lord to look forward to, we can already experience him in the waiting.

When we have the Lord to look forward to we can already experience him in the waiting.
++++++++++

Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/

The Hands of God
November 23rd, 2007
Friday’s Reflection

ALL OF US are like [the prodigal] son, needing more desperately than anything else the strong and gentle embrace of the hands of God. We must be those hands for each other — not someday, but today. … Let us be gentle with each other. Let us touch each other. Let us touch even those who seem in some superficial way to be different. For we are all of us sons and daughters of God. I once heard Peter Storey, preaching in Johannesburg during the reign of apartheid, suggest that we should be prepared when we sing that old child’s hymn: “Into my heart, into my heart, come into my heart, Lord Jesus.” Storey imagined that Jesus’ reply would be: “Okay, here I come, but I’m bringing all these other people with me.”

- James C. Howell
Yours Are the Hands of Christ

From p. 59 of Yours Are the Hands of Christ: The Practice of Faith by James C. Howell. Copyright © 1998 by the author. Published 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


Who Was Jesus?

In Mark, we read that Jesus' own family does not understand him: "He came home. Again [the] crowd gathered, making it impossible for them even to eat. When his relatives heard of this, they set out to seize him, for they said, 'He is out of his mind.'" (Mark 3:20–21, NAB)

Those words have never really been read in our churches. We probably are embarrassed by them. He must not have appeared as that very neat, proper, "normal" person we associate with religious people. Maybe that's telling us that our very concept of religiosity is on the wrong track. We've been influenced much more by Anglo- Saxon puritanism or stoicism than by what Jesus tries to communicate.

Religion is not doing nice, right ordinary things that humans expect. God's goodness strikes much deeper than that and demands much more. Who of us, for example, would be proud to accept John the Baptist into our house—that very wild-looking man, no doubt difficult to understand, whose harsh words would make us all squirm? Jesus, too, spoke to his contemporaries and he was not understood. He was enough outside the mainstream of expectation to be called "crazy."

Jesus was not that person we've often seen in pictures with the perfect masculine Caucasian face and the neatly combed hair. He was a man who at all costs sought to be true to God and to speak that truth to the world. The world did not want to hear it. He would be crucified again today, and maybe even by the Church.

from The Great Themes of Scripture
++++++++++

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

Desiring the first place

Whoever you may be who still desire the first place here—go and sit in the last place. Do not be lifted up by pride, inflated by knowledge, elated by nobility, but the greater you are the more you must humble yourself in every way, and you will find grace with God. In his own time he will say to you: Friend, go up higher, and then you will be honored by all who sit at table with you. Moses sat in the last place whenever he had the choice. When the Lord, wishing to send him to the Israelites, invited him to take a higher place, his answer was: I beg you, Lord, send someone else. I am not a good speaker. It was the same as saying: "I am not worthy of so great an office." Saul, too, was of small account in his own eyes when the Lord made him king. And Jeremiah, similarly, was afraid of rising to the first place: Ah, Lord God, he said, look, I cannot speak—I am only a child.

In the Church, then, the first seat, or the highest place, is to be sought not by ambition but by humility; not by money but by holiness.

Bruno of Segni
++++++++++

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

DISTRACTION OF ANTIPATHY


"Have mercy upon us, 0 Lord, have mercy upon us: for we are exceedingly piled with contempt." Psalm 123:3

The thing of which we have to beware is not so much damage to our belief in God as damage to our Christian temper. "Therefore take heed to thy spirit, that ye deal not treacherously." The temper of mind is tremendous in its effects, it is the enemy that penetrates right into the soul and distracts the mind from God. There are certain tempers of mind in which we never dare indulge; if we do, we find they have distracted us from faith in God, and until we get back to the quiet mood before God, our faith in Him is nil, and our confidence in the flesh and in human ingenuity is the thing that rules.

Beware of "the cares of this world," because they are the things that produce a wrong temper of soul. It is extraordinary what an enormous power there is in simple things to distract our attention from God. Refuse to be swamped with the cares of this life.

Another thing that distracts us is the lust of vindication. St. Augustine prayed - "O Lord, deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself." That temper of mind destroys the soul's faith in God. "I must explain myself; I must get people to understand." Our Lord never explained anything; He left mistakes to correct themselves.

When we discern that people are not going on spiritually and allow the discernment to turn to criticism, we block our way to God. God never gives us discernment in order that we may criticize, but that we may intercede.
++++++++++

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

March 24, July 24, November 23
Chapter 44: How the Excommunicated Are to Make Satisfaction

One who for serious faults is excommunicated
from oratory and table
shall make satisfaction as follows.
At the hour when the celebration of the Work of God is concluded
in the oratory,
let her lie prostrate before the door of the oratory,
saying nothing, but only lying prone with her face to the ground
at the feet of all as they come out of the oratory.
And let her continue to do this
until the Abbess judges that satisfaction has been made.
Then, when she has come at the Abbess's bidding,
let her cast herself first at the Abbess's feet
and then at the feet of all,
that they may pray for her.

And next, if the Abbess so orders,
let her be received into the choir,
to the place which the Abbess appoints,
but with the provision that she shall not presume
to intone Psalm or lesson or anything else in the oratory
without a further order from the Abbess.

Moreover, at every Hour,
when the Work of God is ended,
let her cast herself on the ground in the place where she stands.
And let her continue to satisfy in this way
until the Abbess again orders her finally to cease
from this satisfaction.

But those who for slight faults are excommunicated
only from table
shall make satisfaction in the oratory,
and continue in it till an order from the Abbess,
until she blesses them and says, "It is enough."

