holiness, tuesday

Tuesday, September 30

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

         

Opening Prayer: Gracious and loving God, you know the deep inner patterns of my life that keep me from being totally yours.  You know the misformed structures of my being that hold me in bondage to something less than your high purpose for my life.  You also know my reluctance to let you have your way with me in these areas.  Hear the deeper cry of my heart for wholeness and by your grace enable me to open to your transforming presence in this time.  Lord, have mercy. (Invitation to a Journey by Robert Mulholland Jr.)

Scripture Reading for the Day: Psalm 99:1-9

Reading for Reflection:

 

If we are called by God to holiness of life, and if holiness is beyond our natural power to achieve (which it certainly is) then it follows that God himself must give us the light, the strength, and the courage to fulfill the task he requires of us.  He will certainly give us the grace we need.  If we do not become saints it is because we do not avail ourselves of his gift. (Life and Holiness by Thomas Merton)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                  

Closing Prayer: Glory be to God on high. We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we worship Thee, for Thy great glory. Lord, I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me which I knew not. I heard thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee and I abhor myself in dust and ashes. O Lord, I will lay my hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken, yea twice, but I will proceed no further. But while I was musing the fire burned. Lord, I must speak of Thee, lest by my silence I offend against the generation of Thy children. Behold, Thou hast chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the mighty. O Lord, forsake me not. Let me show forth Thy strength unto this generation and Thy power to everyone that is to come. Raise up prophets and seers in Thy Church who shall magnify Thy glory and through Thine almighty Spirit restore to Thy people the knowledge of the holy. Amen. (Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer)

holiness, monday

Monday, September 29

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

        

Opening Prayer: Gracious and loving God, you know the deep inner patterns of my life that keep me from being totally yours.  You know the misformed structures of my being that hold me in bondage to something less than your high purpose for my life.  You also know my reluctance to let you have your way with me in these areas.  Hear the deeper cry of my heart for wholeness and by your grace enable me to open to your transforming presence in this time.  Lord, have mercy. (Invitation to a Journey by Robert Mulholland Jr.)

Scripture Reading for the Day: Isaiah 61:10-11

Reading for Reflection:

 

In holiness and righteousness:  these are characteristics of God’s covenant people.  The righteous are those who stand in right relationship with God, trusting him above every created thing (above parents, spouses, one’s own abilities, money) and performing with joy the requirements that come with this particular covenant (loving one another as Jesus loved us).  The holy, likewise, are those whose relationship with God separates them (even as God is separate) from the godless world.  They neither serve the world nor take their identity from the world’s standards, judgments, opinions, delights, behaviors.  They are strangers here.  But they are also, therefore, free and fearless! (Preparing for Jesus by Walter Wangerin Jr.)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                  
Closing Prayer: Thank you, O God, that you have robed me in the garments of salvation; and that apart from your grace and mercy I have no hope.  Therefore, I greatly delight in you, O Lord, and my soul rejoices in you, O my God.  All praise be to you!  Amen.

holiness, sunday

Sunday, September 28

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

         

Opening Prayer: Gracious and loving God, you know the deep inner patterns of my life that keep me from being totally yours.  You know the misformed structures of my being that hold me in bondage to something less than your high purpose for my life.  You also know my reluctance to let you have your way with me in these areas.  Hear the deeper cry of my heart for wholeness and by your grace enable me to open to your transforming presence in this time.  Lord, have mercy. (Invitation to a Journey by Robert Mulholland Jr.)

Scripture Reading for the Day: Isaiah 6:1-8

Reading for Reflection:

 

     The purpose of salvation is to make whole that which is broken.  The Christian spiritual journey settles for nothing less than such wholeness.  But genuine wholeness cannot occur apart from holiness.  In The Holiness of God R. C. Sproul notes that the pattern of God’s transforming encounters with humans is always the same.  God appears; humans respond in fear because of their sin; God forgives our sins and heals us (holiness and wholeness); God then sends us out to serve him.  This means that holiness and wholeness are the interrelated goals of the Christian spiritual journey.  Holiness is the goal of the spiritual journey because God is holy and commands that we be holy (Leviticus 11:44).

