Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen 

Reflection

Acts 9:1-20

Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ He asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The reply came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.  But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.  ’The men who were travelling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, ‘Ananias.’ He answered, ‘Here I am, Lord.’ The Lord said to him, ‘Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.’ But Ananias answered, ‘Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.’ But the Lord said to him, ‘Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.’ So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God.’

Daily journaling

God’s instrument

Monday 15 July 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Horace Bushnell (1802-1876) spent most of his adult life as a pastor of the North Congregational Church in Harford, Connecticut. He was active in the early Sunday School movement, dedicated to the idea that children could grow steadily in Christian love and did not have to sink deep into sin before a dramatic conversion experience.  Influenced in both content and style by the Romantic movement then important in theology, philosophy, literature, and the arts, Bushnell saw God’s spirit at work in every aspect of both nature and history.  He here sets out those views and goes on to give an account of how we are to know our callings.[1]

Horace Bushnell, Every Man’s Life a Plan of God

Christ himself testifies to the girding of the Almighty when he says, “To this end was I born, and for this purpose came I into the world” (John 12:27).  Abraham was girded for a particular work and mission, in what is otherwise denominated his call.  Joseph, in Egypt, distinguishes the girding of God’s hand, when he comforts his guilty brothers in the assurance, “So, it was not you that sent me hither, but God” (Gen. 45:8).  Moses and Samuel were even called by name, and set to their great life-work, in the same manner.  And what is Paul endeavoring, in all the stress and pressure of his mighty apostleship, but to perform the work for which God’s Spirit girded him at his call, and to apprehend that for which he was apprehended of Christ Jesus.  And yet these great master-spirits of the world are not so much distinguished, after all, by the acts they do, as by the sense itself of some mysterious girding of the Almighty upon them, whose behests they are set to fulfill.  And all men may have this; for the humblest and commonest have a place and a work assigned them, in the same manner, and have it for their privilege to be always ennobled in the same lofty consciousness.  God is girding every man for a place and a calling, in which, taking it from him, even though it be internally humble, he may be as consciously exalted as if he held the rule of a kingdom.  The truth I propose then for your consideration is this—

That God has a definite life-plan for every human person, girding him, visibly or invisibly, for some exact thing, which it will be the true significance and glory of his life to have accomplished. 

….But, the inquiry will be made, supposing all this to be true, in the manner stated, how can we ever get hold of this life-plan God has made for us, or find our way into it?  Here, to many if not all, will be the main stress of doubt and practical suspense….

You are on the point of choosing, it may be, this or that calling, wanting to know where duty lies and what the course God himself would have you take.  Beginning at a point most remote, and where the generality of truth is widest,

Consider 1) the character of God, and you will draw a large deduction from that; for all that God designs for you will be in harmony with his character.  He is a being infinitely good, just, true.  Therefore, you are to know that he can not really seek anything contrary to this in you.  You may make yourselves contrary, in every attribute of character, to God; but he never made you to become any thing different from, or unworthy of, himself……

2)  Consider your relation to him as a creature.  All created wills have their natural center and rest in God’s will. In him they all come into a play of harmony, and the proper harmony of being is possible only in this way. Thus, you know that you are called to have a will perfectly harmonized with God’s and rested in his, and that gives you a large insight into what you are to be, or what is the real end of your being.  In fact, nine-tenths of your particular duties may be settled, at once, by a simple reference in this manner to what God wills.

3) You have a conscience, which is given to be an interpreter of his will and thus of your duty, and in both, of what you are to become.

4)  God’s law and his written Word are guides to present duty, which, if faithfully accepted, will help to set you in accordance with the mind of God and the plan he has laid for you.  “I am a stranger in the earth,” said one, “hide not thy commandments from me”; knowing that God’s commandments would give him a clue to the true meaning and business of his life.

5)  Be an observer of Providence; for God is showing you ever, by the way in which he leads you, whither he means to lead.  Study your trials, your talents, the world’s wants, and stand ready to serve God now, in whatever he brings to your hand.

Again, 6) consult your friends, and especially those who are most in the teaching of God.  They know your talents and personal qualifications better, in some respects, than you do yourself.  Ask their judgment of you and of the spheres and works to which you are best adapted.