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


"A community is too heavy for any one to carry alone," the rabbis say. Benedict argues that the community enterprise is such an important one that those who violate their responsibilities to it must serve as warning to others of the consequences of failing to carry the human community. The point, of course, is not that the group has the power to exclude us. The point is that we must come to realize that we too often exclude ourselves from the relationships we promised to honor and to build by becoming the center of our own lives and ignoring our responsibilities to theirs.

The correction seems harsh and humiliating by modern standards but the Rule is working with the willing if not with the ready who seek to grow rather than to accommodate. The ancients tell the story of the distressed person who came to the Holy One for help. "Do you really want a cure?" the Holy One asked. "If I did not, would I bother to come to you?" the disciple answered. "Oh, yes," the Master said. "Most people do." And the disciple said, incredulously, "But what for then?" And the Holy One answered, "Well, not for a cure. That's painful. They come for relief."
This chapter forces us to ask, in an age without penances and in a culture totally given to individualism, what relationships we may be betraying by selfishness and what it would take to cure ourselves of the self-centeredness that requires the rest of the world to exist for our own convenience.
++++++++++

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

Friday, November 23, 2007 Nativity Fast Alexander
Nevsky, Prince of Novgorod
Kellia: 2 Kings LXX (2 Samuel MT) 10:1-14 Epistle: 1 Timothy 4:4-8,
16 Gospel: St. Luke 19:12-28

As God Wills: 2 Kings 10:1-14 LXX, especially vs.12: "Be thou
courageous, and let us be strong for our people, and for the sake of the
cities of God, and the Lord shall do that which is good in His eyes."
Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Hierotheos declares, "It is the teaching of
the Orthodox Church that God directs the world personally without
created intermediaries, by His uncreated energies." Therefore, we may
say confidently that Joab evinced a real measure of spiritual maturity
when he stood at a moment of high uncertainty and confessed that "the
Lord shall do that which is good in His eyes" (vs. 12). Joab's word to
his fellow officers represents a refutation of belief in fate and random
probability as the powers that determine outcomes in life. Rather, it
was a faithful declaration of confidence that God in His sovereignty
rules the affairs of men and the outcome of our struggles. Beloved,
learn to accept that "our every endeavor is powerless without the grace
and help of God," as St. Tikhon of Zadonsk states.

Consider how King David's attempt to "shew mercy to Hanun the son of
Nahash" (vs. 2) was perverted by the counsel of "the princes of the
children of Ammon...to Hanun their lord" (vs. 3). David was not a man
of suspicion and anger like Saul, his predecessor on the throne of
Israel. When David sent condolences to Hanun at the repose of his
father (vs. 3), it was a friendly gesture rooted in gratitude for
Nahash's mercy to him in his time of need. But see! David's actions
were totally misinterpreted by men of suspicion who gained the ear of
the inexperienced, new King of Ammon. They only could see spying and
preparations for conquest (vs. 3).

How blessed Hanun would have been had he known what was natural to David
as a servant of the true God - as St. Tikhon states so plainly, "The
grace of God is the life of our souls. Our soul cannot be alive without
the grace of God." Thus, Hanun made the deadly, brash, and graceless
error of mocking and shaming David's servants (vs. 4). And worse, when
he saw that he had created an offense, he compounded his errors by
mobilizing for war (vs. 6). Note that it was not David and Israel who
prepared for war, but the children of Ammon (vs. 6). How can we explain
all this? Listen again to St. Tikhon: "a man must be...victorious over
his own self; but how can this be without the power of God present which
is able to do all things? So great is the corruption of our nature."
Take care, Beloved, to seek God and live as He wills.

All this is not to say that, as a servant of the living God, you should
mindlessly trust the sovereign God to solve your problems without any
effort on your part, so that you need give no consideration to your
planning and your actions in the midst of this life's battles. That the
events of this life often appear contrary to God's will must not be an
issue for you. King David and his military officers did what was
necessary in the face of armed preparations for war against them. They
mobilized and planned. At least, do the same as you follow St. Tikhon's
godly counsel: "At every hour and minute then...O Christian, when you
wish to live piously and be a true Christian and so be saved, pray to
God incessantly and beg help of Him with fervor."

Being "in the unity of the faith and the communion of the Holy Spirit"
(see vs. 12), the armed forces of Israel, "Joab and his people with him
advanced to battle against Syria" (vs. 13). See how they commended
themselves, each other and their life unto God! You should not gather
from this chapter of the history of God and His People that your enemies
and problems will flee before you as when "the children of Ammon saw
that the Syrians were fled, and they fled from before Abishai" (vs.
14). Rather, rejoice that all will resolve in the end as God wills.

O Lord, grant me to treat all that comes to me throughout the day with
peace of soul and firm conviction that Thy will governs all.

Reading for November 2, 2007

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

March 23, July 23, November 22
Chapter 43: On Those Who Come Late to the Work of God or to Table

Anyone who does not come to table before the verse,
so that all together may say the verse and the oration
and all sit down to table at the same time --
anyone who
through his own carelessness or bad habit
does not come on time
shall be corrected for this up to the second time.
If then he does not amend,
he shall not be allowed to share in the common table,
but shall be separated from the company of all
and made to eat alone,
and his portion of wine shall be taken away from him,
until he has made satisfaction and has amended.
And let him suffer a like penalty who is not present
at the verse said after the meal.

And let no one presume
to take any food or drink
before or after the appointed time.
But if anyone is offered something by the superior
and refuses to take it,
then when the time comes
that he desires what he formerly refused
or something else,
let him receive nothing whatever
until he has made proper satisfaction.

Some Thoughts


As I read this, I am again surprised as I am every time I read it, that the usual exceptions are omitted. The one's about guests or whatever. Perhaps at this point, Benedict assumes it is a given that there may be exceptions. What do you think?

