Today’s reading
Philippians 2:1-7
“If there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy ... . Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:1, 4-5).
Prayer
And this you would give me, your own mind? The thought of it alone brings tears. Shall I have the mind that knows the Eternal Wonder and speaks to the Unspeakable One as to dearest old friend? Shall I see the Beauty who kisses golden autumn days with crisp clarity and sparkling wonder? Shall I ache for the day when the eternal blessing for which all is intended absorbs every needy soul and mends every broken thing? Shall I hunger to be wholly given to that holy dream as are you in blessed completeness?
Dearest One, is this what it is to have your mind in my mortal flesh? Such is my hunger for you. I am too much with me. I long to live in you, knowing the substance of your being within my own, blessed Christ. I want to be filled with your greedy love that desires nothing less than all of me, a liquid compassion that seeks the vacant emptiness in the dark cylinder of my soul, pushing out all that is not itself. Then, only then shall your mind appear in its fullness in me. And I shall share in the beauty of the Eternal Wonder and in the insatiable longing for the healing of every wound and every death Earth has ever known.
But even now you keep your promise, and your mind appears in your people, and me. You fill us with a liquid grace that overflows our hearts, dissolving all shame and guilt, all anxiety and fear, so that with fresh eyes we see all that is. Then it is that there is no need to tell us to have your mind, to exhort us to do nothing from selfishness and conceit. For we are filled with you, in whose presence selfishness and conceit evaporate like so much morning mist. It is then that we know what it is to have your mind.
How does this happen, blessed Font of life? Do we ‘let’ your mind dwell us, or do you simply fill us with the impenetrable mystery and indivisible mercy whom you are? However it happens, may it happen to us today that we may see as you see and love as you love, for the sake of the world you cherish more than we can know. Amen.
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Friday, October 06, 2006
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Wednesday, October 4, 2006
Today's reading
Philippians 2:1-8
“If there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being of full accord and one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regards others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others” (Phil 2:1-4).
Prayer
If ... ? If there is any ... ? Shall I laugh now? If so, my laughter praises you in the darkness of morning. For you have turned my heart to an indestructible joy despite the melancholy that has always haunted me. Mine is the laughter of one who has known so little of you but just enough to know the consolation of an infinite compassion. My consolation is to live enveloped in an all encompassing love that embraces me even as the air gentles my flesh as I sit in this gray chair.
You, O Risen Love, humbly conform to the waywardness of my life and choices wrapping me in a cloak of divine mercy in every place and circumstance so that I cannot escape. Where can I go to flee you? Alive beyond the power of death, you cannot be contained by time and space but seek us in every time and space.
Is that any consolation, any compassion, any encouragement, or is it the eternal secret of an abundance only you can give?
May my smile praise you this day as no words can. It is the smile of one who knows the secret that frees from selfishness and conceit that even I may bear the love you are. Let it be so today. Amen.
Philippians 2:1-8
“If there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being of full accord and one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regards others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others” (Phil 2:1-4).
Prayer
If ... ? If there is any ... ? Shall I laugh now? If so, my laughter praises you in the darkness of morning. For you have turned my heart to an indestructible joy despite the melancholy that has always haunted me. Mine is the laughter of one who has known so little of you but just enough to know the consolation of an infinite compassion. My consolation is to live enveloped in an all encompassing love that embraces me even as the air gentles my flesh as I sit in this gray chair.
You, O Risen Love, humbly conform to the waywardness of my life and choices wrapping me in a cloak of divine mercy in every place and circumstance so that I cannot escape. Where can I go to flee you? Alive beyond the power of death, you cannot be contained by time and space but seek us in every time and space.
Is that any consolation, any compassion, any encouragement, or is it the eternal secret of an abundance only you can give?
May my smile praise you this day as no words can. It is the smile of one who knows the secret that frees from selfishness and conceit that even I may bear the love you are. Let it be so today. Amen.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Tuesday, October 3, 2006
Today’s reading
Philippians 2:1-4
“If there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being of full accord and one mind” (Phil. 2:1-2).
Prayer
Tell me Jesus, what was it like for you when you broke the loaves and fed the crowds? What was it like when you reached out your right hand and healed the leper kneeling in the dust before you? What went through you when you blessed the broken and saw divine life and hope fill the expectant hearts and hungry eyes of those who came to you? Was your joy complete? Did it fill you so that you could not imagine doing or desiring anything else?
I have known that ecstatic surge of joy and truth. Surely you must have too. But I can’t imagine what it was for you who, simultaneously, dwelt in intimacy, total union, with the unspeakable longing of the Blessed Mystery and the incessant hungers of human hearts. This was the place of your joy.