Once more 7) go to God himself, and ask for the calling of God; for, as certainly as he has a plan or calling for you, he will somehow guide you into it. And this is the proper office and work of his Spirit. By this private teaching he can show us, and will, into the very plan that is set for us.  And this is the significance of what is prescribed as our duty, viz., living and walking in the Spirit; for the Spirit of God is a kind of universal presence, or inspiration, in the world’s bosom; an unfailing inner light, which if we accept and live in, we are guided thereby into a consenting choice, so that what God wills for us we also will for ourselves—settling into it as the needle to the pole.  By this hidden union with God, or intercourse with him, we get a wisdom or insight deeper than we know ourselves; a sympathy, a oneness with the Divine will and love. We go into the very plan of God for us, and are led along in it by him, consenting, cooperating, answering to him, we know not now, and working out, with nicest exactness, that good end for which his unseen counsel girded us and sent us into the world.  In this manner, not neglecting the other methods just named, but gathering in all their separate lights, to be interpreted in the higher light of the Spirit, we can never be greatly at a loss to find our way into God’s counsel and plan.  [2] 

Daily Journaling

God’s life-plan

Tuesday 16 July 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

George Herbert (1593-1633) attended Cambridge, where his success promised an important career in the Church of England.  But he tok a job as a priest at a small church and remained there until the time of his death.  He wrote both reflections on his life as a pastor and some of the great religious poetry of the English language.  This poem expresses his frustrations with, but finally acceptance of, his own calling.  The title evokes not only the clergyman’s collar, but the yoke or collar which ties an animal to its work, “choler” (anger), and “caller” (the God who calls).[3]

George Herbert, The Collar

I Struck the board, and cry’d, No more.  I will abroad.

What?  Shall I ever sign and pine?

My lines and life are free; free as the rode; Loose as the winde,

as large as store.

Shall I be still in suit?

Have I no harvest but a thorn

To let me bloud, and not restore

What I have lost with cordiall fruit?

Sure there was wine

Before my sighs did drie it:  there was corn

Before my tears did drown it.

Is the yeare only lost to me?

Have I no bayes to crown it?

No flowers, no garlands gay?  all blasted?  All wasted?

No so, my heart:  but there is fruit,

And thou hast hands.

Recover all thy sigh-blown age

On double pleasures:  leave thy cold dispute

Of what is fit, and not.  Forsake thy cage,

Thy rope of sands

Which pettie thoughts have made, and made to thee

Good cable, to enforce and draw,

And be thy law,

While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.

Away; take heed:

I will abroad.

Call in thy death’s head there:  tie up thy fears.

He that forbears

To suit and serve his need,

Deserves his load.

But as I rav’d and grew more fierce and wilde

At every word,

Me thoughts I heard one calling, Child!

And I reply’d.  My Lord. 

Daily Journaling

Our Father

Wednesday 17 July 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Christine de Pisan (1365-about 1430) grew up in Italy. Her father, a physician and astrologer, was a great success at the court of the King of France, Charles V, and Christine married a promising young nobleman.  When both her husband and her father died, Christine found herself, at the age of twenty-five, a widow with three children, a mother, and a niece to support.  She turned to writing poems and essays dedicated to noble patrons and became one of the few “professional authors” in the Middle Ages.[4]

Christine de Pisan, The Treasure of the City of Ladies

Now here is what you must do.  God does not command anyone to leave everything to follow Him: that is only for those who wish to pursue the very most ideal life. Each person can be saved in his own station in life, and when God says it is impossible for a rich person to be saved, that means a person who has riches without virtues and who does not distribute his riches in alms and good deeds, a person whose whole happiness is in possessing great wealth.  There is no doubt that God hates such people and that they will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless they change their ways.  And as for the poor, who He says are blessed, those are the poor in spirit. Even a very rich and wealthy man could be poor in spirit if he does not prize the riches of the world, and if he has any of them, he distributes them in good works and in the service of God, and if he neither prides himself on his honor nor thinks himself greater because of his wealth.  Such a person, even though he is wealthy in worldly good, is poor of spirit and will possess the Kingdom of Heaven, and you can see the evidence of it have there not been a great host of kings and princes who are saints in Paradise, like St. Louis, King of France, and several others who did not retire from the world but reigned and possessed their lordships at the pleasure of God?  They lived justly, but not because they did not appreciate glory or rejected the honors that they were given.  They considered that honor belonged not to their own persons, but to the status of their power and wealth, of which they were vicars of God on earth.  Similarly there are a great many queens and princesses who are saints in Paradise, like the wife of King Clovis of France, and St. Badour and St. Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary, and many others.  There is no doubt at all that God wishes to be served by people of all conditions. At every level of society anyone who wants to can be saved, for the rank does not cause damnation, but rather not knowing how to use it wisely.[5]