I daresay in Benedict's mind as he wrote this, there were concerns for orderliness, respect to the servers, disruption of the reading that accompanies the meals. But I wonder if there is something else at work and that is the sacredness of the table.

By Benedict's day, the Eucharist was a formal liturgy almost identical to what is used today among Roman Catholics, Anglicans and Methodists, at least. This liturgy dates back to at least 300 CE. In the earliest years, though, Jesus words to break bread, drink of the cup, remember, were incorporated into the daily meals, making them sacred acts. Of course, observant Jews of Jesus day and earlier, also considered meals sacred.

I dunno where all of our listmembers live, but sacredness of mealtime is something that seems largely lost to us in the USA. I've know several families who get all their meals from fast food places. I know many people, women and men, who are proud to announce they can't or will not cook. Parents of my acquaintance have bemoaned for decades that there is never even one meal a week when they are all home together.American television demonstrates children under 10 or 8 feeding themselves via the microwave and Kraft macaroni and cheese or Tostinos pizza rolls.

What an appropriate reading for Thanksgiving Day, maybe one of 2 days a year (the other is Christmas) where families actually sit down and eat together. I am as bad as anyone. Most of my meals are taken alone and I bolt them. I gobble them down to get them over with so i can get back to knitting, reading, studying, the computer.

Mealtime has become a chore, not a grace. How do we take back meal as grace? Your thoughts and suggestions are most welcome.



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


In a world of fast food drive-in restaurants, multiple family schedules and three-car garages, the family meal has taken a decided second place in the spiritual and social formation of the culture. In Benedictine spirituality, however, the sacramental value of a meal in which the human concern we promise daily at the altar is demonstrated in the dining room where we prepare and serve and clean up after one another. The Rule is at least as firm on presence at meals at it is about presence at prayer. No one is to be late. No one is to eat before or after meals, or on her own, or on the run because monastic spirituality doesn't revolve around food, either having it or not having it. Monastic spirituality revolves around becoming a contributing part of a people of faith, living with them, learning with them, bearing their burdens, sharing their lives. The meal becomes the sanctifying center that reminds us, day in and day out, that unless we go on building the community around us, participating in it and bearing its burdens then the words family and humanity become a sham, no matter how good our work at the office, no matter how important our work in the world around us.

The Sufi tell a story. To a group of disciples whose hearts were set on a pilgrimage, the elder said:" Take this bitter gourd along. Make sure you dip it into all the holy rivers and bring it into all the holy shrines." When the disciples returned, the bitter gourd was cooked and served. "Strange," said the elder slyly after they had tasted it, "the holy water and the shrines have failed to sweeten it." All the prayer in the world, Benedict knows, is fruitless and futile if it does not translate into a life of human community made richer and sweeter by the efforts of us all. Both community and prayer, therefore, are essential elements of Benedictine spirituality and we may not neglect either.

22/11/07 Thur, 25th week after Pentecost, Thanksgiving

[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

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Almighty and gracious Father, we give you thanks for the fruits of the earth in their season and for the labors of those who harvest them. Make us, we pray, faithful stewards of your great bounty, for the provision of our necessities and the relief of all who are in need, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, 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 105:1-22; PM Psalm 105:23-45
1 Macc. 4:1-25; Rev. 21:22-22:5; Matt. 18:1-9
++++++++++

From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm

Matthew 6:25-33. [Jesus said,] "Therefore I tell you, do not worry."

I worry. My mother worried. I suspect that my father also worried. I come from a long line of worriers. My parents survived the Great Depression, but the memory of that era continued to haunt them.


The world is often a frightening place. When I am worried and afraid, I long for the peace of God and I pray to God, but I do not always feel the nearness of the Lord. However, I know that feelings aren't facts--and the fact is that God is always near.


I find it difficult to concentrate on thanking God when I am worrying. But when I can divert my attention and give thanks for my blessings, I slowly calm down. I think it is a matter of practice. If we offer thanks daily it becomes easier to offer thanks when we are anxious.


On this day of Thanksgiving let us offer thanks for our many blessings. And let us practice doing so every day.


When we have a spirit of thanksgiving we can hold all things lightly. We receive; we do not grab. And when it is time to let go, we do so freely. We are not owners, only stewards.
--Richard Foster
++++++++++

Today we remember:
http://www.satucket.com/lectionary

Thanksgiving Day:
AM: Psalm 147; Deut. 26:1-11; John 6:26-35
PM: Psalm 145; Joel 2:21-27; 1 Thess. 5:12-24
++++++++++

Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Warri (Bendel, Nigeria)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++

Speaking to the Soul: http://www.episcopalcafe.com/

Thanks for small things

Daily Reading for November 22 • Thanksgiving Day

Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things. We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts he has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts. We think we dare not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge, experience and love that has been given to us, and that we must constantly be looking forward eagerly for the highest good. Then we deplore the fact that we lack the deep certainty, the strong faith and the rich experience that God has given to others, and we consider this lament to be pious. We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from him the little things? If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith and difficulty; if on the contrary we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.

From Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (SCM Press, 1963).
++++++++++

Spiritual Practice of the Day http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/

All art that really draws us to look at it deeply is spiritual. Art accepts all the sadness, and transforms it implicitly affirming that beauty is essentially the presence of God.
— Sister Wendy Beckett in The Mystical Now

To Practice This Thought: Intentionally look for the presence of God in the next painting, sculpture, movie, play, poem, or dance you see.
++++++++++

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

What is there to desire but to walk along the straight path of the law of God and of the Church, and to live only in true and obscure faith, in certain hope, and in the fullness of love. Rejoice, therefore, and have confidence in God.
St John of the Cross
Letter 19
++++++++++

Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html

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

Our holy fathers have renounced all other spiritual work and
concentrated wholly on this one doing, that is, on guarding the
heart, convinced that, through this practice, they would easily
attain every other virtue, whereas without it not a single virtue
can be firmly established.