     Holiness involves taking on the life and character of a holy God by means of a restored relationship to him.  This relationship heals our most fundamental disease—our separation from our Source, our Redeemer, the Great Lover of our soul.  The relationship is therefore simultaneously the source of our holiness and of our wholeness.

     Human beings were designed for intimate relationship with God and cannot find fulfillment of their true and deepest self apart from that relationship.  Holiness does not involve the annihilation of our identity with a simple transplant of God’s identity.  Rather, it involves the transformation of our self, made possible by the work of God’s Spirit within us.  Holiness is becoming like the God with whom we live in intimate relationship.  It is acquiring his Spirit and allowing spirit to be transformed by Spirit.  It is finding and living our life in Christ, then discovering that Christ’s life and Spirit are our life and spirit.  This is the journey of Christian spiritual transformation.  This is the process of becoming whole and holy. (Sacred Companions by David G. Benner)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                  

Closing Prayer: Thank you Lord, that you see me as holy because of the gift of your Son.  Help me to celebrate the holiness you have given me by being wholly yours this day.  Amen.

longing, saturday

Saturday, September 27

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

         

Opening Prayer: O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more.  I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace.  I am ashamed of my lack of desire.  O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. (The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer)

Scripture Reading for the Day: Hebrews 11:1-16

Reading for Reflection:

The whole of the good Christian life is a holy longing.  What you desire ardently, as yet you do not see…By withholding of the vision, God extends longing; through longing he extends the soul, by extending he makes room in it.  Let us long because we are to be filled…that is our life, to be exercised by longing.       

                                                                                ~St. Augustine

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                  

Closing Prayer: Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace. (The Confessions of St. Augustine)

longing, friday

Friday, September 26

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

         

Opening Prayer: O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more.  I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace.  I am ashamed of my lack of desire.  O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. (The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer)

Scripture Reading for the Day: Deuteronomy 33:12

Reading for Reflection:

 

     Moses is at the end of his life and mission.  He has finished his race and has passed the baton of leadership on to Joshua.  Now all that’s left for him to do is utter his final words.  Can you imagine the care and the prayer, the thought and the intention he put into the process of choosing the words he (and more appropriately God) wanted ringing in the ears of the nation of Israel at this key moment in their life and history.  You can almost see the smile on his face as he thinks of each tribe individually.  As he considers the state of their hearts and his hopes and dreams for each of them.  And after all the thinking and the considering and the hoping and the dreaming and the praying, he gathers the entire nation together in order to give each of them a blessing.  And what a blessing it is!  It is exactly what they are most deeply longing for in their hearts and souls. 

     In fact, as he blesses each tribe, it’s hard not to get the image of him simply trying to plant something beautiful within their hearts and souls.  Something that will bring life and bear fruit for years and years to come.  Something that will help them be exactly what both Isaiah and Jeremiah imagined—a well-watered garden.  And maybe that’s all a blessing is anyway, the planting of something beautiful in a heart or soul.   And maybe that’s exactly what a blessing was intended to do in the first place, to create life and bear fruit.  So he plants the words of blessing in the soil of their souls, and prays that it will begin to take root.  And, to the tribe of Benjamin, what rich and beautiful words they are: “Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders.”  And the garden of God’s delight becomes, a little at a time, more and more beautiful.

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                

Closing Prayer:

For Thy perfect wisdom and perfect goodness;

For the love wherewith Thou lovest mankind;

For the love wherewith Thou lovest me;

For the great and mysterious opportunity of my life;

For the indwelling of Thy Spirit in my heart;

I praise and worship Thee, O Lord.

(A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baillie)

longing, thursday

Thursday, September 25

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

         

Opening Prayer: O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more.  I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace.  I am ashamed of my lack of desire.  O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. (The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer)

Scripture Reading for the Day: Psalm 36:5-10

Reading for Reflection:

 

In all of our hearts lies a longing for a Sacred Romance.  It will not go away in spite of our efforts over the years to anesthetize or ignore its song, or attach it to a single person or endeavor.  It is a Romance couched in mystery and set deeply within us.  It cannot be categorized into prepositional truths or fully known any more than studying the anatomy of a corpse would help us know the person who once inhabited it.

