compassion, day 1

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

Opening Prayer:
Loving Father, teach me to love and care for those that need you today.  Those who are passed over and do not feel love unless I love them for you.  May Christ's love for others be felt through me today.  In your name and by your power I pray these things.  Amen. (Disciplines for the Inner Life by Michael Benson and Bob Benson)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 103

Scripture for the Day: Luke 6:27-36

Reading for Reflection: 

This is the Season of Love.  What happens in us is the miracle of discovering our potential to care for others.  And so, we become foot-washing, water-walking, healing, beatitude people.  Our lives begin to bless.  We are compelled to respond to the Word of God, to speak in the Holy Name, to live out our ministry of love.

     We are fragile vessels whose love often gets tired.  We need to be converted over and over again.  And so, the healing act of our growth continues.  We empty ourselves that we may be filled.  We uproot that we may proclaim.  We take off our masks.  We call forth gifts.  We bless.  We wash feet.  And somewhere between the shedding of our masks and the foot-washing, we discover that it is not so much what we do that touches lives as who we are becoming.  And so we rest in the truth that what is most important is not how much of ourselves we leave with others, but how much we enable others to be themselves. (Seasons of the Heart by Macrina Wiederkehr)

 

 

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Our God Reigns

 

So much holy So divine
Yours and so much mine
By the morning Light is Thine
Perfect by design
Mighty to men Light of the earth
Sending the son To echo his worth
Breaker of sin, Winner of souls
Every creature will know

Our God Reigns Over the Heavens
Over the earth Our God reigns
Praise His name All still standing
All that was, all that remains
Our God reigns

In devotion To His bride
Standing by her side
Mighty to men Light of the earth
Sending the son To echo his worth
Breaker of sin, Winner of souls
Every creature will know

 

Closing Prayer:
Our Father, here I am, at your disposal, your child, to use me to continue your loving the world, by giving Jesus to me and through me, to each other and the world.  Let us pray for each other as we allow Jesus to love in us and through us with the love with which His Father loves him. (Seeking the Heart of God by Mother Teresa)

together, day 7

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

Opening Prayer:
All praise and thanks to thee, most merciful God, for adopting us as thine own children, for incorporating us into thy holy Church, and for making us worthy to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.  Grant us, we pray, all things necessary for our common life, and bring us all to be of one heart and mind within thy holy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 133

Scripture for the Day: John 13:31-35

Reading for Reflection: 

Accept with gratitude the companions God gives you to go with you on the way.  Your task is to serve and upbuild one another as members of one body.

     To the extent that you are filled with His Spirit and ready to die that others may live, to that extent will you grow in unity and reflect the face of Christ more and more clearly.

     And to the extent that you are ready to die together that others may live will your community bear fruit for the coming of the Kingdom.

     Then put aside ambition, and no longer concentrate on yourself.  Be constantly converted to your companions and place yourself in God’s hands.

     Give instead of demanding, trust others instead of compelling their trust, serve instead of being served, bless instead of cursing. (Rule for a New Brother by H. van der Looy)

 

Indeed, the Christian community is an extension of the very life of God the three-in-one. (The Transforming Power of Prayer by James Houston)

 

 

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Blessed Be the Tie That Binds

 

Blessed be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like that to that above.

 

Before our Father's throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one
Our comforts and our cares.

 

We share each other's woes,
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.

 

When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.

 

This glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way;
While each in expectation lives,
And longs to see the day.

 

From sorrow, toil and pain,
And sin, we shall be free,
And perfect love and friendship reign
Through all eternity.

Closing Prayer:
O God, fountain of love, pour love into our souls, that we may love those whom you love with the love you give us, and think and speak about them tenderly, meekly, lovingly; and so loving our brothers and sisters for your sake, may we grow in your love, and live in your love, that by living in your love we may live in you; for Jesus Christ’s sake. (E. B. Pusey, quoted from Classic Christian Prayers by Owen Collins)

together, day 6

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

Opening Prayer:
All praise and thanks to thee, most merciful God, for adopting us as thine own children, for incorporating us into thy holy Church, and for making us worthy to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.  Grant us, we pray, all things necessary for our common life, and bring us all to be of one heart and mind within thy holy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 133

Scripture for the Day: Luke 10:25-37

Reading for Reflection: 
Without the discipline of community, solitude degenerates into self-absorption and isolation; without the discipline of solitude, community degenerates into codependency and enmeshment….The community of faith is where we learn the language of love. (Journeymen by Kent Ira Groff)

Never resign yourself to the scandal of the separation of Christians, all who so readily confess love for their neighbor, and yet remain divided.  Be consumed with zeal for the unity of the Body of Christ.