St. Symeon the New Theologian
++++++++++

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

The Challenge of Aging

Waiting patiently in expectation does not necessarily get easier as we become older. On the contrary, as we grow in age we are tempted to settle down in a routine way of living and say: "Well, I have seen it all. ... There is nothing new under the sun. ... I am just going to take it easy and take the days as they come." But in this way our lives lose their creative tension. We no longer expect something really new to happen. We become cynical or self-satisfied or simply bored.

The challenge of aging is waiting with an ever-greater patience and an ever- stronger expectation. It is living with an eager hope. It is trusting that through Christ "we have been admitted into God's favour ... and look forward exultantly to God's glory" (Romans 5:2).
++++++++++

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.
++++++++++

Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/

Giving Thanks
November 22nd, 2007
THANKSGIVING DAY (U.S.)
Thursday’s Reflection

OUR FIRST RESPONSE IS GRATITUDE. We thank God for such generous and nourishing gifts. Giving thanks opens our eyes to our connections to others. We see that we cannot thank God for the food we have and then turn our backs on people who are hungry. We cannot praise God for the bounty of the land and sea and close our eyes to the ways we abuse and pollute the soil and water. … Giving thanks to God is more than saying grace at the table; it is living lives that reflect God’s justice and love.

- Susan Briehl, Mary Emily Briehl Wells, and Magdalena Briehl Wells
“Food”
Way to Live

From pp. 68-69 of Way to Live: Christian Practices for Teens, edited by Dorothy C. Bass and Don C. Richter. Copyright © 2002 by the editors. Published 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


Mother Teresa's Authority

Jesus summoned them and said to them, "You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to become great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:42–45, NAB) Why is it that Mother Teresa could stand up before crowds of thousands and simply repeat for the most part simple New Testament phrases? She was not complicated. Yet people sat on the edge of their chairs listening to her. She didn't say anything new: "Jesus loves you," she assured you. "We're sons and daughters of God and we have to love Jesus poor." Yet people walked out renewed, transformed and converted.

She was not a priest. She was not well educated. Her authority came from her lifestyle. Her life had been given over and she stood on her life. There was a truth in her like a magnet. That's the power the saints have. And that's why Paul would teach that the Church is built on the authority of the apostles and the prophets, the evangelists and healers, the teachers, lovers and helpers, all together making unity in the work of service. Servanthood is the true basis of authority in the Church, much more than title or ordination.

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

The power of God and the justice of the eternal king

The saints are described as singing the song of Moses because they resemble Moses both in their singing and in the subject matter of their song. But while they too praise the Lord with joy and thanksgiving to the accompaniment of harps, their song consists of one short verse only. This single verse contains nonetheless two all-important themes: the power of God and the justice of the eternal king. Great and marvelous are your deeds is a proclamation of God's power. Just and true are your ways is an acknowledgement of his justice. Of the two it is surely more meritorious to confess the second than the first. If we fear and praise God as the most powerful of spirits because we witness his marvelous deeds, our confession is certainly not lacking in merit. But if we can discern the divine justice underlying these same deeds and strenuously uphold it in the face of every denial, we shall gain a far greater blessing. And the same is true even when discernment fails us: we are blessed indeed if we still bow down in loving adoration of God's justice, worshiping him in the words the apostle Paul teaches each one of us to say: O the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, how unfathomable his designs!

Rupert of Deutz
++++++++++

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

SHALLOW AND PROFOUND


"Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." 1 Corinthians 10:31

Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow concerns of life are not ordained of God; they are as much of God as the profound. It is not your devotion to God that makes you refuse to be shallow, but your wish to impress other people with the fact that you are not shallow, which is a sure sign that you are a spiritual prig. Be careful of the production of contempt in yourself, it always comes along this line, and causes you to go about as a walking rebuke to other people because they are more shallow than you are. Beware of posing as a profound person; God became a Baby.

To be shallow is not a sign of being wicked, nor is shallowness a sign that there are no deeps: the ocean has a shore. The shallow amenities of life, eating and drinking, walking and talking, are all ordained by God. These are the things in which Our Lord lived. He lived in them as the Son of God, and He said that "the disciple is not above his Master."

Our safeguard is in the shallow things. We have to live the surface common-sense life in a common-sense way; when the deeper things come, God gives them to us apart from the shallow concerns. Never show the deeps to anyone but God. We are so abominably serious, so desperately interested in our own characters, that we refuse to behave like Christians in the shallow concerns of life.

Determinedly take no one seriously but God, and the first person you find you have to leave severely alone as being the greatest fraud you have ever known, is yourself.
++++++++++

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

March 23, July 23, November 22
Chapter 43: On Those Who Come Late to the Work of God or to Table

Anyone who does not come to table before the verse,
so that all together may say the verse and the oration
and all sit down to table at the same time --
anyone who
through his own carelessness or bad habit
does not come on time
shall be corrected for this up to the second time.
If then he does not amend,
he shall not be allowed to share in the common table,
but shall be separated from the company of all
and made to eat alone,
and his portion of wine shall be taken away from him,
until he has made satisfaction and has amended.
And let him suffer a like penalty who is not present
at the verse said after the meal.

And let no one presume
to take any food or drink
before or after the appointed time.
But if anyone is offered something by the superior
and refuses to take it,
then when the time comes
that he desires what he formerly refused
or something else,
let him receive nothing whatever
until he has made proper satisfaction.

