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
Two words turn my heart again to you, O God: “his elect.” They speak a grace and consolation sufficient for the day, for every day. For I know: I belong to your elect, to you.
The words speak of ownership, and that is just fine with me. I want to be owned by you, for you are Great Mercy and Holy Passion. Such are the names my faltering mind assigns to your unspeakable glory. But these, inadequate as they are, speak the zeal and fervor you have for those that are yours, the elect, the chosen, the claimed, the beloved, … me.
I name you Lord, for I am not my own. I am yours, part of that people your Beloved won for you in the pains of bitter woundedness. This not always a comfortable place to be. You lead me to places I do not want to go and refuse to be content with my resistance to the call of your love. You, who are roundly rejected, seek to be visible in my flesh, and I know what that means.
But every day I struggle with my finitude, my limits, my fears, and every day you tell me that I belong to an everlasting love who has loved me everlastingly. I belong to a Lord who holds fast to the elect with a holy zeal and fervent ardor that refuses to let me to face my life alone. And that’s good news, Dear Friend. I learned long ago that independence is overrated.
And you won’t have it. Again and again you whisper: “You are mine. Nothing and no one else can have you.” I am father and a grandfather; I understand such love, even if mine is but finite.
Thank you.
Pr. David L. Miller
http://prayingthemystery.blogspot.com/
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Friday, October 26, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
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
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
Monday, October 22, 2007
Monday, October 23, 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
You make me smile so early on a Monday, Jesus. Your words conjure a bag lady chasing a self-satisfied soul in a three-piece suit down the street. He trips along quickly as he can, looking over his shoulder, distress in his eyes, while she wields a brown paper bag of clothes and aluminum cans. She strains to catch up and bop him across the head, seeking to gain justice for herself.
The reversal of power and powerless is as ironic as it is pointed. Surely, I have no more power over you than the widow has over the judge, less in fact. But surely, God does not refuse mercy until I pound on heaven’s door to wake the divine majesty from underachieving lethargy.
For the Loving Mystery is as far removed from the self-serving judge as your heart is from mine, holy Jesus. Your mercy and justice soar to heights unknown by the wings of my imagination.
Yet, you urge me to pray and pray again, to enter the intimate relationship of holy longing with you who are Mercy Unbounded. You invite me to bring all that I am, not to win your attention or favor but simply that I might know you, who are the secret desire of every prayer.
So I come to you again and again, pounding on your door, not to wake you from slumber, for you neither slumber nor sleep. I return that the desire of my heart may find its final answer in you who are the fullness of the Fullness.
Pr. David L. Miller
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
You make me smile so early on a Monday, Jesus. Your words conjure a bag lady chasing a self-satisfied soul in a three-piece suit down the street. He trips along quickly as he can, looking over his shoulder, distress in his eyes, while she wields a brown paper bag of clothes and aluminum cans. She strains to catch up and bop him across the head, seeking to gain justice for herself.
The reversal of power and powerless is as ironic as it is pointed. Surely, I have no more power over you than the widow has over the judge, less in fact. But surely, God does not refuse mercy until I pound on heaven’s door to wake the divine majesty from underachieving lethargy.
For the Loving Mystery is as far removed from the self-serving judge as your heart is from mine, holy Jesus. Your mercy and justice soar to heights unknown by the wings of my imagination.
Yet, you urge me to pray and pray again, to enter the intimate relationship of holy longing with you who are Mercy Unbounded. You invite me to bring all that I am, not to win your attention or favor but simply that I might know you, who are the secret desire of every prayer.
So I come to you again and again, pounding on your door, not to wake you from slumber, for you neither slumber nor sleep. I return that the desire of my heart may find its final answer in you who are the fullness of the Fullness.
Pr. David L. Miller
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