dying, day 4

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

Opening Prayer:
You, O Christ, are my wealth. All those things I thought I couldn't live without "dissolve" in a glance from you. They are nothing when considered in the larger light of your intimate presence. How difficult it has been to come to this moment! The moment of letting go! I. who have learned so well to hoard, grasp, clutch, and control! Now I want only to be grasped by you. All my possessions are empty when they become obstacles to my union with you. O Glance of God, prepare my heart for the Great Surrender. Enable me to surrender my ego self so that I may put on Christ. Then I will begin enjoying heaven on earth. Amen. (Abide by Macrina Wiederkehr)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 49

Scripture for the Day: John 12:20-36

Reading for Reflection:

When I am able to approach the Word of God expecting some kind of conversion, I experience a little death.  The Hebrew people believed that one could not see the face of God and live.  In light of that belief perhaps the dying I experience should delight me.  When I am confronted with God’s Word, I am sometimes able to recognize that some change is needed in my life.  Ordinarily I name this piece of growth transformation.  Of course, the other side of transformation is that until I am able to integrate the change into my life, with a certain acceptance, it feels more like death. (Abide by Macrina Wiederkehr)


Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Alas and Did My Savior Bleed

Alas and did my savior bleed
And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For sinners such as I?

Was it for sins that I have done
He suffered on the tree?
Amazing pity! Grace unknown!
And love beyond degree!

Well might the sun in darkness hide
And shut His glory in
When Christ, the great Redeemer died
For man the creature's sin.

Thus might I hide my blushing face
While His dear cross appears,
Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
And melt mine eyes to tears.

But drops of grief can ne'er repay
The debt of love I owe:
Here, Lord, I give myself away
'Tis all that I can do.

Closing Prayer:
Dear God,
Please untie the knots that are in my mind my heart and my life. Remove the have nots, the can nots, and the do nots I have in my mind. Erase the will nots, may nots, the might nots that may find a home in my heart. Release me from the would nots could nots and should nots that obstruct my life. And most of all, remove from my mind my heart and my life, the am nots that I have allowed to hold me back especially the thought that I am not good enough. Amen. (Author unknown)

dying, day 3

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

Opening Prayer:
You, O Christ, are my wealth. All those things I thought I couldn't live without "dissolve" in a glance from you. They are nothing when considered in the larger light of your intimate presence. How difficult it has been to come to this moment! The moment of letting go! I. who have learned so well to hoard, grasp, clutch, and control! Now I want only to be grasped by you. All my possessions are empty when they become obstacles to my union with you. O Glance of God, prepare my heart for the Great Surrender. Enable me to surrender my ego self so that I may put on Christ. Then I will begin enjoying heaven on earth. Amen. (Abide by Macrina Wiederkehr)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 49

Scripture for the Day: Mark 8:31-38

Reading for Reflection:

The sacrificial instinct is the deep recognition that something always has to die for something bigger to be born. We started with human sacrifice (Abraham and Isaac), we moved to animal sacrifice (the ritual killing of the Passover lamb described in Exodus 12), and we gradually get closer to what really has to be sacrificed, our own beloved ego, as protected and beloved as a little household lamb! We will all find endless disguises and excuses to avoid letting go of what really needs to die. And it is not other humans (firstborn sons of Egyptians), animals (lambs or goats), or even meat on Friday that God wants or needs. It is always our false self that has to be let go, which is going to die anyway.
     By becoming the symbolic Passover Lamb, plus the foot-washing servant in tonight’s Gospel, Jesus makes the movement to the human and the personal very clear and quite concrete. It is always, we, in our youth, in our beauty, in our power and over-protectedness that must be handed over. Otherwise, we will never grow up, big enough to eat of the Mystery of God and Love. It really is about “passing over” to the next level of faith and life. And that never happens without some kind of “dying to the previous levels.”

 

                                                                                            ~Richard Rohr

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Alas and Did My Savior Bleed

Alas and did my savior bleed
And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For sinners such as I?