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


In a world of fast food drive-in restaurants, multiple family schedules and three-car garages, the family meal has taken a decided second place in the spiritual and social formation of the culture. In Benedictine spirituality, however, the sacramental value of a meal in which the human concern we promise daily at the altar is demonstrated in the dining room where we prepare and serve and clean up after one another. The Rule is at least as firm on presence at meals at it is about presence at prayer. No one is to be late. No one is to eat before or after meals, or on her own, or on the run because monastic spirituality doesn't revolve around food, either having it or not having it. Monastic spirituality revolves around becoming a contributing part of a people of faith, living with them, learning with them, bearing their burdens, sharing their lives. The meal becomes the sanctifying center that reminds us, day in and day out, that unless we go on building the community around us, participating in it and bearing its burdens then the words family and humanity become a sham, no matter how good our work at the office, no matter how important our work in the world around us.

The Sufi tell a story. To a group of disciples whose hearts were set on a pilgrimage, the elder said:" Take this bitter gourd along. Make sure you dip it into all the holy rivers and bring it into all the holy shrines." When the disciples returned, the bitter gourd was cooked and served. "Strange," said the elder slyly after they had tasted it, "the holy water and the shrines have failed to sweeten it." All the prayer in the world, Benedict knows, is fruitless and futile if it does not translate into a life of human community made richer and sweeter by the efforts of us all. Both community and prayer, therefore, are essential elements of Benedictine spirituality and we may not neglect either.
++++++++++

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

Thursday, November 22, 2007 Nativity Fast Thanksgiving USA
Hieromartyr Sisinios
Kellia: 2 Kings (2 Samuel) 9:1-13 LXX Epistle: 1 Timothy 3:1-13
Gospel: St. Luke 18:31-34

Love Remembers: 2 Kings 9:1-13 LXX, especially vs. 1: "And David said,
Is there yet any one left in the house of Saul, that I may deal kindly
with him for Jonathan's sake?" In his Divine Liturgy, St. Basil reviews
the love that God has demonstrated for man His creature: He fashioned us
from the dust of the earth, honored us with His own image, set us in the
paradise of plenty, promised us life-eternal, and even when we
disobeyed, did not turn Himself away forever from us, nor "forget the
work of [His] hands," but "didst speak unto us through [His] Son
Himself." We say confidently that "love remembers," because we know
that "God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in
him" (1 Jn. 4:16); and, as God remembers us in love, so those who abide
in God also remember with continuing love.

There was a long-standing bond of respect and love between David and
Jonathan, the son of King Saul. As King Saul's attitude toward David
deteriorated into murderous plots, the bond of love between Jonathan and
David deepened into true, mutual commitment (1 Kngs. 20). Learning of
King Saul's and Jonathan's death in battle (1 Kngs. 31), David poured
out his love in a lamentation: "I am grieved for thee, my brother
Jonathan; thou wast very lovely to me; thy love to me was wonderful
beyond the love of women" (2 Kngs. 1:26). During the next few years,
David was much absorbed with care for his own small tribal kingdom of
Judah, and then for the entire nation of Israel; but at the right time,
love remembered (2 Kngs. 9:1).

To see how true love remembers, observe David's questioning concerning
the house of Saul. It may not be described as light, momentary recall
or as sad reminiscence of times past, but as an up-welling from the
essence of love. The King's courtiers knew he was not simply musing but
inquiring seriously - with intent - "that I may deal kindly with him for
Jonathan's sake" (vs. 1). Genuine love remembers as God remembers, with
a primal simplicity.

Do take note here of what St. Gregory of Sinai says about human
remembering: "Adam's disobedience has not only deformed into a weapon of
evil the soul's simple memory of what is good; it has also corrupted all
its powers and quenched its natural appetite for virtue. The memory is
restored above all by constant mindfulness of God consolidated through
prayer, for this spiritually elevates the memory from a natural to a
supra-natural state." How much David's concern for the house of Saul
reveals the God-centered state of his own memory! He acts not out of
guilt or obligation, but out of that love that remembers as God
remembers - to do good.

Supra-natural remembering, or mindfulness, pursues knowledge of the
welfare of another because it loves as God does, without interruption or
fluctuation. David learns from Ziba that Jonathan has a son,
Mephibosheth, "lame of his feet," and living "in the house of Machir,
the son of Ammiel of Lo-debar" (vss. 3,4). As God's love extends over
the whole span of time, always remembering His beloved, the benighted
race of man, so David's love continues from Jonathan to Mephibosheth.
Thus, the King sets about showering this son of the household of Saul
with regal prerogatives and privileges. Love remembers.

Consider the implication of David's mindful love and what it asks of you
as one who knows the love of God in Christ Jesus. Our Lord is
Love-Who-Remembers always, with memory eternal. God has not forgotten
you, and never will. He invites you to "deal mercifully" and "restore"
as He is doing with you, to open your table to others as He has done
with you, giving "the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may
eat of it and not die" (Jn. 8:50).

Let me draw near to the mystical table, and with pure soul receive the
Bread, and see Thee wash the feet of the disciples; and let me do as I
have seen, subjecting myself in love.

Reading: 11/21/07

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

March 22, July 22, November 21
Chapter 43: On Those Who Come Late to the Work of God or to Table

At the hour for the Divine Office,
as soon as the signal is heard,
let them abandon whatever they may have in hand
and hasten with the greatest speed,
yet with seriousness, so that there is no excuse for levity.
Let nothing, therefore, be put before the Work of God.

If at the Night Office
anyone arrives after the "Glory be to the Father" of Psalm 94 --
which Psalm for this reason we wish to be said
very slowly and protractedly --
let him not stand in his usual place in the choir;
but let him stand last of all,
or in a place set aside by the Abbot for such negligent ones
in order that they may be seen by him and by all.
He shall remain there until the Work of God has been completed,
and then do penance by a public satisfaction.
the reason why we have judged it fitting
for them so stand in the last place or in a place apart
is that,
being seen by all,
they may amend for very shame.
For if they remain outside of the oratory,
there will perhaps be someone who will go back to bed and sleep
or at least seat himself outside and indulge in idle talk,
and thus an occasion will be provided for the evil one.
But let them go inside,
that they many not lose the whole Office,
and may amend for the future.

