Today’s text
Luke 13:14-16
But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured her on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath day untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from bondage on the Sabbath day?”
Prayer
I want this day to be holy, blessed Friend. I want every day to be holy not just the sabbath. So come near to us, for there is no holiness without you.
Time and space, moments and years are made holy when they glisten with your presence. They are holy when, in blessed awareness, I stand in the presence of that which my mind cannot gather in, when I bask in this river of love and joy that overwhelms my senses and overflows the heart when I know your presence.
I have tasted your holiness, Jesus. And I know: Holiness is not marked by good order. It startles and surprises. It wears unsuspected and unsuspecting faces. It does not prefer convention. Nor does it appear on my time table or when we have carefully observed the protocols with which we try to ensure decency and respect. It has nothing to do with rules and regulations or with the moral and intellectual accomplishments of which we are unduly proud.
Holiness is revealed solely in who you are and the healing of life that blossoms in the warmth of your nearness.
You are holy, my Jesus, you alone, in the blessed Trinity of whose beauty you are the face. Days and moments, time and space share in your holiness as they are filled with your healing love. Divine love and the joyous freedom it unleashes are the marks of true sanctity; anything else is an imposter to be cast out.
So let your nearness wash over us, Jesus, that we may bask in that holiness of life and love that heals our hearts and the heart of a wounded world.
Pr. David L. Miller
http://prayingthemystery.blogspot.com/
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Friday, August 31, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 13:11-13
And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.
Prayer
It is time again, Jesus, time to buckle our belts and leave summer’s languor, entering again the rigors of autumnal disciplines. We are seldom if ever ready for the change that sweeps too quickly over us, a wave of reality bearing us back to the duties from which we’d (at least) tried to distance ourselves for rest and Sabbath. Occasionally, we were successful, and we promise ourselves that we will do better next year. Right.
Now, we gather ourselves and begin again a new year, a new semester. There are new faces to learn and the challenge of knowing and trying to love each of them as best we can, while feeding the ravenous desire for paper of various bureaucracies which pretend to know us better than they do.
But only you know us, Jesus. And you know there are and will be days, too many to number, when we will desperately need you to touch us that we may stand straight and praise you. Praising you is born of the strength and startled joy that you alone bring to us.
We know your touch, for you have touched us body and soul in the past. We know what it is to be liberated from the ailments of heart and mind that weigh us to earth so that our hearts do not soar. And soaring is your will for us. Of that I am convinced.
So touch us again with the presence of that love we know no where else. Feed us with word and blessed sacrament; surround us with hands and limbs that are sacraments of your holy and surprising grace. We crave your touch. We don’t want a single moment when we experience separation from you.
Call our names, touch our hearts that we, too, may straighten to praise your unfailing mercies and live filled with the joy you intend for us and for all. That will be our best praise of the wonder you are.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 13:11-13
And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.
Prayer
It is time again, Jesus, time to buckle our belts and leave summer’s languor, entering again the rigors of autumnal disciplines. We are seldom if ever ready for the change that sweeps too quickly over us, a wave of reality bearing us back to the duties from which we’d (at least) tried to distance ourselves for rest and Sabbath. Occasionally, we were successful, and we promise ourselves that we will do better next year. Right.
Now, we gather ourselves and begin again a new year, a new semester. There are new faces to learn and the challenge of knowing and trying to love each of them as best we can, while feeding the ravenous desire for paper of various bureaucracies which pretend to know us better than they do.
But only you know us, Jesus. And you know there are and will be days, too many to number, when we will desperately need you to touch us that we may stand straight and praise you. Praising you is born of the strength and startled joy that you alone bring to us.
We know your touch, for you have touched us body and soul in the past. We know what it is to be liberated from the ailments of heart and mind that weigh us to earth so that our hearts do not soar. And soaring is your will for us. Of that I am convinced.
So touch us again with the presence of that love we know no where else. Feed us with word and blessed sacrament; surround us with hands and limbs that are sacraments of your holy and surprising grace. We crave your touch. We don’t want a single moment when we experience separation from you.
Call our names, touch our hearts that we, too, may straighten to praise your unfailing mercies and live filled with the joy you intend for us and for all. That will be our best praise of the wonder you are.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
August 28, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 13:11-12
And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”
Prayer
More than once, Jesus, I have wanted to say these words, more than a thousand times. So many that I lost track decades ago. I remember children in bereft countries and circumstances wasting, wasting away, in slow grinding want and dusty deprivation. I remember bedsides at which I have kept vigil, especially the stained white tissues twisted taut in the hands of the beloved who also waited alongside.