Daily Journaling

Riches 

Thursday 18 July 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Henri Nouwen, Discernment

God speaks to us through the people who speak to us about the things of God.

While it is true that God reveals wisdom and direction through the Bible and the books and articles we read, as well as the Book of Nature, it also is true that God speaks through the people we meet in daily life.  When I joined L’Arche Daybreak, where people with disabilities are at the center of the community, no one cared that I write books or give lectures to university audiences and church groups around the world.  My achievements did not impress them.  What they cared deeply about was how consistently I showed up for them and showed them how much I loved them. 

In the everyday routines and conversations of life, I began to hear the voice of God anew.  The Spirit of God seemed to speak directly to them and through them, unmediated by books or intellectual discussion.  Some members of my community may not have a lot of physical or mental capacities and skills, but in their poverty and simplicity they are more open to God than I am.  Because, their center of being is wide open to God, they seem to be able to see and speak directly to the heart of my concerns.  “Henri, do you love me?  Will you be home tonight?  Will you take me with you?  Will you care for me?  They helped me see that I could write about being God’s beloved, but it was in my relationships with them that I would learn what it meant to be loved and to give love as part of learning what it means to love God, myself, and my neighbor as Jesus commanded.

People we meet, some great in the eyes of the world and some almost invisible to the larger society, are often conduits of God’s wisdom.  When I met Mother Teresa during a visit to Rome, I sawimmediately that her inner attention was focused only on Jesus, and through him she came to see the poorest of the poor, to whom she dedicated her life.  When ordinary social, psychological, or medical questions were brought to her, she did not answer them on the level they were raised.  Instead, she addressed them with a divine logic and from a spiritual place and perspective that remains unfamiliar to most of us.  That is why many found her ways simplistic, naive, and out of touch.  Like Jesus, she challenged her listeners to move with her to that place where things can be seen as God sees them and to look beyond the surface to the place of divine encounter or call. 

….The gift of discernment is the ability to hear and see from God’s perspective and to offer that wisdom from above to others. Truly, god spoke to me through the mouth of Mother Teresa.  She called me back to the discipline of prayer and being in God’s presence, which is the starting and ending place of which guidance emerges. 

The power of friendship is great if it doesn’t find all its meaning in itself.  If people expect too much from each other, they can do each other harm; disappointment and bitterness can overpower love and even replace it.  But in the practice of discernment in daily life, we can learn to appreciate our closest friends, family members, and sometimes complete strangers, as signposts pointing toward God.  Friends may be guides who see what we may not be able to see ourselves.

….As I struggled to understand my need for close friendships, I came to understand why Jesus sent out his disciples into the world in groups of two.  Together, they could maintain the spirit of peace and love and the affirmation they found in his company, and they could share these gifts with everyone they met. 

….I have in my life many close friends and neighbors, community members and mentors, who are living signs of God’s love and direction in good times and bad.  Beyond family and friends I also feel a special closeness to certain “saints” in the church’s memory who speak to me of faithful witness and strength and sometimes provide guidance in time of need.  Together, God’s people ground me in the reality and wholeness of Christ and his church, holding me firm and safe in God’s loving embrace.  God speaks regularly to us through people who talk to us about the things of God.  Certain people become living signs that point us to God.  Whether in life or in memory, the people God puts in our lives can help guide us and show us the way.[6]

Daily Journaling

Signs from God

Friday 19 July 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

St. John of the Cross, The Dark Night of the Soul

It is in order that the soul may be enlightened supernaturally that this night darkens the sensory, the interior and the spiritual appetites.  They are no longer able to find pleasure in anything at all.  The memory, the imagination and the intellect are darkened and unable to function.  Over them hangs a dense and burdensome cloud (“the cloud of unknowing”).  The soul walks securely in this cloud, freed from its appetites.  They can no longer lead the soul into error or into the snares of the world, the flesh and the devil.  The soul is subject now only to the blessings of union with God.  It is no longer distracted with useless things.  It is secure from vainglory, from presumption and from also joy.  The soul, by walking in darkness, not only avoids losing its way but actually advances rapidly.