At the day Hours
anyone who does not arrive at the Work of God
until after the verse
and the "Glory be to the Father" for the first Psalm following it
shall stand in the last place,
according to our ruling above.
Nor shall he presume to join the choir in their chanting
until he has made satisfaction,
unless the Abbot should pardon him and give him permission;
but even then the offender must make satisfaction for his fault.


Some Thoughts

One of the greatest of many very great lines is in today's reading: " Let nothing, therefore, be put before the Work of God." Would you agree with me that for Benedict. this is where it all takes place? Can we view all the rest of the Rule as commentary on this one sentence? That the purpose of the Rule is to make sure this is the point of day to day life? Is the work of God, the Opus Dei, prayer the most important things in our lives?

Anyone who reads my own Rule would say that on paper at least, such is my claim. But it is clear to me that this recent agony of back pain may be a direct result of failing to honor the place of prayer in my Rule, Of thinking that prayer was not enough for me to offer on behalf of the poor and so i stood for days and days baking for the Gourmet Pantry Table for our Christmas Arts, 12/1/07. Ignoring the spasms or just taking more ibuprofen till one day I just couldn't walk.

" Let nothing, therefore, be put before the Work of God." I really need to pay attention.

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

Benedictine spirituality does not ask for great feats of physical asceticism but it does require commitment to community and a sincere seeking of God through prayer. Tardiness is not to be tolerated. Indolence is not to be overlooked. Half-heartedness will not be condoned. Benedict does not want people sleeping-in or dawdling along, or "preferring anything to the Opus Dei," the work of God. Nothing in life qualifies as an exchange for the Word of God, not good work, not a job almost finished, not an interesting conversation, not the need for privacy.

Benedictine life centers around the chapel and chapel must never be overlooked. What is being asked for in monastic spirituality is a life of fidelity to prayer and to the praying communities of which we are a part. Prayer is a community act in Benedictine life. It is at community prayer, in the midst of others, that we are most reminded that we are not a world unto ourselves.

Benedict will go so far as to have the community pray the opening psalm slowly to give the slow a chance to get there in an age without alarm clocks but he will not allow such a lack of personal spiritual discipline to grow. Tardiness, the attempt to cut corners on everything in life, denies the soul the full experience of anything.

It is a lesson to be relearned in a modern age perhaps. There is nothing more important in our own list of important things to do in life than to stop at regular times, in regular ways to remember what life is really about, where it came from, why we have it, what we are to do with it and for whom we are to live it. No matter how tired we are or how busy we are or how impossible we think it is to do it, Benedictine spirituality says, Stop. Now. A spiritual life without a regular prayer life and an integrated community consciousness is pure illusion.

21/11/07 Wed, 25th week after Pentecost, Presentation of our Lady

[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

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
++++++++++

Today's Scripture http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/

AM Psalm 101, 109:1-4(5-19)20-30; PM Psalm 119:121-144
1 Macc. 3:42-60; Rev. 21:9-21; Matt. 17:22-27
++++++++++

From Forward Day by Day: http://www.forwardmovement.org/todaysreading.cfm

Psalm 101. I will sing of mercy and justice; to you, O LORD, will I sing praises. I will strive to follow a blameless course; oh, when will you come to me?

In a comic strip from years ago, the cartoon character Pogo declares, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." King David loved God deeply, and he desired to be righteous and blameless and to bring justice to the land. But he did not always succeed. He fought many enemies, most of whom he vanquished, but sometimes he failed to recognize his own character defects. David saw the beautiful Bathsheba, a married woman, and wanted her for himself. When Bathsheba became pregnant with David's child, he manipulated events so that her husband was killed in battle. Confronted by the prophet Nathan, David repented of his wrongdoing.


Like David, we may deeply desire to be blameless and loyal to the ways of God, but we need to be aware of the enemies within, our own character defects, lest we also fall blindly into sin. When we do, again like David, we need to repent of our sins and seek the forgiveness of our loving God.
++++++++++

Today in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for the Diocese of Wangaratta (Victoria, Australia)
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm
++++++++++

Speaking to the Soul: http://www.episcopalcafe.com/

Gratefulness

Daily Reading for November 21

Why is it so difficult to acknowledge a gift as a gift? Here is the reason. When I admit that something is a gift, I admit my dependence on the giver. This may not sound that difficult, but there is something within us that bristles at the idea of dependence. We want to get along by ourselves. Yet a gift is something we simply cannot give to ourselves—not as a gift, at any rate. I can buy the same thing or even something better. But it will not be a gift if I procure it for myself. I can go out and treat myself to a magnificent treat. I can even be grateful later for the good time I had. But can I be grateful to myself for having treated myself so well? That would be neck-breaking mental acrobatics. Gratefulness always goes beyond myself. For what makes something a gift is precisely that it is given. And the receiver depends on the giver.

This dependence is always there when a gift is given and received. Even a mother depends on her child for the smallest gift. Suppose a little boy buys his mother a bunch of daffodils. He is giving nothing that he has not already received. His mother gave him not only the money he spent, but his very life and the upbringing that made him generous. Yet his gift is something that she depends on his giving. There is no other way she could receive it as a gift. Gift giving is a celebration of the bond that unites giver and receiver. That bond is gratefulness.