                                                                   ~The Rule of Taize


It is best to live one’s life with the support of a community which shares right values.  When someone leaves such a community temporarily, let that person guard himself or herself.  A human being is especially vulnerable when not supported by others. (Always We Begin Again by John McQuiston II)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Blessed Be the Tie That Binds

 

Blessed be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like that to that above.

 

Before our Father's throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one
Our comforts and our cares.

 

We share each other's woes,
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.

 

When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.

 

This glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way;
While each in expectation lives,
And longs to see the day.

 

From sorrow, toil and pain,
And sin, we shall be free,
And perfect love and friendship reign
Through all eternity.

Closing Prayer:
O God, fountain of love, pour love into our souls, that we may love those whom you love with the love you give us, and think and speak about them tenderly, meekly, lovingly; and so loving our brothers and sisters for your sake, may we grow in your love, and live in your love, that by living in your love we may live in you; for Jesus Christ’s sake. (E. B. Pusey, quoted from Classic Christian Prayers by Owen Collins)

together, day 5

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

Opening Prayer:
All praise and thanks to thee, most merciful God, for adopting us as thine own children, for incorporating us into thy holy Church, and for making us worthy to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.  Grant us, we pray, all things necessary for our common life, and bring us all to be of one heart and mind within thy holy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 133

Scripture for the Day: John 17:20-26

Reading for Reflection: 

Ultimately the body of Christ, so central in incarnational theology, is not the physical body of Jesus but the corporate body of those who gather around the Spirit, wherever it is found...Jesus exercises the only kind of leadership that can evoke authentic community—a leadership that risks failure (and even crucifixion) by making space for other people to act.  When a leader takes up all the space and preempts all the action, he or she may make something happen, but that something is not community.  Nor is it abundance, because the leader is only one person and one person's resources invariably run out.  But when a leader is willing to trust the abundance that people have and can generate together, willing to take the risk of inviting people to share from that abundance, then and only then may true community emerge. (Let Your Life Speak by Parker J. Palmer)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Blessed Be the Tie That Binds

 

Blessed be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like that to that above.

 

Before our Father's throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one
Our comforts and our cares.

 

We share each other's woes,
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.

 

When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.

 

This glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way;
While each in expectation lives,
And longs to see the day.

 

From sorrow, toil and pain,
And sin, we shall be free,
And perfect love and friendship reign
Through all eternity.

Closing Prayer:
O God, fountain of love, pour love into our souls, that we may love those whom you love with the love you give us, and think and speak about them tenderly, meekly, lovingly; and so loving our brothers and sisters for your sake, may we grow in your love, and live in your love, that by living in your love we may live in you; for Jesus Christ’s sake. (E. B. Pusey, quoted from Classic Christian Prayers by Owen Collins)

together, day 4

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

Opening Prayer:
All praise and thanks to thee, most merciful God, for adopting us as thine own children, for incorporating us into thy holy Church, and for making us worthy to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.  Grant us, we pray, all things necessary for our common life, and bring us all to be of one heart and mind within thy holy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 133

Scripture for the Day: Colossians 3:12-17

Reading for Reflection: 

Community, then, cannot grow out of loneliness, but comes when the person who begins to recognize his or her belovedness greets the belovedness of the other.  The God alive in me greets the God resident in you.  When people can cease having to be for us everything, we can accept the fact they may still have a gift for us.  They are partial reflections of the great love of God, but reflections nevertheless.  We see that gift precisely and only once we give up requiring that person to be everything, to be God.  We see him or her as a limited expression of an unlimited love. (Turn My Mourning Into Dancing by Henri J. M. Nouwen)

 

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Blessed Be the Tie That Binds

 

Blessed be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like that to that above.

