hard, thursday

Thursday, June 11

Opening Prayer: O ever present God, strengthen my will, that I may become increasingly watchful, alert to all that would impede my knowing, ever, how near you are.  O most near God, teach me to pray, enable me to lean into your presence, and to keep my mind and heart attached to you.  For you are the source of life and health, the hope of all who pass through affliction.  Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.  Amen. ~Scott Cairns (from God for Us)

Scripture: Romans 5:3-5

Journal: What is suffering producing in you these days?  What have the greatest times of pain produced in you throughout your lifetime?

Reflection:

 

     Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don't know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Prayers

Closing Prayer:

Extinguish my eyes, I'll go on seeing you.
Seal my ears, I'll go on hearing you.
And without feet I can make my way to you,
without a mouth I can swear your name.

Break off my arms, I'll take hold of you
with my heart as with a hand.
Stop my heart, and my brain will start to beat.
And if you consume my brain with fire,
I'll feel you burn in every drop of my blood.

~Rainer Maria Rilke