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: Philippians 4:4-9
Reading for Reflection:
One aspect of choosing
life is choosing joy. Joy is
life-giving, but sadness brings death. A
sad heart is a heart in which something is dying. A joyful heart is a heart in which something
new is being born.
I think that joy is much more than a
mood. A mood invades us. We do not choose a mood. We often find ourselves in a happy or
depressed mood without knowing where it comes from. The spiritual life is a life beyond
moods. It is a life in which we choose
joy and do not allow ourselves to become victims of passing feelings of joy or
depression.
I am convinced that we can choose
joy. Every moment we can decide to
respond to an event or a person with joy instead of sadness. When we truly believe that God is life and
only life, then nothing need have the power to draw us into the sad realm of
death. To choose joy does not mean to
choose happy feelings or an artificial atmosphere of hilarity. But it does mean the determination to let
whatever takes place bring us one step closer to the God of life. (The
Road to Daybreak by Henri J. M. Nouwen)
Reflection and Listening: silent and written
Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself
Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself
Closing Prayer: Father, teach me to rejoice at this
moment. Teach me that it does me no good
to be so busy planning to earn bread for next week that I cannot enjoy what I
am eating now. Do not let tomorrow rob
me of the pleasure of today. Amen. (Disciplines
for the Inner Life by Michael Benson and Bob Benson)
No comments:
Post a Comment