Monday, December 4, 2006

Today’s reading

Philippians 3:17-21

“Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have seen in us. For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ ... . But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation so that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that enables him to make all things subject to himself” (Phil. 3:17-18a, 20-21).

Prayer

You are purest of heart, Holy One, for truly you will only one thing: the fulfillment of your love in all that is and in me. Thank you. I wake chanting those two words. Thank you for making me one again. You reveal your desire in Benjamin, my one-year-old grandson. He wakes each day, brushes sleep from his eyes, smiles and laughs at the wonder of being alive. He wakes up laughing, joy dancing in his fiery black eyes.

I wake, and consciousness comes accompanied by two words, “thank you.” But for what and from where? For the crazy givenness of my own life? For the graces of relationships that daily surround me with the beauty of your holy future? Yes, surely. But mostly for the startling assurance bubbling from the deep well of my soul, springing from that invisible point where your Spirit and mine meet. A living spring flows from that convergence, an undeniable awareness that I belong to you, to the holy future from which you come to make all things new.

My morning gratitude comes unbidden by conscious willing. It is the natural effluence of a soul that knows itself already being subject to You, whose joy is to subject all the whirling elements of the universe to your loving desire. You subject my soul to your own divine heart, transforming me with all creation into the body of your glory. Your glory, my Lord Christ, is to reveal the loving joy of the One who is Love itself.

We await your final advent when you will subject all things to your desire. Then, all that is and the fullness of our souls will glisten with your glory, even as the eyes of my Benjamin. Until then may our lives grow ever more transparent to the glory and joy of your unquenchable loving. Amen.