Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Today’s text

Luke 18:1-8

Then Jesus told them a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart. “There was a judge in a certain town,” he said, “who had neither fear of God nor respect for anyone. In the same town there was also a widow who kept on coming to him and saying, ‘I want justice from you against my enemy!’ For a long time he refused, but at last he said to himself, ‘Even though I have neither fear of God nor respect for any human person, I must give this widow her just rights since she keeps pestering me, or she will come and slap me in the face.’” And the Lord said, “You notice what the unjust judge has to say? Now, will not God see justice done to his elect if they keep calling to him day and night even though he still delays to help them? I promise you, he will see justice done to them, and done speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on earth?”

Prayer

It is for your sadness that I love you today, Dearest Friend. The image of your face is cut into the rock face of my mind, and I read the sorrow engraved there as you ask: will I find faith on earth? Grief drips from every word. Each drop glistens with the fullness of the divine heart, longing for blessed communion with all who have yet to arrive home.

If there is no faith to greet you, Jesus, human souls miss the mercy of divine embrace and indwelling. And your heart does not find completion in that holy communion for which the Loving Mystery has hungered through all eternity, soul to soul, divinity to humanity, Creator to all creation, a blessed circle of love in which your fullness fills all that we are and all you have made.

Until then your divine heart mourns and longs for the lost, including the lost regions of this troubled soul, looking for the faith, the desire that welcomes your nearness so you may bring the healing of love immeasurable.

I see your sadness, Jesus, and I taste the sweet sorrow of eternity. I hear your voice, and I know without any doubt what lies at the heart of the cosmos: the sorrow of a wounded heart, yearning for the beloved, for one such as me.

I love you for your sadness, Jesus. It speaks to depths of heart nothing else can reach and heals me as little else can. May the faith you awaken in me assuage your beloved sorrow.

Pr. David L. Miller