Monday, December 25, 2006

Today’s reading

Philippians 4:21-23

“Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The friends who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you, especially those of the emperor's household. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit” (Phil. 4:21-23).

Prayer

O Great Mystery, we shall greet one another with warmest embrace and tears for you have greeted us in the depth of our flesh. In waiting rooms and by baggage carrels, by phones and at the front window, we shall await our heart’s desire until they appear. Then again, we shall know the joyous rush of greeting and holding those you have given us to love.

And you shall be in every embrace and all tears. For you have greeted this tired Earth with the freshness of divine embrace, holding all its contradictions in the tender flesh of your appearance.

In the flesh of my Lord Jesus, You take into intimate embrace all that is and all we are in the warmth of a divine greeting to which no one and nothing is foreign. The wonder of your fleshly embrace of our flesh and fearful finitude opens our souls. Our hearts fly open so that all that is in us flows out to you and into you. All we are, our confusion and sin, our contradictions and failures, our ideals and hopes, all of it finds warmest greeting every morning, and most certainly on Christmas morning.

So we shall greet our beloved with warmest affection and know that our arms too, having been taken into the wonder of your Incarnation, are your divine embrace warming the coldness of earth. And we shall know that the arms that receive us are your own. Amen.

(Praying the Mystery will be taking a break, having now prayed through Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. It will appear again in late January and will focus on the small New Testament letter of 1 John. My warmest greetings to you who have read and prayed with me. Thank you for your notes of appreciation and encouragement. I treasure you partnership in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.)