Was it for sins that I have done
He suffered on the tree?
Amazing pity! Grace unknown!
And love beyond degree!

Well might the sun in darkness hide
And shut His glory in
When Christ, the great Redeemer died
For man the creature's sin.

Thus might I hide my blushing face
While His dear cross appears,
Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
And melt mine eyes to tears.

But drops of grief can ne'er repay
The debt of love I owe:
Here, Lord, I give myself away
'Tis all that I can do.

Closing Prayer:
Dear God,
Please untie the knots that are in my mind my heart and my life. Remove the have nots, the can nots, and the do nots I have in my mind. Erase the will nots, may nots, the might nots that may find a home in my heart. Release me from the would nots could nots and should nots that obstruct my life. And most of all, remove from my mind my heart and my life, the am nots that I have allowed to hold me back especially the thought that I am not good enough. Amen. (Author unknown)

dying, day 2

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

Opening Prayer:
You, O Christ, are my wealth. All those things I thought I couldn't live without "dissolve" in a glance from you. They are nothing when considered in the larger light of your intimate presence. How difficult it has been to come to this moment! The moment of letting go! I. who have learned so well to hoard, grasp, clutch, and control! Now I want only to be grasped by you. All my possessions are empty when they become obstacles to my union with you. O Glance of God, prepare my heart for the Great Surrender. Enable me to surrender my ego self so that I may put on Christ. Then I will begin enjoying heaven on earth. Amen. (Abide by Macrina Wiederkehr)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 49

Scripture for the Day: Galatians 2:19-21

Reading for Reflection:

Each time you break open the Word of God you are invited to die a little.  It is a dying that is full of living, a death that is life-giving.  Unlock the door of your heart.  Open the eyes of your soul.  Allow yourself to be vulnerable to the hallowed words. These words will wound you even as they heal you.  They will challenge you in the same moment they bless you.  They summon you to move into the growing places. They call you to trust an invisible Source of Life.  They draw you, like a magnet, to the Divine. 

     Don’t be afraid of your death.  When that time comes, “I will draw my breath and your soul will come to me like a needle to a magnet.”  In these revealing mystical words, God speaks directly to the heart of Mechtild of Magdenburg.  These words re also for you—whoever you may be—for the great death at the end of our lives is not the only death.  There are little deaths along the way.  Each death has the potential of drawing you into the Holy One.  Your breath is not your own; it has been borrowed from God.  Each breath draws you into greater intimacy with the Divine.

     If God has spoken to Mechtild in such beautiful, mystical language, rest assured this message is also for you.  You too have the heart and soul of a mystic.  On your pilgrim path through the hours of the day you will encounter many life-giving deaths.  Each surrender is a little dying.  Every act of love is full of life and death.  Each covenant promise requires a bittersweet yielding of the will.  Every leaning toward God is a little conversion in which you are drawn, like a magnet, to the Divine.

     You are being drawn!  Between your first breath and your last breath the poem of your life unfolds.  Every step is a dance step.  The dance of birth!  The dance of life!  The dance of death!  Surrender your need for certainty as you fall into your soul space.  You will not know whether you have found life or death as you gaze into the face of God. (Abide by Macrina Wiederkehr)


Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Alas and Did My Savior Bleed

Alas and did my savior bleed
And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For sinners such as I?

Was it for sins that I have done
He suffered on the tree?
Amazing pity! Grace unknown!
And love beyond degree!

Well might the sun in darkness hide
And shut His glory in
When Christ, the great Redeemer died
For man the creature's sin.

Thus might I hide my blushing face
While His dear cross appears,
Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
And melt mine eyes to tears.

But drops of grief can ne'er repay
The debt of love I owe:
Here, Lord, I give myself away
'Tis all that I can do.