 

Before our Father's throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one
Our comforts and our cares.

 

We share each other's woes,
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.

 

When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.

 

This glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way;
While each in expectation lives,
And longs to see the day.

 

From sorrow, toil and pain,
And sin, we shall be free,
And perfect love and friendship reign
Through all eternity.

Closing Prayer:
O God, fountain of love, pour love into our souls, that we may love those whom you love with the love you give us, and think and speak about them tenderly, meekly, lovingly; and so loving our brothers and sisters for your sake, may we grow in your love, and live in your love, that by living in your love we may live in you; for Jesus Christ’s sake. (E. B. Pusey, quoted from Classic Christian Prayers by Owen Collins)

together, day 3

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

Opening Prayer:
All praise and thanks to thee, most merciful God, for adopting us as thine own children, for incorporating us into thy holy Church, and for making us worthy to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.  Grant us, we pray, all things necessary for our common life, and bring us all to be of one heart and mind within thy holy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 133

Scripture for the Day: Romans 12:1-21

Reading for Reflection: 

Two people, three people, ten people may be in living touch with one another through Him who underlies their separate lives.  This is an astounding experience, which I can only describe but cannot explain in the language of science.  But in vivid experience of divine Fellowship it is there.  We know that these souls are with us, lifting their lives and ours continuously to God and opening themselves, with us, in steady and humble obedience to Him.  It is as if the boundaries of our self were enlarged, as if we were within them and as if they were within us.  Their strength, given to them by God, becomes our strength, and our joy, given to us by God, becomes their joy.  In confidence and love we live together in Him. (A Testament of Devotion by Thomas Kelly)

 

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Blessed Be the Tie That Binds

 

Blessed be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like that to that above.

 

Before our Father's throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one
Our comforts and our cares.

 

We share each other's woes,
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.

 

When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.

 

This glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way;
While each in expectation lives,
And longs to see the day.

 

From sorrow, toil and pain,
And sin, we shall be free,
And perfect love and friendship reign
Through all eternity.

Closing Prayer:
O God, fountain of love, pour love into our souls, that we may love those whom you love with the love you give us, and think and speak about them tenderly, meekly, lovingly; and so loving our brothers and sisters for your sake, may we grow in your love, and live in your love, that by living in your love we may live in you; for Jesus Christ’s sake. (E. B. Pusey, quoted from Classic Christian Prayers by Owen Collins)

together, day 2

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

Opening Prayer:
All praise and thanks to thee, most merciful God, for adopting us as thine own children, for incorporating us into thy holy Church, and for making us worthy to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.  Grant us, we pray, all things necessary for our common life, and bring us all to be of one heart and mind within thy holy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 133

Scripture for the Day: Hebrews 10:19-25

Reading for Reflection: 

     Let him who cannot be alone beware of community.  Alone you stood before God when he called you; alone you had to answer the call; alone you had to struggle and pray. 

     But the reverse is also true: Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.  Into the community you were called; in the community of the called you bear your cross, you struggle, you pray.

     If you scorn the fellowship of the brethren, you reject the call of Jesus Christ, and thus your solitude can only be hurtful to you.

     Only in the fellowship do we learn to be rightly alone and only in aloneness do we learn to live rightly in the fellowship. (Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

 

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Blessed Be the Tie That Binds

 

Blessed be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like that to that above.

 

Before our Father's throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one
Our comforts and our cares.

 

We share each other's woes,
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.

 

When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.

 

This glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way;
While each in expectation lives,
And longs to see the day.

 

From sorrow, toil and pain,
And sin, we shall be free,
And perfect love and friendship reign
Through all eternity.

Closing Prayer:
O God, fountain of love, pour love into our souls, that we may love those whom you love with the love you give us, and think and speak about them tenderly, meekly, lovingly; and so loving our brothers and sisters for your sake, may we grow in your love, and live in your love, that by living in your love we may live in you; for Jesus Christ’s sake. (E. B. Pusey, quoted from Classic Christian Prayers by Owen Collins)