Thursday, December 14, 2006

Today’s reading

Philippians 4:4:1-7

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God that passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:4-7).

Prayer

Come, Lord Jesus. I am here again, and you are here always. In prayer I enter the presence of you who are Presence beyond my ability to grasp or comprehend. I cannot understand you. But as certainly as the feel of my fingers on the keys, I know you are and that you are here. And I rest, sinking into a love that has known and treasured me since before the birth of time.

I read the words again, unable in these Advent days to move beyond them. Rejoice, ... do not worry, ... let your gentleness be known, ... peace will guard your heart and mind. They transport me into another world more lovely and gracious than I can bear. Insatiable longing fills me. I want to live in that world and only there.

Amid tears I did not choose, you take me into what I most need--you. You encircle me in your embrace where without word or concept I know the Love, the Mystery, the Unspeakable Wonder from whom all flows like a river from eternity into time. This offers no knowledge for which I have words. I simply know you who are Love, and life finds completion for I know you.

Jesus, you come, inviting me to savor the contours of your face and know that the compassion I find there is the compassion in which I was, am and will always be held. I dwell in the climate of divine compassion. Constant and inescapable. Such knowledge moves me to rejoice beyond worry, letting peace wash over me and gentleness through me so that my life becomes revelation of another world where all you desire is complete and your love is all in all.

We hunger for that world. So come, Lord Jesus. Take us into your heart that we might taste our eternal tomorrow. Amen.