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.”
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.”
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)
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