Closing Prayer:
Dear God,
Please untie the knots that are in my mind my heart and my life. Remove the have nots, the can nots, and the do nots I have in my mind. Erase the will nots, may nots, the might nots that may find a home in my heart. Release me from the would nots could nots and should nots that obstruct my life. And most of all, remove from my mind my heart and my life, the am nots that I have allowed to hold me back especially the thought that I am not good enough. Amen. (Author unknown)

dying, day 1

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

Opening Prayer:
You, O Christ, are my wealth.  All those things I thought I couldn't live without "dissolve" in a glance from you.  They are nothing when considered in the larger light of your intimate presence.  How difficult it has been to come to this moment!  The moment of letting go!  I. who have learned so well to hoard, grasp, clutch, and control!  Now I want only to be grasped by you.  All my possessions are empty when they become obstacles to my union with you.  O Glance of God, prepare my heart for the Great Surrender.  Enable me to surrender my ego self so that I may put on Christ.  Then I will begin enjoying heaven on earth.  Amen. (Abide by Macrina Wiederkehr)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 49

Scripture for the Day: Philippians 3:7-16

Reading for Reflection:

I've been learning a lot about dying lately…and I hate it.  I'm terrible at it.  I would probably never choose it on my own, it is usually chosen for me.  And I resist it almost all the time.  But it’s just unavoidable.

     Currently I am living smack dab in the center of Lent, walking the road to the cross with Jesus, knowing that much of the life I have lived—and loved—up to this point has been torn away, that on the horizon a cross awaits, and that there is some kind of new life and resurrection on the other side of it all.

     But right now the cross is looming, the sadness of loss and the stench of death keep me from the joy and excitement of what is to come. I'm convinced that whatever it is will be beautiful, but there is still more dying left to do before I can get there.

                                                                                 ~Jim Branch

                                                                                 April 2011

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Alas and Did My Savior Bleed

Alas and did my savior bleed
And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For sinners such as I?
 
Was it for sins that I have done
He suffered on the tree?
Amazing pity! Grace unknown!
And love beyond degree!
 
Well might the sun in darkness hide  
And shut His glory in
When Christ, the great Redeemer died
For man the creature's sin.

Thus might I hide my blushing face
While His dear cross appears,
Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
And melt mine eyes to tears.

But drops of grief can ne'er repay
The debt of love I owe:
Here, Lord, I give myself away
'Tis all that I can do.

Closing Prayer:
Dear God,
     Please untie the knots that are in my mind my heart and my life.  Remove the have nots, the can nots, and the do nots I have in my mind.  Erase the will nots, may nots, the might nots that may find a home in my heart.  Release me from the would nots could nots and should nots that obstruct my life.  And most of all, remove from my mind my heart and my life, the am nots that I have allowed to hold me back especially the thought that I am not good enough.  Amen. (Author unknown)

wilderness, day 7

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

Opening Prayer:

Lord,
The house of my soul is narrow;
enlarge it that you may enter in.
It is ruinous, O repair it!
It displeases Your sight.
I confess it, I know.
But who shall cleanse it, to whom shall I cry but to you?
Cleanse me from my secret faults,
O Lord, and spare Your servant from strange sins.

                                               ~St. Augustine of Hippo


Psalm for the Week: Psalm 78

Scripture for the Day: Psalm 84

Reading for Reflection:

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
As they pass through the Valley of Weeping,
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.

(Psalm 84:5-7)

 

This Lenten journey is very much a pilgrimage. It is the time where we, like Jesus, set our face to go to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51 ESV). It is a journey to the cross; a journey that passes through the Valley of Weeping, but ultimately ends up at a place of springs—of new life, of resurrection. So what does it look like to set my heart on this pilgrimage? Does it mean to follow wherever the hard and lonely path may lead, trusting that Jesus knows the way to life? Does it mean to embrace, rather than avoid or deny, the struggle and pain and brokenness of the season—and my own heart—knowing that this is the soil in which new life is born? Does it mean simply putting one foot in front of the other as we willingly follow our Savior into a scary and vulnerable land—the land of denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following him? Does it mean being stripped down to the core of who we really are, and who He really is, in order that we may really become all that He desires us to be? Does it mean a putting off of all that is false within us, in order to put on all that is genuinely true? Does it mean the putting to death of the false self, that we may live and be the true self we were intended/created/dreamt to be? If that is indeed what it means, then by all means, O Lord, set my heart of pilgrimage—as you set your face to go to Jerusalem—that I may really know, and really love, you and you alone.

