a life of ministry, day 6

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

Opening Prayer:
Dear Jesus,

     Help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go.  Flood our souls with your Spirit and life.  Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly that our lives may only be a radiance of yours.  Shine through us and so be in us that every soul we come I contact with may feel your presence in our soul.  Let them look up and see no longer us but only You.  Stay with us and then we shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be light to others.  The light, O Jesus, will be all from you.  None of it will be ours.  It will be you shining on others through us.  Let us thus praise you in the way you love best by shining on those around us.  Amen.  (The Daily Prayer of Mother Teresa)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 145

Scripture for the Day: Matthew 28:16-20

Reading for Reflection: 

It is the nature of pastoral work to walk into an alien world, put our feet on the pavement, and embrace the locale.  Pastoral work is geographical as much as it is theological.  Pastors don't send memos, don't send generic messages, don't work from a distance:  locale is part of it.  It is the nature of pastoral work to be on site, working things out in the particular soil of a particular parish.  (Under the Unpredictable Plant by Eugene H. Peterson)


When Jonah began his proper work, he went a day’s journey into Nineveh.  He didn't stand at the edge and preach at them; he entered into the midst of their living—heard what they were saying, smelled the cooking, picked up the colloquialisms, lived "on the economy," not aloof from it, not superior to it. (Under the Unpredictable Plant by Eugene H. Peterson)


Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Be Thou My Vision

 

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;

Naught be all else to me, save that thou art;

Thou my best thought, by day or by night,

Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

 

Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true Word;

I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord;

Thou my great Father, I thy true son,

Thou in me dwelling and I in thee one.

 

Riches I heed not, nor all empty praise;

Thou mine inheritance, now and always;

Thou and thou only, first in my heart,

High King of heaven, my treasure thou art.

 

High King of heaven, my victory won,

May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s Sun!

Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,

Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

 

 

Closing Prayer:

Almighty God, cause your good gifts to flow in and through my life and ministry this day and always.  Amen. (A Guide to Prayer by Rueben P. Job and Norman Shawchuck)