Can our joy ever be so complete? Can we live in exquisite unity with you and each other so that we are of one heart, one mind, given not to our Napoleonic selves but to immeasurable compassion of God, which is to say, to you?
Everything I touch seems infected with me, stained with self-seeking, calculated to assuage my anxieties. I grow sick of it. I hunger to lose myself in you, in the self-giving you are, in the reign of peace you bring, consumed by the mind you would make in me and in all.
Surely, I can neither know nor want the pain this might bring, but that Spirit you give cannot stop wanting you, drawing me to lose heart and mind, body and all their powers, in the love you are. That alone is joy complete, final freedom and fulfillment. It is to this that your Spirit draws me. Don’t stop, Jesus. I resist. But don’t stop. Amen.
Philippians 2:1-4
“If there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being of full accord and one mind” (Phil. 2:1-2).
Prayer
Tell me Jesus, what was it like for you when you broke the loaves and fed the crowds? What was it like when you reached out your right hand and healed the leper kneeling in the dust before you? What went through you when you blessed the broken and saw divine life and hope fill the expectant hearts and hungry eyes of those who came to you? Was your joy complete? Did it fill you so that you could not imagine doing or desiring anything else?
I have known that ecstatic surge of joy and truth. Surely you must have too. But I can’t imagine what it was for you who, simultaneously, dwelt in intimacy, total union, with the unspeakable longing of the Blessed Mystery and the incessant hungers of human hearts. This was the place of your joy.
Can our joy ever be so complete? Can we live in exquisite unity with you and each other so that we are of one heart, one mind, given not to our Napoleonic selves but to immeasurable compassion of God, which is to say, to you?
Everything I touch seems infected with me, stained with self-seeking, calculated to assuage my anxieties. I grow sick of it. I hunger to lose myself in you, in the self-giving you are, in the reign of peace you bring, consumed by the mind you would make in me and in all.
Surely, I can neither know nor want the pain this might bring, but that Spirit you give cannot stop wanting you, drawing me to lose heart and mind, body and all their powers, in the love you are. That alone is joy complete, final freedom and fulfillment. It is to this that your Spirit draws me. Don’t stop, Jesus. I resist. But don’t stop. Amen.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Monday, October 02, 2006
Today’s reading
Philippians 2:1:-4
“If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love … . Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves” (Phil. 2:1-3).
Prayer
Your blessed face, dearest Jesus, is holy invitation to the only life worthy of the word. “Do nothing from selfish ambition,” Paul writes, but it is your voice that I hear: “Come, enter my life. Find in me the life you were created to live.” There is no law here, only gracious invitation to be part of you, sharing your life, your love, your labor, your belovedness, your joy and sorrow.
Truest joy and sorrow are known not in selfish ambition and conceit but in being as given as you, surrendered to the eternal holy purpose of the Loving Mystery to whom you called in the night watches from the depth of your being. You desired nothing but the reign of God’s own peace. Wholly given to that divine desire, you are the very face of eternity, the blessed visage of the Holy One. I am honored to praise you with my first words of the day, giving first place to you who are worthy of all praise.
And you are pleased to dwell in me, laboring to shape your heart and mind deep in my stubborn flesh. For you do not ask what you do not first give. You invite what you work in us, this humility and grace, this gentleness and simplicity of heart in which, as you, we may know the joy of and love of being given to One who is Love. It is this that you desire for me. It is this that you desire in me. May my tears bless you forever. Amen.
Philippians 2:1:-4
“If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love … . Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves” (Phil. 2:1-3).
Prayer
Your blessed face, dearest Jesus, is holy invitation to the only life worthy of the word. “Do nothing from selfish ambition,” Paul writes, but it is your voice that I hear: “Come, enter my life. Find in me the life you were created to live.” There is no law here, only gracious invitation to be part of you, sharing your life, your love, your labor, your belovedness, your joy and sorrow.
Truest joy and sorrow are known not in selfish ambition and conceit but in being as given as you, surrendered to the eternal holy purpose of the Loving Mystery to whom you called in the night watches from the depth of your being. You desired nothing but the reign of God’s own peace. Wholly given to that divine desire, you are the very face of eternity, the blessed visage of the Holy One. I am honored to praise you with my first words of the day, giving first place to you who are worthy of all praise.
And you are pleased to dwell in me, laboring to shape your heart and mind deep in my stubborn flesh. For you do not ask what you do not first give. You invite what you work in us, this humility and grace, this gentleness and simplicity of heart in which, as you, we may know the joy of and love of being given to One who is Love. It is this that you desire for me. It is this that you desire in me. May my tears bless you forever. Amen.
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