                                                                        ~Jim Branch

                                                                         Lent 2012

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Guide me O Thou Great Jehovah


Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty;
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of heaven,
Feed me now and evermore;
Bread of heaven,
Feed me now and evermore.

Open now the crystal fountain,
Whence the healing waters flow;
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through.
Strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.
Strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.

When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of death, and hell's destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan's side.
Songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee;
Songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee.

Ending:
Land me safe on Canaan's side
Bid my anxious fears, bid my anxious fears
Land me safe on Canaan's side
Bid my anxious fears, bid my anxious fears, goodbye.


Closing Prayer:
Lord I so want to make all of me ready and attentive and available to you. Please help me to clarify and purify my intentions. I have so many contradictory desires. I get preoccupied with things that don’t really matter or last.

      I know that if I give You my heart whatever I do will follow my new heart. In all that I am today...all that I try to do...all my encounters, reflections, even the frustrations and failings and especially in this time of prayer...in all of this...may I place my life in Your hands. Lord I am Yours...make of me what you will.

                                                                 ~Ignatius of Loyola

wilderness, day 6

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

Opening Prayer:

Lord,
The house of my soul is narrow;
enlarge it that you may enter in.
It is ruinous, O repair it!
It displeases Your sight.
I confess it, I know.
But who shall cleanse it, to whom shall I cry but to you?
Cleanse me from my secret faults,
O Lord, and spare Your servant from strange sins.

                                           ~St. Augustine of Hippo


Psalm for the Week: Psalm 78

Scripture for the Day: Galatiians 1:11-18

Reading for Reflection:

Nothing can separate you from My loving Presence!

That is the basis of your security.

You will never be in control of your life circumstances, but you can relax and trust in My control.

Instead of striving for a predictable, safe lifestyle, seek to know Me in greater depth and breadth.

I long to make your life a glorious adventure, but you must stop clinging to old ways.

I am always doing something new within My beloved ones.

Be on the lookout for all that I have prepared for you.

                                                (Jesus Calling by Sarah Young)



Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Guide me O Thou Great Jehovah


Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty;
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of heaven,
Feed me now and evermore;
Bread of heaven,
Feed me now and evermore.

Open now the crystal fountain,
Whence the healing waters flow;
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through.
Strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.
Strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.

When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of death, and hell's destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan's side.
Songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee;
Songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee.

Ending:
Land me safe on Canaan's side
Bid my anxious fears, bid my anxious fears
Land me safe on Canaan's side
Bid my anxious fears, bid my anxious fears, goodbye.


Closing Prayer:
Lord I so want to make all of me ready and attentive and available to you. Please help me to clarify and purify my intentions. I have so many contradictory desires. I get preoccupied with things that don’t really matter or last.

      I know that if I give You my heart whatever I do will follow my new heart. In all that I am today...all that I try to do...all my encounters, reflections, even the frustrations and failings and especially in this time of prayer...in all of this...may I place my life in Your hands. Lord I am Yours...make of me what you will.

                                                                          ~Ignatius of Loyola

wilderness, day 5

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

Opening Prayer:

Lord,
The house of my soul is narrow;
enlarge it that you may enter in.
It is ruinous, O repair it!
It displeases Your sight.
I confess it, I know.
But who shall cleanse it, to whom shall I cry but to you?
Cleanse me from my secret faults,
O Lord, and spare Your servant from strange sins.

                                ~St. Augustine of Hippo


Psalm for the Week: Psalm 78

Scripture for the Day: Matthew 11:7-19

Reading for Reflection:

What more could you have given me than the gift of your very self?...You are a fire always burning but never consuming; you are a fire consuming in your heart all the soul’s selfish love [self-love]; you are a fire lifting all chill and giving light….without this light I would be walking in the dark…You willed to bend down to my need. (The Dialogue by Catherine of Sienna)

The spiritual journey is not a career or a success story.  It is a series of humiliations of the false self that become more and more profound.