The faculties must be darkened even in relation to good, spiritual and holy things.  This is so because, in themselves, the faculties can only operate according to their own nature and abilities.  But these are incapable of lifting them up to God.  Only God can lift them up to God.  The soul should see this darkening experience then as a grace, not as an affliction.  God is freeing the soul from itself.  By faith, God is taking the soul by the hand and guiding it through the darkness to a place it knows not.  What greater security could it have!

There is another reason by which the soul is secure in this darkness.  The soul advances by suffering.  Strength is given to the soul by God.  The virtues are practiced, the soul is purified and blessed with wisdom.  This obscure wisdom or “ray of darkness” immerses the soul into the dark night of contemplation, protects it, frees it from all that is not God and brings it ever closer.

By this dark contemplation, God cares for the soul like a good nurse cares for a sick person, carefully safeguarding it from all surrounding dangers.  As we are told in Psalm 18, “God makes the darkness his hiding place.”  The light which is God blinds and darkens our natural faculties and, at the same time, protects them from the world, the flesh and the devil.  The soul is also given a wonderful solicitude about what it should do or not do in the service of God so that the powers of the soul are used only in paying homage to God.[7] 

Daily Journaling

Security in God

Saturday 20 July 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Elizabeth Liebert, The Way of Discernment

The final step in the discernment process, taking a look back, is shared with all good decision making, and can help us do just that.  Even if we discover flaws in our process or lack of generosity in our response, we can gain invaluable knowledge for our future discernments.

Ignatius says:

When the enemy of human nature has been perceived and recognized by his serpent’s tail and the evil end to which he is leading, a new procedure becomes profitable for the person who was tempted in this way.  He or she should examine immediately the whole train of the good thoughts which the evil spirit brought to the soul, including their beginning, and then how little by little the evil spirit endeavored to bring the soul down from the sweetness and spiritual joy in which it had been, and finally brought it to his evil intention.  Thus the person, by understanding this experience and taking note of it, can be on guard in the future against the characteristic snares. 

According to Ignatius, we can learn about our discernment and about the ways we get tempted even when we have succumbed to the temptation. This “discernment in reverse,” this looking back and seeing what happened, means that nothing need be lost, even if we botch the discernment.

Notice the two levels to the review.  The first concerns the process itself, as suggested by Ignatius.  The second continues the process of confirmation, this time adding two new dimensions.  The decision has been made and implemented.  The situation is no longer hypothetical.  Deciding and acting set loose new dynamics.  Acting invites responses from others.  We are, in fact, in a new discernment situation.  Does this new discernment situation suggest that the original decision ought to be changed or tweaked?  Or does it further confirm the original decision by the fruit that is appearing?

An important caution:  a well-discerned decision should not be lightly or easily changed, and then only by again discerning.  Why?  Because there will always be resistance to any course of action.  Sometimes we have “buyer’s remorse” with our decisions and get cold feet as we set about their implementation.  Sometimes others punish us for the decision, trying to get us to reverse course.  If the spiritual masters are to be believed, we should expect such static around decisions, especially significant ones.[8]

Daily Journaling

Looking back

[1]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), p. 353.

[2]Horace Bushnell, Sermons for the New Life(New York: Scribner’s, 1889), 9-17, 18,21-23.

[3]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), p. 273, 277.

[4]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), p. 176.

[5]Christine de Pisan, The Treasure of the City of Ladies, trans. Sarah Lawson (New York:  Penguin Classics, 1986), pp. 35-38,39-41, 43-50, 167-71.

[6]Henri Nouwen, Discernment (New York: HaperCollins, 2013), pp. 66-81.

[7]St. John of the Cross, ed. William Meninger (New York:  Lantern Books, 2014), p. 184-185.

[8]Elizabeth Liebert, The Way of Discernment (Louisville, KY:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), p. 153-155.

