joy, sunday

Sunday, February 8

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

          

Opening Prayer: Our Father, giver of all gifts, You love and choose us, your least ones.  Increase our humility so that we might rejoice in the generosity of Your love and be mindful that the good in us comes from You, Creator, Redeemer, and Giver of Life, now and forever.  Amen.

                                                                          ~Macrina Wiederkehr

                                 

Scripture Reading for the Day: John 15:9-17

Reading for Reflection:

 

Joy is essential to spiritual life.  Whatever we may think or say about God, when we are not joyful, our thoughts and words cannot bear fruit.  Jesus reveals to us God's love so that His joy may become ours and that our joy might become complete.  Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing—sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death—can take that love away. (Here and Now by Henri J.M. Nouwen)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself    

                      

Closing Prayer: O God, quicken to life every power within me, that I may lay hold of eternal things.  Open my eyes that I may see; give me acute spiritual perception; enable me to taste Thee and know that Thou art good.  Make heaven more real to me than any earthly thing has ever been. (The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer)