a life of ministry, day 2

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

Opening Prayer:
Dear Jesus,

     Help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go.  Flood our souls with your Spirit and life.  Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly that our lives may only be a radiance of yours.  Shine through us and so be in us that every soul we come I contact with may feel your presence in our soul.  Let them look up and see no longer us but only You.  Stay with us and then we shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be light to others.  The light, O Jesus, will be all from you.  None of it will be ours.  It will be you shining on others through us.  Let us thus praise you in the way you love best by shining on those around us.  Amen.  (The Daily Prayer of Mother Teresa)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 145

Scripture for the Day: Colossians 4:2-6

Reading for Reflection: 

     The more I think about the meaning of living and acting in the name of Jesus, the more I realize that what I have to offer others is not my intelligence, skill, power, influence, or connections, but my own human brokenness through which the love of God can manifest itself.  The celebrant in Leonard Bernstein's Mass says: "Glass shines brighter when it's broken...I never noticed that."  This, to me, is what ministry and mission are all about.  Ministry is entering with our human brokenness into communion with others and speaking a word of hope.  This hope is not based on any power to solve the problems of those with whom we live, but on the love of God, which becomes visible when we let go of our fears of being out of control and enter into His presence in shared confession of weakness.

     The great paradox of ministry, therefore, is that we minister above all with our weakness, a weakness that invites us to receive from those to whom we go.  The more in touch we are with our own need for healing and salvation, the more open we are to receive in gratitude what others have to offer us. (Gracias! by Henri J.M. Nouwen)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Be Thou My Vision

 

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;

Naught be all else to me, save that thou art;

Thou my best thought, by day or by night,

Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

 

Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true Word;

I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord;

Thou my great Father, I thy true son,

Thou in me dwelling and I in thee one.

 

Riches I heed not, nor all empty praise;

Thou mine inheritance, now and always;

Thou and thou only, first in my heart,

High King of heaven, my treasure thou art.

 

High King of heaven, my victory won,

May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s Sun!

Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,

Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

 

 

Closing Prayer:

Almighty God, cause your good gifts to flow in and through my life and ministry this day and always.  Amen. (A Guide to Prayer by Rueben P. Job and Norman Shawchuck)