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen 

Reflection

Jeremiah 1:4-10, 20:7-9

Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, 
‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.’ 
Then I said, ‘Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.’ But the Lord said to me,
‘Do not say, “I am only a boy”;
for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you. 
Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,

says the Lord.’ 
Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me,
‘Now I have put my words in your mouth. 
See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.’

O Lord, you have enticed me,
   and I was enticed;
you have overpowered me,
   and you have prevailed.
I have become a laughing-stock all day long;
   everyone mocks me. 
For whenever I speak, I must cry out,
   I must shout, ‘Violence and destruction!’
For the word of the Lord has become for me
   a reproach and derision all day long. 
If I say, ‘I will not mention him,
   or speak any more in his name’,
then within me there is something like a burning fire
   shut up in my bones;
I am weary with holding it in,
   and I cannot.

Daily journaling

Your mission

Monday 8 July 2019 

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Joan of Arc (1412-1431), daughter of a peasant, began to hear her voices when she was only thirteen.  It was the middle of the Hundred Years’ War, and England had conquered much of France.  The voice told Joan to go to the Dauphin, the prince not yet officially crowned King of France, and seek to lead the French forces against the English.  With Joan in a suit of white armor at its head, the French army defeated the English at Orleans, and the Dauphin was crowned king. Later Joan was captured and became a prisoner of the English, who had her tried for witchcraft and heresy. These excerpts come from the official record of the trial.  She was found guilty and burned at the stake.[1]

(From Trial Testimony of Thursday, February 22)

She then said that, since the age of thirteen, she had been having revelations from Our Lord through a voice that taught her how to behave.  And that the first time she was very afraid.  And she said that the said voice came at noon, in summertime, when she was in her father’s garden during a fast day, and that the said voice came from the right, toward the church.  And she said that the said voice is rarely without light, which always comes from the same direction as the said voice [Latin record adds here:  And when Joan herself came to France she heard that voice often.  Asked how she could see the light of which she spoke, since it came from the side, she answered nothing to this, but went on to other things.  She said that if she were in a forest, she could clearly hear voices coming to her.  She said in fact that it seemed to her a worthy voice and she believed that this voice was sent from God.]

She went on to say that after hearing the said voice three times, she knew it was the voice of an angel.  She also said that this voice had always taken good care of her.  Asked what advice this voice had given her for the salvation of her soul, she answered that it taught her how to conduct herself and that she should go to church often. And then the voice told her it was necessary that she go into France…and told her two or three times a week that she must leave to go into France.  And that her father knew nothing of her departure.

With this, it said to her that she must hasten to go and that she should lift the siege at Orleans; and that she should go to Robert de Baudricourt, captain of Vaucoulers, and that he would provide her with men to accompany her.

To which she responded that she was nothing but a poor girl who knew neither how to ride a horse nor how to lead an army.

And after her words with this voice, she went off to the house of an uncle, where she remained for a week.  And that afterward her uncle led her to the said Robert de Baudricourt, who she recognized even though she had never met him before.  And this she knew because the voice had told her who he was.

She went on to say that the said Baudricourt refused her twice.  Then on the third occasion, he welcomed her and gave her men to escort her into France, just as the voice had told her…

She then said that when she left Vaucouleurs, she assumed male clothing, and also a sword Baudricourt had given, her, but no other armor or weapons.  And she said she was accompanied by a knight and four other men; and that on that day they took lodging in the town of Saint-Urbain, where she slept in the abbey.

She also said that on the way to Chinon, she passed through Auxerre where she heard Mass in the great church; and that she often had her voices with her…

She said she never asked anything of the voice except at the end, for the salvation of her soul.[2] 

Daily Journaling

Facing an unknown

Tuesday 9 July 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing 

Chapter 17

That a true contemplative will not meddle in the active life nor with what goes on about him, not even to defend himself against those who criticize him.

In the Gospel of St. Luke we read that our Lord came to Martha’s house and while she set about at once to prepare his meal, her sister Mary did nothing but sit at his feet.  She was so intent upon listening to him that she paid no attention to what Martha was doing.  Now certainly Martha’s chores were holy and important.  (Indeed, they are the works of the first degree of the active life.) But Mary was unconcerned about them. Neither did she notice our Lord’s human bearing, the beauty of his mortal body, or the sweetness of his human voice and conversation, although this would have been a holier and better work. (It represents the second degree of the active life and the first degree of the contemplative life.)  But she forgot all of this and was totally absorbed in the highest wisdom of God concealed in the obscurity of his humanity.