We needed to hear those words. We needed to speak them to each other. We needed to know that there was someone who could say them to us when we could not. Because we could not.
I lack whatever gift of faith and holiness, whatever empowerment from on high is required to fill the words with the power that never returns empty. So I refused to risk arrogance and mockery and remained as silent as the mute witnesses of suffering whom I have accompanied.
Or did I? For, I said your words of promised presence and freedom again and again. So often, in fact, that together we came to believe what we could not yet see.
Older now, I grow more bold or foolish. Words of forgiveness and absolution come quick to the tongue. Words born of the Spirit of freedom race to release captives, to assure and to bless, to love and reveal your divine nearness to souls who struggle to see and know you here. I know my words are more powerful than I’d imagined. I know words are so powerful that their only proper use is to bless and set free.
So it seems, Jesus, that you have set me free from my ailment. May I do the same.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 13:11-12
And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”
Prayer
More than once, Jesus, I have wanted to say these words, more than a thousand times. So many that I lost track decades ago. I remember children in bereft countries and circumstances wasting, wasting away, in slow grinding want and dusty deprivation. I remember bedsides at which I have kept vigil, especially the stained white tissues twisted taut in the hands of the beloved who also waited alongside.
We needed to hear those words. We needed to speak them to each other. We needed to know that there was someone who could say them to us when we could not. Because we could not.
I lack whatever gift of faith and holiness, whatever empowerment from on high is required to fill the words with the power that never returns empty. So I refused to risk arrogance and mockery and remained as silent as the mute witnesses of suffering whom I have accompanied.
Or did I? For, I said your words of promised presence and freedom again and again. So often, in fact, that together we came to believe what we could not yet see.
Older now, I grow more bold or foolish. Words of forgiveness and absolution come quick to the tongue. Words born of the Spirit of freedom race to release captives, to assure and to bless, to love and reveal your divine nearness to souls who struggle to see and know you here. I know my words are more powerful than I’d imagined. I know words are so powerful that their only proper use is to bless and set free.
So it seems, Jesus, that you have set me free from my ailment. May I do the same.
Pr. David L. Miller
Monday, August 27, 2007
Monday, August 27, 2007
Today’s text
Luke 13:10-11
Now [Jesus] was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over was quite unable to stand up straight.
Prayer
I see her Jesus. I would rather look at you watching her to see what passes across of your face, to notice the set of your brow, the color of your eyes, to record whatever emotion moves you. I look at you, but you let me see nothing of what I want, only a blank face I cannot read, and the message seems clear: “Look at her. If you would see me, look at her.”
But looking at the woman, bent and stooped, she grows transparent. I look not at but through her to faces, broken bodies and spirits I have known only too well, souls for whom I have cared and about whom I have written, including my own dear father, resting now in the immense mercy of your eternity.
Bless him this day, my brother. Bless all the broken ones like him, so ground down by life they cry to the lonely darkness for some presence, some Presence to whisper that they are not alone. I have seen their faces, and I know the terror of abandonment magnifies their sorrow beyond human endurance.
Bear them whole in your own divine heart that they may ever know they are in you. Whisper again that they are embraced in your all-enveloping love despite the sorrow that endures until broken by the morning light you alone bring to our souls, making us alive again.
Open our eyes to see them that we may be the whisper of your eternal morning amid their darkness. For in seeing them, we see you and know again your heart, broken for the love of them all, and of me.
Pr. David L. Miller
Luke 13:10-11
Now [Jesus] was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over was quite unable to stand up straight.
Prayer
I see her Jesus. I would rather look at you watching her to see what passes across of your face, to notice the set of your brow, the color of your eyes, to record whatever emotion moves you. I look at you, but you let me see nothing of what I want, only a blank face I cannot read, and the message seems clear: “Look at her. If you would see me, look at her.”
But looking at the woman, bent and stooped, she grows transparent. I look not at but through her to faces, broken bodies and spirits I have known only too well, souls for whom I have cared and about whom I have written, including my own dear father, resting now in the immense mercy of your eternity.
Bless him this day, my brother. Bless all the broken ones like him, so ground down by life they cry to the lonely darkness for some presence, some Presence to whisper that they are not alone. I have seen their faces, and I know the terror of abandonment magnifies their sorrow beyond human endurance.
Bear them whole in your own divine heart that they may ever know they are in you. Whisper again that they are embraced in your all-enveloping love despite the sorrow that endures until broken by the morning light you alone bring to our souls, making us alive again.
Open our eyes to see them that we may be the whisper of your eternal morning amid their darkness. For in seeing them, we see you and know again your heart, broken for the love of them all, and of me.
Pr. David L. Miller
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