undone, tuesday

Tuesday, March 25

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

Opening Prayer: Here, Lord, I abandon myself to you.  I have tried in every way I could think of to manage myself, and to make myself what I know I ought to be, but have always failed.  Now I give it up to you.  Do take entire possession of me.  Work in me all the good pleasure of your will.  Mold and fashion me into such a vessel as seems good to you.  I leave myself in your hands.  Amen. (The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life by Hannah Whitall Smith)

Scripture for the Day: 2 Samuel 12:1-25

Reading for Reflection:

     Sin is the refusal of spiritual life, the rejection of the inner order and peace that come from our union with the divine will.  In a word, sin is the refusal of God’s will and of his love.  It is not only a refusal to “do” this or that thing willed by God, or a determination to do what he forbids.  It is more radically a refusal to be what we are, a rejection of our mysterious, contingent, spiritual reality hidden in the very mystery of God.  Sin is our refusal to be what we were created to be—sons of God, images of God.  Ultimately sin, while seeming to be an assertion of freedom, is a flight from the freedom and the responsibility of divine sonship. (Life and Holiness by Thomas Merton)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Closing Prayer: Lord God, I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.  Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.  Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.  Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.  Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.  Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice.  Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.  Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.  By the power, and the blood, of Jesus.  Amen.