From Gratefulness, Heart of Prayer by David Steindl-Rast (Paulist Press, 1984).
++++++++++

Spiritual Practice of the Day http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/

The body should be studied not only by those who wish to be doctors but by those who wish to attain a more intimate knowledge of God.
— Al-Ghaz quoted in No Enemies Within by Dawna Markova

To Practice This Thought: Do a body scan with love.
++++++++++

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

We must have no confidence whatever in our own strength, but trust in His mercy - and until we do this all is weakness.
St. Teresa of Jesus
++++++++++

Reading from the Desert Christians http://www.cin.org/dsrtftin.html

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


God descends to the humble as waters flow down from the hills into
the valleys.

St. Tikhon of Voronezh
++++++++++

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

Waiting in Expectation

Waiting patiently for God always includes joyful expectation. Without expectation our waiting can get bogged down in the present. When we wait in expectation our whole beings are open to be surprised by joy.

All through the Gospels Jesus tells us to keep awake and stay alert. And Paul says, "Brothers and sisters ... the moment is here for you to stop sleeping and wake up, because by now our salvation is nearer than when we first began to believe. The night is nearly over, daylight is on the way; so let us throw off everything that belongs to the darkness and equip ourselves for the light" (Romans 13:11-12). It is this joyful expectation of God's coming that offers vitality to our lives. The expectation of the fulfillment of God's promises to us is what allows us to pay full attention to the road on which we are walking.
++++++++++

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

Day Twenty One - The Three Notes of the Order

Humility, love, and joy are the three notes which mark the lives of Tertiaries. When these characteristics are evident throughout the Order, its work will be fruitful. Without them, all that it attempts will be in vain.
++++++++++

Upper Room Daily Reflection http://www.upperroom.org/reflections/

For the Long Haul
November 21st, 2007
Wednesday’s Reflection

WHEN WE THINK of all that God wants for us and for the world, it helps to remember that we’re not talking about some overnight miracle. The change that God is about continues long-term, through all the ordinary days of the ordinary time in our lives. The long stretches when nothing spectacular seems to be happening form the bulk of our days — and the time of God’s faithful, steady working in our lives. God is in this for the long haul. And, … so are we.

- Mary Lou Redding
The Upper Room Disciplines 2007

From p. 232 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


Thrashing About

The deepest level of communication is communion. When we know and love someone, we are simply happy to be near him or her. We feel power and energy passing between us. That is the power of prayer. That is what we must do to bask in the sunshine of God's love. The word to us is, "Don't just do something; stand there!"

Perhaps you've seen someone trying to learn how to swim. We tell the swimmer, one can float just by lying still in the water. But the swimmer thrashes around, throwing arms and legs about. That's just like us in prayer! We go down! Finally, little by little, the swimmer has a moment of quiet. We stop those limbs moving and, lo and behold, we are buoyed to the top—and we really float!

To receive the love of God is to recognize it is all around us, above us and beneath us; speaking to us through every person, every flower, every trial and situation. Stop knocking on the door: You're already inside!

from The Great Themes of Scripture
++++++++++

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 Presentation of Mary

In Mary the words of the prophets
and the just are all contained;
from her the luminous One has shone forth
and dispelled the darkness of paganism.
The titles of Mary are many
and it is right that I should use them:
she is the palace where dwells
the mighty King of Kings;
not as he entered her did he leave her,
for from her he put on a body and came forth.
Again, she is the new heaven,
in which there dwells the King of Kings;
he shone out in her and came forth into creation,
formed and clothed in her features.
She is the stem of the cluster of grapes,
she gave forth fruit beyond nature's means,
and he, though his nature bore no resemblance to hers,
put on her hue and came forth from her.
She is the spring, whence flowed
living water for the thirsty,
and those who have tasted its draught
give forth fruit a hundred fold.

Ephrem of Edessa
++++++++++

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

IT IS FINISHED


"I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do." John 17:4

The Death of Jesus Christ is the performance in history of the very Mind of God. There is no room for looking on Jesus Christ as a martyr; His death was not something that happened to Him which might have been prevented: His death was the very reason why He came.

Never build your preaching of forgiveness on the fact that God is our Father and He will forgive us because He loves us. It is untrue to Jesus Christ's revelation of God; it makes the Cross unnecessary, and the Redemption "much ado about nothing." If God does forgive sin, it is because of the Death of Christ. God could forgive men in no other way than by the death of His Son, and Jesus is exalted to be Saviour because of His death. "We see Jesus because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour." The greatest note of triumph that ever sounded in the ears of a startled universe was that sounded on the Cross of Christ - "It is finished." That is the last word in the Redemption of man.

Anything that belittles or obliterates the holiness of God by a false view of the love of God, is untrue to the revelation of God given by Jesus Christ. Never allow the thought that Jesus Christ stands with us against God out of pity and compassion; that He became a curse for us out of sympathy with us. Jesus Christ became a curse for us by the Divine decree. Our portion of realizing the terrific meaning of the curse is conviction of sin, the gift of shame and penitence is given us - this is the great mercy of God. Jesus Christ hates the wrong in man, and Calvary is the estimate of His hatred.
++++++++++

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

March 22, July 22, November 21
Chapter 43: On Those Who Come Late to the Work of God or to Table

At the hour for the Divine Office,
as soon as the signal is heard,
let them abandon whatever they may have in hand
and hasten with the greatest speed,
yet with seriousness, so that there is no excuse for levity.
Let nothing, therefore, be put before the Work of God.

If at the Night Office
anyone arrives after the "Glory be to the Father" of Psalm 94 --
which Psalm for this reason we wish to be said
very slowly and protractedly --
let him not stand in his usual place in the choir;
but let him stand last of all,
or in a place set aside by the Abbot for such negligent ones
in order that they may be seen by him and by all.
He shall remain there until the Work of God has been completed,
and then do penance by a public satisfaction.
the reason why we have judged it fitting
for them so stand in the last place or in a place apart
is that,
being seen by all,
they may amend for very shame.
For if they remain outside of the oratory,
there will perhaps be someone who will go back to bed and sleep
or at least seat himself outside and indulge in idle talk,
and thus an occasion will be provided for the evil one.
But let them go inside,
that they many not lose the whole Office,
and may amend for the future.