     Philosophers call this Romance, this heart yearning set within us, the longing for transcendence; the desire to be part of something larger than ourselves, to be part of something out of the ordinary that is good.  Transcendence is what we experience in a small but powerful way when our city’s football team wins the big game against tremendous odds.  The deepest part of our heart longs to be bound together in some heroic purpose with others of like mind and spirit. (The Sacred Romance by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                  

Closing Prayer: O Thou who ordered this wondrous world, and who knowest all things in earth and heaven:  So fill our hearts with trust in thee that by night and day, at all times and in all seasons, we may without fear commit all that we have and hope to be to thy never-failing love, for this life and the life to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. (The Book of Worship)

longing, wednesday

Wednesday, September 24

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

        

Opening Prayer: O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more.  I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace.  I am ashamed of my lack of desire.  O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. (The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer)

Scripture Reading for the Day: Proverbs 13:12, 19

Reading for Reflection:

 

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. (Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                  

Closing Prayer: Because your love is better than life, O God, my lips will glorify you.  I will praise you as long as I live and in your name I will lift up my hands.  My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods and with singing lips my mouth will praise you. (Psalm 63:3-5)

longing, tuesday

Tuesday, September 23

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

         

Opening Prayer: O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more.  I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace.  I am ashamed of my lack of desire.  O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. (The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer)

Scripture Reading for the Day: Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

Reading for Reflection:

 

Deep within each of us is the urge to know and to be known.  It is as central to the core of our being as is the urge to dance in the sunshine or cry at weddings or sing in the shower or laugh at children or fall backward into the snow.  It is buried as deeply within us as is the sense that it takes for us to know not to give children stones and serpents instead of bread and fish.  It is as much a part of us as hugging a child or tending the sick or walking on the beach.

     When we were given the capacity to love, to speak, to decide, to dream, to hope and create and suffer, we were also given the longing to be known by the One who wants to be completely known.  It is a longing woven into the very fabric of the image in which we were made. (Between the Dreaming and the Coming True by Robert Benson)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                  

Closing Prayer: O God, thank you that you have set eternity in our hearts and that nothing in this earthy life, although they stir us greatly, can ever completely satisfy that longing for you.  These stirrings are just hints and clues, a very small taste of a much larger Beauty that you have in store for us for all eternity.  Amen.

longing, monday

Monday, September 22

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

         

Opening Prayer: O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more.  I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace.  I am ashamed of my lack of desire.  O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. (The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer)

Scripture Reading for the Day: 2 Corinthians 5:1-5

Reading for Reflection:

 

     Indeed, if we will listen, a Sacred Romance calls to us through our heart every moment of our lives.  It whispers to us on the wind, invites us through the laughter of good friends, reaches out to us through the touch of someone we love.  We've heard it in our favorite music, sensed it at the birth of our first child, been drawn to it while watching the shimmer of a sunset on the ocean.  The Romance is even present in times of great personal suffering:  the illness of a child, the loss of a marriage, the death of a friend.  Something calls to us through experiences like these and rouses an inconsolable longing deep within our heart, wakening in us a yearning for intimacy, beauty, and adventure.

     This longing is the most powerful part of any human personality.  It fuels our search for meaning, for wholeness, for a sense of being truly alive.  However we may describe this deep desire, it is the most important thing about us, our heart of hearts, the passion of our life.  And the voice that calls to us in this place is none other than the voice of God. (The Sacred Romance by Brent Curtis & John Eldredge)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                   

Closing Prayer: O God, sometimes we can hardly wait to move—and so we cry out in frustration.  Compared to what’s coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we’re tired of it!  We’ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies!  Your Spirit whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what’s ahead.  You put a little of heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less.

