ordinary, day 4

Come to Stillness:
Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 98

Scripture for the Day: Isaiah 53:1-6

Reading for Reflection:

     “Jesus has so diligently searched for the lowest place that it would be very difficult for anyone to tear it from him.”

     Nazareth was the lowest place:  the place of the poor, the unknown, of those who didn’t count, of the mass of workers, of people subjected to work’s grim demands just for a scrap of bread.

     But there is more.  Jesus is the “Holy One of God.”  But the Holy One of God realized his sanctity not in an extraordinary life, but one impregnated with ordinary things:  work, family and social life, obscure human activities, simple things shared by all people.

     The perfection of God is cast in a material which people almost despise, which they don’t consider worth searching for because of its simplicity, its lack of interest, because it is common to all of us. (Letters from the Desert by Carlo Carreto)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Take My Life and Let It Be

          Take my life, and let it be
          Consecrated, Lord, to Thee;
          Take my moments and my days,
          Let them flow in ceaseless praise,
          Let them flow in ceaseless praise.

          Take my hands, and let them move
          At the impulse of Thy love;
          Take my feet and let them be
          Swift and beautiful for Thee,
          Swift and beautiful for Thee.

          Take my voice, and let me sing
          Always, only, for my King;
          Take my lips, and let them be
          Filled with messages from Thee,
          Filled with messages from Thee.

          Take my silver and my gold;
          Not a mite would I withhold;
          Take my intellect, and use
          Every power as Thou shalt choose,
          Every power as Thou shalt choose.

          Take my will, and make it Thine;
          It shall be no longer mine.
          Take my heart; it is Thine own;
          It shall be Thy royal throne,
          It shall be Thy royal throne.

          Take my love; my Lord, I pour
          At Thy feet its treasure-store.
          Take myself, and I will be
          Ever, only, all for Thee,
          Ever, only, all for Thee.

Closing Prayer:

Our Father, help us to see you today in all that we come into contact with, knowing that you use ordinary things to give us an extraordinary sense of your presence in our lives.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen.  (JLB)