Mary turned to Jesus with all the love of her heart, unmoved by what she saw or heard spoken and done about her.  She sat there in perfect stillness with her heart’s secret, joyous love intent upon that cloud of unknowing between her and her God.  For as I have said before, there never has been and there never will be a creature so pure or so deeply immersed in the loving contemplation of God who does not approach him in this life through that lofty and marvelous cloud of unknowing.   And it was to this very cloud that Mary directed the hidden yearning of her loving heart.  Why? Because it is the best and holiest part of the contemplative life possible to man and she would not relinquish it for anything on earth.  Even when Martha complained to Jesus about her, scolding him for not bidding her to get up and help with the work, Mary remained there quite still and untroubled, showing not the least resentment against Martha for her grumbling.  But this is not surprising really, for she was utterly absorbed in another work, all unknown to Martha, and she did not have time to notice her sister or defend herself.

My friend, do you see that this whole incident concerning Jesus and the two sisters was intended as a lesson for active and contemplative persons of the Church in every age?  Mary represents the contemplative life and all contemplative persons ought to model their lives on hers.  Martha represents the active life and all active persons should take her as their guide.[3]

Daily Journaling

Contemplation and action 

Wednesday 10 July 2019 

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Elizabeth Leibert, The Way of Discernment

If we are to contribute our best to the reign of God, we need something beyond our everyday vision and imagination.  We need greater desires; we need “the more.”

Ignatius knew that the most effective laborers for the reign of God would be those who could generate their own zeal.  They would not have to depend on their environment providing all the right stimuli, or on feeling rewarded, or on receiving kudos from others; they would persevere through thick and thin to bring about the object of their desire.  He developed a method for eliciting in his companions great desires that centered on cultivating the imagination and employing appropriate asceticism.  His strategy still works today.

If we can’t imagine any other world than we presently inhabit, we will not desire more.  To move toward deeper desires, then, we must school our imagination, learn to imagine that which is not yet.  Scriptures, especially the prophetic books, urge us toward a vision beyond our mundane experience.  Contemplative prayer clears out our old images and readies us for new ones given us by the Holy Spirit.  Testimonies and the lives of strong and holy exemplars, of today’s saints, can stir up our imaginations.  We can associate with people who share our great desires or whom we admire, and let them stimulate our imaginations.  When our energy flags, we can return through prayer and memory to our authentic desires, allowing them to come alive again.

The way to great desires is always pitted with conflicting desires, our own and those of others.  We can remain divided in our desires, or we can engage in a struggle between opposing desires.  A focused asceticism, or self-denial for the sake of greater purposefulness, can help us temper desires that dampen our imaginations and allow us to settle for less than God desires.  Notice that asceticism is not for the sake of killing off parts of our selves, but for the sake of marshaling our full energy around our deep desires.

To summarize:  desires underlie all our motivation; discernment urges us to choose well among these desires.  Our experience as love and saved sinners allows us to believe that discernment can happen.  We can enter into a process of sifting through the ambiguities of our situation. Our experience as co-creators of God’s unfolding purpose in creation underlies the importance of discerning well. It matters to the continual outworking of God’s creative life.  Growing in spiritual freedom through spiritual indifference is simultaneously the essential prerequisite and the goal of spiritual discernment.  Without this spiritual freedom, discernment, as such, does not exist.  With it, discernment becomes a powerful means of growing in holiness.  Finally, seeking great desires, the “more,” invites us to stretch beyond our limited horizons to do something great for God.[4]

Daily Journaling

Seeking the “more”

Thursday 11 July 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel

Faith, according to the theologians, is a habit. It is both certain and obscure. It is an obscure habit because by it we believe truths revealed by God that transcend all natural understanding. Paradoxically, the excessive light of faith is a thick darkness.  Just as the sun overwhelms all other lights, so faith overwhelms greater and lesser things. The light of faith transcends the faculty of intellectual vision and disables the understanding because the understanding extends only to natural knowledge.

By him or herself one only knows after a natural manner; that is, things that one attains by means of the five senses.  One only knows objects which present themselves to the senses.  Things beyond one’s understanding whose likeness one has never perceived would give one no illumination whatever, no knowledge at all.  Can a person born blind really understand what color is?