     That’s why we live with such good cheer.  You won’t see us drooping our heads or dragging our feet!  Cramped conditions here don’t get us down.  They only remind us of the spacious living conditions ahead.  It’s what we trust in but don’t yet see that keeps us going.  Do you suppose a few ruts in the road or rocks in the path are going to stop us?  When the time comes, we’ll be plenty ready to exchange exile for homecoming. (The Message)

longing, sunday

Sunday, September 21

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

         

Opening Prayer: O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more.  I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace.  I am ashamed of my lack of desire.  O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. (The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer)

Scripture Reading for the Day: Psalm 63:1-8

Reading for Reflection:

 

Passion is the torrent of desire that lives within us all.  It propels us into life and, if we choose, to God.  It is the inner craving for the rich, intimate exchanges of love— the drive to experience ourselves and our relationships deeply and fully.....The whole bundle of our longings— from sex to solitude, and from making money to studying the Bible—is a part of our passion.  All longings are a sign of God's life and call to experience God deeply. (The River Within by Jeff Imbach)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                  

Closing Prayer: Teach me to seek you, for I cannot seek you unless you teach me, or find you unless you show yourself to me.  Let me seek you in my desire, and desire you in my seeking.  Let me find you by loving you, let me love you when I find you.

                                                                            ~St. Anselm

our identity in Christ, saturday

Saturday, September 20

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

         

Opening Prayer: O God, our Heavenly Father, who created us beautifully and wonderfully, may we always look to You for our value and worth, remembering that we are a unique expression of your infinite love, care, and creativity.  Help us, O Lord, to see ourselves as you see us in Christ—objects of your extravagant love and tender affection.  Amen.

                                

Scripture Reading for the Day: John 10:1-18

Reading for Reflection:

 

As long as we keep running around, anxiously trying to affirm ourselves or be affirmed by others, we remain blind to One who has loved us first, dwells in our heart, and has formed our truest self.  But we can also open our eyes.  We can see a new way forward. (Turn My Mourning Into Dancing by Henri J.M. Nouwen)

Identity does not grow out of action until it has taken root in belonging. (Chasing Fireflies by Charles Martin)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                 

Closing Prayer: To the one who provides for my needs and inspires my desires.  They say, “Discover your own truth.”  You say, “I am the truth.”  They say, “Find your own way in the world.”  You say, “I am the way.”  They say, “Follow your dreams.”  You say, “Follow me.”  They say, “Live your own life.”  You say, “I am the life.”  They say, “Find yourself.”  You say, “Come unto me.”  It is astonishing how much depends on which voice I choose to listen to. (A Heart Exposed by Steven James)

our identity in Christ, friday

Friday, September 19

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

Opening Prayer: O God, our Heavenly Father, who created us beautifully and wonderfully, may we always look to You for our value and worth, remembering that we are a unique expression of your infinite love, care, and creativity.  Help us, O Lord, to see ourselves as you see us in Christ—objects of your extravagant love and tender affection.  Amen.

                                      

Scripture Reading for the Day: John 15:1-11

Reading for Reflection:

 

     What kind of relationship do you think Jesus wants with you?  The first words that pop into my head are words like: obedient, reverent, and submissive—all of which are true.  But here, in the upper room, the night before he is going to die on the cross, Jesus gives us a much different picture.  It is a very intimate picture.  He gives us the image of a vine and its branches.  Almost as if to say, “I know you have certain ideas floating around in your heads about what I want this relationship between you and me to be, but let me tell you, you can never imagine how deep and close and intimate I really want it to be.  I want us to be closer than a vine and its branches. (Being with Jesus by Jim Branch)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                  

Closing Prayer: Eternal Father of my soul, let my first thought today be of Thee, let my first impulse be to worship Thee, let my first speech be thy name, let my first action be to kneel before Thee in prayer. Amen. (A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baillie)

our identity in Christ, thursday

Thursday, September 18

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

         

Opening Prayer: O God, our Heavenly Father, who created us beautifully and wonderfully, may we always look to You for our value and worth, remembering that we are a unique expression of your infinite love, care, and creativity.  Help us, O Lord, to see ourselves as you see us in Christ—objects of your extravagant love and tender affection.  Amen.

                               

Scripture Reading for the Day: Luke 15:11-32

Reading for Reflection:

 

     It’s true, Lord, that you are always thinking of us.  It’s true from the beginning of time, before we existed, even before the world existed, you have been dreaming of me, thinking of me, loving me.  Not assembly line, but unique, the first one so made, and the last, indispensable to humanity.  It’s true that you have an eternal plan for me alone, a wonderful plan that you have always cherished in your heart, as a father thinks over the smallest details in the life of his little one still unborn.  It’s true that, always bending over me, you guide me to bring your plan about, light on my path and strength for my soul.  It’s true that you are saddened when I stray or run away, but that you hasten to pick me up if I stumble or fall.

