Today’s text
1 John 5:3b-5
“And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God."
Prayer
What is of the world but that which binds my heart and prevents me from loving? And why should I remain so attached to that which enslaves and dehumanizes? I don’t know why, but I do.
Mysteries, these are, but deeper still is the eternal which also is born in us, a newness that battles the ravages of ego and restless anger, coaxing and cajoling us to a humanity that is real and true, bearing the marks of our brother Jesus.
We are born of you Dearest One, brought forth in love, by love and for loving. So help us hear, trust and love that other inner voice which hungers for a humanity and mercy beyond our capacities to create.
Our hunger signals not your absence but your present Spirit healing and humanizing, revealing that we bear a treasure we shall never exhaust, neither in this life nor in that into which we shall one day disappear.
We are born of you, bearing a wonder and a grace, a mercy and a life for which we shall yearn until the most unruly and enslaved parts of our being are altogether new, born of God, fresh and free as a spring morning.
May we taste that newness this day and forever. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Reflections on Scripture and the experience of God's presence in our common lives by David L. Miller, an Ignatian retreat director for the Christos Center for spiritual Formation, is the author of "Friendship with Jesus: A Way to Pray the Gospel of Mark" and hundreds of articles and devotions in a variety of publications. Contact him at prdmiller@gmail.com.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Tuesday May 15, 2007
Today’s text
1 John 4:17-18
“We love because God first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers and sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not see. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters.”
Prayer
I wake in the morning and begin the day with you for you make the morning. And when the sun lies low on its evening horizon, you are there. May my heart praise you then, too. And when the Earth’s good star fades and grows cold, when the sun’s golden rays wane and blink out, when it collapses and is a dark hole in infinite space, long after we and the stars of night have exhausted our substance and Earth’s fair beauty, too, is forgotten, even then you will be there, and you will be love. And you will not forget.
You are first, the love from which all things come and to which they go. You are the love who creates in joy and saves in holy passion. Your love is first in all things, setting life in motion and calling us to yourself in our brother Jesus who wore our mortal flesh and the eternity of your love.
Apart from you nothing is, for you are first, and you are love, a love that is the last word, too, the final reality into which all that is--and I--shall disappear, becoming one, at last, with the love that is the first movement in all life and creation.
Against your eternity it is hard to see that I and anything I do should matter. But it does, you say. The command you write on my being is be the love I receive, the love in which you fashioned and made me, the love that meets me in the morning and will awaken me to eternity, the love you are.
You are first; you are love. Let us know and be that love in our little moment of time. We will pass away, but the love we live will endure for eternity. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
1 John 4:17-18
“We love because God first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers and sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not see. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters.”
Prayer
I wake in the morning and begin the day with you for you make the morning. And when the sun lies low on its evening horizon, you are there. May my heart praise you then, too. And when the Earth’s good star fades and grows cold, when the sun’s golden rays wane and blink out, when it collapses and is a dark hole in infinite space, long after we and the stars of night have exhausted our substance and Earth’s fair beauty, too, is forgotten, even then you will be there, and you will be love. And you will not forget.
You are first, the love from which all things come and to which they go. You are the love who creates in joy and saves in holy passion. Your love is first in all things, setting life in motion and calling us to yourself in our brother Jesus who wore our mortal flesh and the eternity of your love.
Apart from you nothing is, for you are first, and you are love, a love that is the last word, too, the final reality into which all that is--and I--shall disappear, becoming one, at last, with the love that is the first movement in all life and creation.
Against your eternity it is hard to see that I and anything I do should matter. But it does, you say. The command you write on my being is be the love I receive, the love in which you fashioned and made me, the love that meets me in the morning and will awaken me to eternity, the love you are.
You are first; you are love. Let us know and be that love in our little moment of time. We will pass away, but the love we live will endure for eternity. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, May 14, 2007
Monday May 14, 2007
Today’s text
1 John 4:17-18
“We love because God first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers and sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not see. The commandment we have from him is this those who love God must love their brothers and sisters.”
Prayer
I do not want my life to be a lie, Holy One. For you are truth, and more than anything I want to dwell in you, my heart living in face-to-face unity with your divine heart so that there will be nothing false in me.
There is, of course, for I am not pure of heart; my eye is not singular, given to you alone. Unjust anger, snap judgments and rejection of others come far too easily to my mind and well before I truly listen and know the truth of others lives and hearts. I value others for what they can give me, not as you love them, a flowing fountain of compassion whose reach knows no limit.
This is how you love each of us and me. You forgive my divided heart and the hard words that live in me, spoken or not, awakening again the desire of heart that never left, that was always there: to love as you love, to embrace all reality and every face with compassion that flows also in me when I know myself in you.
This is your will, the holy work you never abandon. Thank you.
Show me what is to love and not just in word or thought. Teach me how to love each face I meet. Give me a seeking heart that seeks this alone from you its only source. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
1 John 4:17-18
“We love because God first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers and sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not see. The commandment we have from him is this those who love God must love their brothers and sisters.”
Prayer
I do not want my life to be a lie, Holy One. For you are truth, and more than anything I want to dwell in you, my heart living in face-to-face unity with your divine heart so that there will be nothing false in me.
There is, of course, for I am not pure of heart; my eye is not singular, given to you alone. Unjust anger, snap judgments and rejection of others come far too easily to my mind and well before I truly listen and know the truth of others lives and hearts. I value others for what they can give me, not as you love them, a flowing fountain of compassion whose reach knows no limit.
This is how you love each of us and me. You forgive my divided heart and the hard words that live in me, spoken or not, awakening again the desire of heart that never left, that was always there: to love as you love, to embrace all reality and every face with compassion that flows also in me when I know myself in you.
This is your will, the holy work you never abandon. Thank you.
Show me what is to love and not just in word or thought. Teach me how to love each face I meet. Give me a seeking heart that seeks this alone from you its only source. Amen.
Pr. David L. Miller
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