                                                                               ~Fr. Thomas Keating


Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Guide me O Thou Great Jehovah


Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty;
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of heaven,
Feed me now and evermore;
Bread of heaven,
Feed me now and evermore.

Open now the crystal fountain,
Whence the healing waters flow;
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through.
Strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.
Strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.

When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of death, and hell's destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan's side.
Songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee;
Songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee.

Ending:
Land me safe on Canaan's side
Bid my anxious fears, bid my anxious fears
Land me safe on Canaan's side
Bid my anxious fears, bid my anxious fears, goodbye.


Closing Prayer:
     Lord I so want to make all of me ready and attentive and available to you. Please help me to clarify and purify my intentions. I have so many contradictory desires. I get preoccupied with things that don’t really matter or last.

     I know that if I give You my heart whatever I do will follow my new heart. In all that I am today...all that I try to do...all my encounters, reflections, even the frustrations and failings and especially in this time of prayer...in all of this...may I place my life in Your hands. Lord I am Yours...make of me what you will.

 

                                                                  ~Ignatius of Loyola

wilderness, day 4

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

Opening Prayer:

Lord,
The house of my soul is narrow;
enlarge it that you may enter in.
It is ruinous, O repair it!
It displeases Your sight.
I confess it, I know.
But who shall cleanse it, to whom shall I cry but to you?
Cleanse me from my secret faults,
O Lord, and spare Your servant from strange sins.

                                 ~St. Augustine of Hippo


Psalm for the Week: Psalm 78

Scripture for the Day: Isaiah 35:1-10

Reading for Reflection:

O Pilgrim God,

     You once led a people, dear to your heart, through the desert land of their exodus journey.  Now I invite you on a pilgrim journey through the scenic and wilderness lands of my heart.  Stop at the lovely shrines along the way.  Enable me to see the beauty of many sacred places in my life.  Together let us pray before the shrine that is me, created in your image.  Show me my goodness and strength on the path that leads through the temple of my being.  Pause also at the places where I am lost, deluded, and imprisoned in my own shallowness!  Anoint those places with a glance of love.  Transform all within me that yearns for renewal.  Refresh what is stale.  Open what is closed.  Rekindle what has grown too dim to give light.  O pilgrim God, journey with me to the promised land of my own being.  Amen. (Abide by Macrina Wiederkehr)

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Guide me O Thou Great Jehovah

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty;
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of heaven,
Feed me now and evermore;
Bread of heaven,
Feed me now and evermore.

Open now the crystal fountain,
Whence the healing waters flow;
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through.
Strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.
Strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.

When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of death, and hell's destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan's side.
Songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee;
Songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee.

Ending:
Land me safe on Canaan's side
Bid my anxious fears, bid my anxious fears
Land me safe on Canaan's side
Bid my anxious fears, bid my anxious fears, goodbye.


Closing Prayer:

     Lord I so want to make all of me ready and attentive and available to you. Please help me to clarify and purify my intentions. I have so many contradictory desires. I get preoccupied with things that don’t really matter or last.

I      know that if I give You my heart whatever I do will follow my new heart. In all that I am today...all that I try to do...all my encounters, reflections, even the frustrations and failings and especially in this time of prayer...in all of this...may I place my life in Your hands. Lord I am Yours...make of me what you will.

                                                                   ~Ignatius of Loyola

wilderness, day 3

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

Opening Prayer:

Lord,
The house of my soul is narrow;
enlarge it that you may enter in.
It is ruinous, O repair it!
It displeases Your sight.
I confess it, I know.
But who shall cleanse it, to whom shall I cry but to you?
Cleanse me from my secret faults,
O Lord, and spare Your servant from strange sins.