     Lord, you make beautiful lives, you, the divine Attentive One, the divine Patient One, the divine Present One, see that at no time I forget your presence.  I don’t ask you to bless what I have decided to do, but give me the grace to discover and to live what you have dreamed for me.

     Lord, living in your grace, let me share a little, through the attention I give to others, your loving care for us.  Let me, on my knees, adore in them the mystery of your created love.  Let me respect your idea of them without trying to impose my own.  May I allow them to follow the path that you have marked out for them without trying to take them along mine.  May I realize that they are indispensable to the world, and that I can’t do without the least of them.  May I never tire of looking at them and enriching myself with the treasures you have entrusted to them.  Help me to praise you in their journeyings, to find you in their lives.  Grant that not an instant of their existence go by, not a hair of their heads fall, by me, as by you, unheeded.  (Prayers of Life by Michael Quoist)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                   

Closing Prayer: O Thou who art the only-begotten Son, teach us, we beseech Thee, to pray, “Our Father.”  We thank Thee, Lord, for these Living Blessed Words which Thou hast given us.  We than Thee for the millions who in them have learnt to know and worship the Father, and for what they have been to us. (With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray)

our identity in Christ, wednesday

Wednesday, September 17

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

             

Opening Prayer: O God, our Heavenly Father, who created us beautifully and wonderfully, may we always look to You for our value and worth, remembering that we are a unique expression of your infinite love, care, and creativity.  Help us, O Lord, to see ourselves as you see us in Christ—objects of your extravagant love and tender affection.  Amen.

          

Scripture Reading for the Day: Revelation 19:1-10

Reading for Reflection:

O living flame of love

that tenderly wounds my soul

in its deepest center! Since

now you are not oppressive,

now consummate! if it be your will:

tear through the veil of this sweet encounter!

O sweet cautery,

O delightful wound!

O gentle hand! O delicate touch

that tastes of eternal life

and pays every debt!

In killing you changed death to life.

O lamps of fire!

in whose splendors

the deep caverns of feeling,

once obscure and blind,

now give forth, so rarely, so exquisitely,

both warmth and light to their Beloved.

How gently and lovingly

you wake in my heart,

where in secret you dwell alone;

and in your sweet breathing,

filled with good and glory,

how tenderly you swell my heart with love

                        ~St. John of the Cross

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                  

Closing Prayer: I feel your love as you hold me to your sacred heart, my beloved Jesus, my God, my Master, but I feel, too, the need I have of your tenderness, and your caress because of my infinite weakness.

                                                                           ~Charles de Foucauld

our identity in Christ, tuesday

Tuesday, September 16

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

Opening Prayer: O God, our Heavenly Father, who created us beautifully and wonderfully, may we always look to You for our value and worth, remembering that we are a unique expression of your infinite love, care, and creativity.  Help us, O Lord, to see ourselves as you see us in Christ—objects of your extravagant love and tender affection.  Amen.

          

Scripture Reading for the Day: Song of Songs 2:8-17

Reading for Reflection:

 

     He is the one who can tell us the reason for our existence, our place in the scheme of things, our real identity.  It is an identity we can’t discover for ourselves, that others can’t discover in us—the mystery of who we really are.  How we have chased around the world for answers to that riddle, looked in the eyes of others for some hint, some clue, hunted in the multiple worlds of pleasure and experience and self-fulfillment for some glimpse, some revelation, some wisdom, some authority to tell us our right name and our true destination.

     But there was, and is, only One who can tell us this: the Lord himself.  And he wants to tell us, he has made us to know our reason for being and to be led by it.  But it is a secret he will entrust to us only when we ask, and then in his own way and his own time.  He will whisper it to us not in the mad rush and fever of our striving and our fierce determination to become someone, but rather when we are content to rest in him, to put ourselves into his keeping, into his hands.  Most delightfully of all, it is a secret he will tell us slowly and sweetly, when we are willing to spend time with him: time with him who is beyond all time. (Clinging by Emilie Griffin)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                              

Closing Prayer:

O God

help me

to believe

the truth about myself

no matter

how beautiful it is!

(Seasons of the Heart by Macrina Wiederkehr)