becoming, saturday

Saturday, May 17

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

Opening Prayer: God of our creation and re-creation, you who are constantly at work to shape me in the wholeness of Christ, you know the hardness of the structures of my being that resist your shaping touch.  You know the deep inner rigidities of my being that reject your changing grace.  By your grace soften my hardness and rigidity; help me to become pliable in your hands.  Even as I pray this, may there be a melting of my innate resistance to your transforming love.  Amen. (Invitation to a Journey by M. Robert Mulholland Jr.)

Scripture Reading for the Day: Ephesians 4:17-5:2

Reading for Reflection:

     Love changes us in ways that the law cannot.  Spiritual formation, a term used to describe the process of being changed into the image of Christ, doesn’t happen by following disciplines.  It happens by falling in love.  When we fall in love with Jesus, all the other loves in our life fall into place.  And those that once competed with Christ now subordinate themselves to him.  Everything in our life finds its proper value once we have properly valued him. (The Divine Embrace by Ken Gire)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                          

Closing Prayer:   We give You thanks, Almighty God: for all Your gifts so freely bestowed upon us and all whom You have made.  We bless You for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of life; above all, for the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the hope of glory and for the means of grace.  We thank You, O Lord. Grant us such an awareness of Your mercies, we pray, that with truly thankful hearts, we may give You praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving ourselves to Your service,
and by walking before You in holiness and righteousness all our days. (Venite by Robert Benson)