At the day Hours
anyone who does not arrive at the Work of God
until after the verse
and the "Glory be to the Father" for the first Psalm following it
shall stand in the last place,
according to our ruling above.
Nor shall he presume to join the choir in their chanting
until he has made satisfaction,
unless the Abbot should pardon him and give him permission;
but even then the offender must make satisfaction for his fault.

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

Benedictine spirituality does not ask for great feats of physical asceticism but it does require commitment to community and a sincere seeking of God through prayer. Tardiness is not to be tolerated. Indolence is not to be overlooked. Half-heartedness will not be condoned. Benedict does not want people sleeping-in or dawdling along, or "preferring anything to the Opus Dei," the work of God. Nothing in life qualifies as an exchange for the Word of God, not good work, not a job almost finished, not an interesting conversation, not the need for privacy.

Benedictine life centers around the chapel and chapel must never be overlooked. What is being asked for in monastic spirituality is a life of fidelity to prayer and to the praying communities of which we are a part. Prayer is a community act in Benedictine life. It is at community prayer, in the midst of others, that we are most reminded that we are not a world unto ourselves.

Benedict will go so far as to have the community pray the opening psalm slowly to give the slow a chance to get there in an age without alarm clocks but he will not allow such a lack of personal spiritual discipline to grow. Tardiness, the attempt to cut corners on everything in life, denies the soul the full experience of anything.

It is a lesson to be relearned in a modern age perhaps. There is nothing more important in our own list of important things to do in life than to stop at regular times, in regular ways to remember what life is really about, where it came from, why we have it, what we are to do with it and for whom we are to live it. No matter how tired we are or how busy we are or how impossible we think it is to do it, Benedictine spirituality says, Stop. Now. A spiritual life without a regular prayer life and an integrated community consciousness is pure illusion.
++++++++++

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

The Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple Fish, Wine, & Oil
Wed., Nov. 21, 2007
Kellia: 2 Kings (2 Samuel MT) 8:1-15 LXX Epistle: Hebrews
9:1-7
Gospel: St. Luke 10:38-42; 11:27-28

An Invincible Warrior: 2 Kings 8:1-15 LXX, especially vss. 14, 15: "And
the Lord preserved David wherever he went. And David reigned over all
Israel: and David wrought judgment and justice over all his people."
King David was invincible as a warrior-king. Therefore, David serves as
a type of Christ our King, the true, invincible Warrior, "the Word of
God, [Who] has on His robe and His thigh a name written, King of Kings
and Lord of Lords" (Rev. 19:13,16). But David also applies to you and
me, for he typifies everyone who is united to Christ in Baptism and who
aims to be "ever a warrior invincible," and a victor "even unto the end."

Considering David as a type of my life reveals that, unlike him, I am a
conquerable and often-defeated warrior and far from being a victorious
ruler. St. Theophan tells me why: "You must sacrifice everything to God
and do only His will," and immediately I see that I have as many wills
as I have powers and wants, "which all clamor for satisfaction,
irrespective of whether it is in accordance with the will of God or
not." And I give in to them, cooperate with them - even coddle them.
Hence, they keep me under their control and hamper my doing God's will.
But St. Theophan's counsel fits well the portrait of David in the
present reading: fight ceaselessly "against everything that panders to
your own wills, that incites and supports them."

King David typifies the Christian "warrior invincible in every attack of
those who assail him," and shows how to conduct life's ongoing struggle:
know the boundaries of your realm; defeat any power that encroaches on
your territory, and consecrate everything of value to God.

Each of us has a realm - the citadel of the heart, the powers of the
soul, and the physical body. There are Philistines aplenty assaulting
your mind, virtues, and will - advertisers, promoters, salesmen,
teachers, pleasure mongers, ideologues, apostates, atheists and the
blithely immoral. All these will happily make you a deal, take over
your heart, soul, and body, and use you for their purposes.
Self-defense - keeping your integrity - requires making watchfulness
habitual.

St. Philotheos of Sinai shows how to establish external and internal
watchfulness over your life. First, acquire "in some measure...the
habit of self control," which is learned by shunning "visible sins
brought about through the five senses." Then it becomes possible "to
guard the heart with Jesus." Here he is directing you to the Jesus
Prayer, knowing that the Lord Himself will show you how to smite your
enemies who are always darting in to foul the citadel of your heart.
The Lord Jesus within your heart illumines your inner eye "to...His
goodness with a certain ardent longing."

See what King David did. The Philistines invaded. He smote them, put
them to flight, and took tribute from them (vs. 1). He smote the
Moabites. Some he killed, some he made into his servants, and from the
latter he received tribute (vs. 2). He smote Hadadezer and the Syrians,
and those not killed he made his servants and his tributaries (vss.
3-6). Be watchful over your realm and the light of Christ in your heart
will direct you which invaders to kill, which have value to serve you
and Jesus your King, and which can contribute to your growth in Christ.

King David gained control of his realm, brought powerful men into his
service, and amassed treasures - but not for his own pleasure. "Vessels
of silver, and vessels of gold, and vessels of brass...King David
consecrated to the Lord" (vss. 10,11). Smiting enemies, killing the
impure, making many into servants enabled David to reign over his realm
and to work "judgment and justice over all his people" (vs. 15). You
can do likewise, if Jesus reigns in you.

Lord Jesus Christ, enable me to remain watchful against all enemies,
smite those who would devour my life, and consecrate every gift from
Thee to sound judgment and righteousness.