So it is with faith.  It tells us of things which we have never seen or understood. So we have no natural knowledge concerning the things of faith.  We hear about them and believe what we are taught.  We bring our natural understand into subjection to what we hear.  Faith comes from hearing.  It is not knowledge that enters by the senses, but is only the consent that the soul gives to what we hear.  Things that we believe by faith are not illumined by our understanding, which has been rejected for the sake of our faith.

Obviously then, faith is a dark night for the soul, a dark night which paradoxically gives the soul light, light it could not have in any other way.  The more the soul is darkened, the greater is the light that is given to it. [5]        

Daily Journaling

Practicing faith

Friday 12 July 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Henri Nouwen, Discernment

Discernment as “Being Seen”

I am struck by the way Jesus “saw” Nathanael under the tree in the Gospel of John.  Even before meeting him, Jesus said of Nathanael:  “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” When the two men met on the road, Nathanael asked Jesus with amazement:  “How do you knowme?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the gif tree, I sawyou.”  Jesus’s seeing through Nathanael under the fig tree was such a powerful act of discerning what was in his heart that it caused Nathanael to proclaim:  “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”  To which Jesus remarked, “You believe this because I told you I sawyou under the fig tree? You will seegreater things than these…You will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man” (John 1:47-51).

This wonderful story about seeing through to the heart of things raises a deep question:  Do I want to be fully seen by Jesus?  Do I want to be known by him?  If I do, then a faith can grow that will open my eyes to heaven and reveal Jesus as the Son of God.  I will see great things when I am willing to be seen.  I will receive new eyes that can see the mysteries of God’s own life, but only when I allow God to see me, all of me, even those parts that I myself do not want to see. 

….Once we are willing to see and be seen by God, we can look for signs of God’s presence and guidance in every appearance presented to our senses.  Discernment becomes a new way of seeing (and being seen) that results in divine revelation and direction.  This heart knowledge enables us to lead a life worthy of the calling (Eph. 4:1). [6]

Daily Journaling

Willing to be seen 

Saturday 13 July 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen 

Reflection

Karl Barth (1886-1968) moved in 1921 from serving as a pastor in his native Switzerland to teaching theology at a series of German universities.  He eagerly supported the Confessing Church in its opposition to Nazi efforts to take control of the Protestant churches and in 1934 wrote the Barmen Declaration, the Confessing Church’s basic statement of its faith.  Refusing to take an oath to Hitler, he had to leave Germany, and taught theology back in Switzerland from 1935 until his retirement in 1962. His greatest work, the Church Dogmatics, unfinished after many long volumes, argued that Christianity must start with God as revealed in Christ, and nothing else.[7] 

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics

We speak of the vocation of man confronting and corresponding to the divine calling.  It is clear that in so doing we give the term a meaning which transcends its customary use in the narrower technical sense.  Vocation in the usual sense means a particular position and function of a man in connection with the process of human work, i.e., his job; and then in the broader sense a whole group of such positions and functions. Now obviously it can also be part of what we understand as human vocation that a man has his “vocation” in this technical sense.  For many men this will really be so.  There are also men, however, who do not legitimately have a vocation in this technical sense. 

…When we see the vocation of a man as his destiny already disclosed and imposed as the will and law of God, so that he needs only an inner call to recognize and apprehend it, to what purpose is the calling of God, Christ or the Gospel?  What more can this be than his perhaps not absolutely necessary self-direction to vocation?  Calling, then, shrinks necessarily to what Karl Holl describes as “awareness of God’s presence in every moment of life.”

….We now assume that a man has sought, chosen, entered and to the best of his ability filled his sphere of operation according to the plan and providence of God.  The command of God has called him to this place, and according to this command he has now tried to work in it under the will and plan of the divine providence.  He will remain in it so long and so far as the command of God summons him to do so. On this presupposition he must prove his faithfulness in this vocation.  1 Cor. 7:20 is relevant in this connection:  “Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called.” But what does it mean to abide in his calling?  It certainly means that he must not glance aside at the callings of others.  It certainly means that he must apply himself wholeheartedly to his own.  It certainly means, therefore, that he must not allow this application to be challenged or disturbed by the thought of other desirable or very different callings.