                                                  ~St. Augustine of Hippo

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 78

Scripture for the Day: Hosea 2:14-20

Reading for Reflection:

In Christian tradition, one of the most solemn days of the church year is Ash Wednesday, when believers enter a season of preparation for Easter by confronting their own mortality.  That this season lasts forty days is no mistake.  Those who follow Jesus are meant to follow him into the wilderness, where they too may be tested. 

     For me, at least, the peak of the service comes when the priest invites the congregation forward to the altar rail to receive ashes on our foreheads.  Those of us who have done it before know that we are being invited to our own funerals.  Kneeling shoulder to shoulder at the rail, we wait our turn, hearing the priest say to others what will soon be said to us.  “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” the priest says to me, making the sign of the cross on my forehead.

     Because she has just dipped her thumb in the cup of ashes, I get the full dose.  Extra ashes fall on the bridge of my nose.  I worry for a moment about how silly I will look when I stand up and turn around.  Then I get the sudden urge to ask for more, to ask for a whole bowl of ashes on my head.  But it is not yet my turn for a whole bowl.  For now, all I get is a taste of death, while there is still time to say please and thank you to the Giver of all life.

     Popular religion focuses so hard on spiritual success that most of us do not know the first thing about the spiritual fruits of failure.  When we fall ill, lose our jobs, wreck our marriages, or alienate our children, most of us are left alone to pick up the pieces.  Even those of us who are ministered to by brave friends can find it hard to shake the shame of getting lost in our lives.  And yet if someone asked us to pinpoint the times in our lives that changed us for the better, a lot of those times would be wilderness times. (An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor)

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Guide me O Thou Great Jehovah

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty;
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of heaven,
Feed me now and evermore;
Bread of heaven,
Feed me now and evermore.

Open now the crystal fountain,
Whence the healing waters flow;
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through.
Strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.
Strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.

When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of death, and hell's destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan's side.
Songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee;
Songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee.

Ending:
Land me safe on Canaan's side
Bid my anxious fears, bid my anxious fears
Land me safe on Canaan's side
Bid my anxious fears, bid my anxious fears, goodbye.

Closing Prayer:

Lord I so want to make all of me ready and attentive and available to you. Please help me to clarify and purify my intentions. I have so many contradictory desires. I get preoccupied with things that don’t really matter or last.

     I know that if I give You my heart whatever I do will follow my new heart. In all that I am today...all that I try to do...all my encounters, reflections, even the frustrations and failings and especially in this time of prayer...in all of this...may I place my life in Your hands. Lord I am Yours...make of me what you will.

                                                                            ~Ignatius of Loyola

wilderness, day 2

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

Opening Prayer:

Lord,
The house of my soul is narrow;
enlarge it that you may enter in.
It is ruinous, O repair it!
It displeases Your sight.
I confess it, I know.
But who shall cleanse it, to whom shall I cry but to you?
Cleanse me from my secret faults,
O Lord, and spare Your servant from strange sins.

                                                ~St. Augustine of Hippo

 

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 78

Scripture for the Day: Exodus 3:1-14

Reading for Reflection:

It is always on the backside of the desert that we come to the mountain of God—on the backside of the desert of self, at the end of our own dreams and ambitions and plans.

     Moody said that when Moses first undertook to deliver Israel he looked this way and that way (Ex. 2:12), but when he came back from Horeb he looked only one way, God’s way.  But before he saw God’s way he had to come back to the backside of the desert.

     And poor Moses had made quite a come-down from the courts of Egypt to the desert of Midian.  He carried in his hand only a shepherd’s rod, fit symbol of his humiliation.  God demanded that he cast even that to the ground (Ex. 4:3).  And when he took it up again it became henceforth the “rod of God” (4:20)!

     If God has brought you to the backside of the desert, if you are reduced, as it were, to a shepherd’s rod, cast even that gladly at His feet and He will restore it to you the rod of God—and with it you shall work wonders in His Name so long as you “endure as seeing Him Who is invisible.” (Consider Him by Vance Havner)

 

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Guide me O Thou Great Jehovah

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty;
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of heaven,
Feed me now and evermore;
Bread of heaven,
Feed me now and evermore.

