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)