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)
Scripture Reading for the Day: Colossians 3:1-17
Reading for Reflection:
When
you undertake some special endeavor, do not concentrate your attention and
heart on it, but look upon it as something secondary; and by entire surrender
to God open yourself up to God's grace like a vessel laid out ready to receive
it." (The Art of Prayer)
Only when we are open and empty will we ever be truly able to receive whatever it is that God is longing to give us of himself. When our hands, and thus our hearts, are full of agendas and plans, expectations and demands, then we are indeed too full of ourselves to ever be able to see or to notice, much less receive, the gift of God's peace and His presence. Somewhere a surrender must take place, a giving up and a giving over of all that so often fills our hearts and our souls. A dying, an emptying of self in order to make room for God's Spirit and God's grace to do its work in us.
Only when we are open and empty will we ever be truly able to receive whatever it is that God is longing to give us of himself. When our hands, and thus our hearts, are full of agendas and plans, expectations and demands, then we are indeed too full of ourselves to ever be able to see or to notice, much less receive, the gift of God's peace and His presence. Somewhere a surrender must take place, a giving up and a giving over of all that so often fills our hearts and our souls. A dying, an emptying of self in order to make room for God's Spirit and God's grace to do its work in us.
Reflection and Listening: silent and written
Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself
Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself
Closing Prayer:
Thank
you, O God that we have died and our life is now hidden with Christ in
you. Thank you that when Christ, who is
our life, appears, we will appear with him in glory. All for your love’s sake. Amen.
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