Open now the crystal fountain,
Whence the healing waters flow;
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through.
Strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.
Strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.

When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of death, and hell's destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan's side.
Songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee;
Songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee.

Ending:
Land me safe on Canaan's side
Bid my anxious fears, bid my anxious fears
Land me safe on Canaan's side
Bid my anxious fears, bid my anxious fears, goodbye.

Closing Prayer:

Lord I so want to make all of me ready and attentive and available to you. Please help me to clarify and purify my intentions. I have so many contradictory desires. I get preoccupied with things that don’t really matter or last.

     I know that if I give You my heart whatever I do will follow my new heart. In all that I am today...all that I try to do...all my encounters, reflections, even the frustrations and failings and especially in this time of prayer...in all of this...may I place my life in Your hands. Lord I am Yours...make of me what you will.

                                                                         ~Ignatius of Loyola

wilderness, day 1

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

Opening Prayer:

Lord,
The house of my soul is narrow;
enlarge it that you may enter in.
It is ruinous, O repair it!
It displeases Your sight.
I confess it, I know.
But who shall cleanse it, to whom shall I cry but to you?
Cleanse me from my secret faults,
O Lord, and spare Your servant from strange sins.

 

                            ~St. Augustine of Hippo

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 78

Scripture for the Day: Mathew 3:13-4:11

Reading for Reflection:

Lent is a season when we face the wilderness within.  Just as Jesus was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness as a precursor to his earthly ministry, we too, must face the subtle temptations to the false self so that we can be “cleared out” for real ministry.  Here we face our own demons and they are rarely what we think!  It is not just the temptation to drink pop or eat sweets or enjoy a glass of wine—as real as those temptations become after we have given them up for Lent.  In the emptiness created by whatever it is we are fasting from, we become more aware of the compulsions of the false self and it is pretty beastly stuff.

     We experience the evil one’s proficiency at crafting very subtle and dangerous appeals to the instinctual patterns we rely on for safety and survival, significance and success, power and control. We see how far we have to go on the journey of learning to trust God and God alone in the wilderness of our most primal impulses and needs.  We are appalled to learn that the false self can and will co-opt anything—including God and the things of God—to secure its own survival, to prove ourselves to others, and to appear successful by whatever standards the group we identify with measures such things.

     A true Lenten journey demands that we look clear-eyed at our lives and wonder, where am I tempted to put even the things of God in service of my instinctual responses to the human situation? In what ways am I tempted to “turn these stones into bread”–using whatever gifts and powers God has given me in order to secure my own survival?  Where am I putting God to the test—continually “throwing myself down” in a display of ministry heroics in order to prove something to myself and others—expecting God to come to my rescue time and time again?  When, where and how am tempted to worship “all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor” –i.e. the outward trappings of success— rather than seeking the inner authority that comes from worshipping God and serving him only? (The Wilderness Within by Ruth Haley Barton)Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Guide me O Thou Great Jehovah

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty;
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of heaven,
Feed me now and evermore;
Bread of heaven,
Feed me now and evermore.

Open now the crystal fountain,
Whence the healing waters flow;
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through.
Strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.
Strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.

When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of death, and hell's destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan's side.
Songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee;
Songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee.

Ending:
Land me safe on Canaan's side
Bid my anxious fears, bid my anxious fears
Land me safe on Canaan's side
Bid my anxious fears, bid my anxious fears, goodbye.

Closing Prayer:

Lord I so want to make all of me ready and attentive and available to you.  Please help me to clarify and purify my intentions.  I have so many contradictory desires.  I get preoccupied with things that don’t really matter or last.

     I know that if I give You my heart whatever I do will follow my new heart.  In all that I am today...all that I try to do...all my encounters, reflections, even the frustrations and failings and especially in this time of prayer...in all of this...may I place my life in Your hands.  Lord I am Yours...make of me what you will.

 

                                                                   ~Ignatius of Loyola