…We are not to think here of what is usually called a change of vocation.  This, too, can be commanded.  It was Calvin—Luther would not have written this—who expressly said of 1 Cor. 7:20 that it might be fitting for a tailor to learn another trade, or a salesman to switch to farming, and therefore why should not a doctor become a minister or a minister a doctor or politician, a scholar a man of affairs or a man of affairs a scholar?  Such later changes do occur in the life of a man, and they can do so in faithfulness to his one calling which makes them necessary even though so sharp a change is involved.  …Finally, sickness or age may bring with them quite unbidden the problem of finding and occupying new spheres of operation.  We have to realize that in every such transition the more serious and possibly all the problems which confronted us at the first choice of our way will be raised again in a new and perhaps even more urgent form.  There will again be involved a human choice with all the possibilities of error and failure which this entails.  The more serious the change in question, the more we have to ask ourselves whether it is really the calling of God and not just our own caprice that we think we must follow. 

…As an instructive example, we may city the verdict of August Bebel:  “Strictly speaking, the worker who drains sewers to protect humanity from unhealthy miasmas is a very useful member of society, whereas the professor who teaches falsified history in the interests of the ruling class, or the theologian who seeks to befog the brain with supernatural, transcendental doctrines, is an extremely harmful individual.”  We must be careful not be guilty of what is here stated to be the activity of theologians, and if we cannot do better than this we should make all haste to become good drainers of sewers.  Similarly, if the professor of history cannot do better than teach history which is falsified in the interests of a class, to the sewers with him also![8] 

Daily Journaling

Faithfulness to our calling 

[1]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), p. 190.

[2]The Mission of Joan of Arc, ed. And trans. Nadia Margolis, in Medieval Hagiography, An Anthology, ed. Thomas Head (New York: Routledge, 2001), 814-17.

[3]The Cloud of Unknowing, ed. William Johnston (New York:  Doubleday, 1973), p. 71-72.

[4]Elizabeth Liebert, SNJM;The Way of Discernment (Louisville, KY:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), p. 36-37.

[5]William Meninger, OCSO; St. John of the Cross (New York:  Lantern Books, 2004), p. 35-36.

[6]Henri Nouwen, Discernment(New York:  HarperCollins, 2013), pp. 7-8.

[7]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), p. 429.

[8]Karl Barth, Church DogmaticsIII:4 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1985), 599-602, 641-42, 645-47, 522-29, 534.

Sunday 30 June 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Isaiah 6:1-8

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:
‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.’ 
The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’

 Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.’ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’

Daily journaling

Responding to God 

Monday 1 July 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation

More generally, when the Bible talks about “call” or “vocation,” it characteristically means a call to faith or to do a special task in God’s service.  In the Old Testament, God calls the first Israelites, the prophets, and rulers to do his will.  In the New Testament the word klēsis(“calling,” from the Greek verb kaleō,“to call,” used eleven time, mostly in letters by Paul or authors influenced by him:  consistently refers to God’s call to a life of faith. Paul assures the Thessalonians, “We always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call” (2 Thess. 1:11).  Reminding the Corinthians that God makes use of foolishness and weakness, he writes, “consider your own call, brothers and sisters; not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth” (1 Cor. 1:26). In both cases the “call” was to come, be a Christian.

Some scholars therefore argue that the initial call to faith or calls to a special mission are the onlybiblically warranted meanings of the word “call.”  But it is always dangerous to argue that something did not exist just because the historical record does not mention it.  The Bible, after all, focuses on the stories of people for whom God had a special task, not the more “typical” farmers or potters, husbands or wives, or parents, so it is hard to be sure whether the biblical authors would have thought of their more ordinary roles in life as callings.  Colossians insists, “whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters” (Col. 3:23).  This passage does not use the word “call,” but it certainly invites Christians to think of any task as work done in the Lord’s service. Here, as on other issues, the Bible gives us complex answers, and, in trying to understand them, it makes sense to ask how wise Christians down the centuries have interpreted them and understood what Christian faith means by vocation or calling.[i] 

Daily Journaling

Two callings

Tuesday 2 July 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

William Law (1686-1761) seemed destined to a successful academic career at Cambridge until he refused to take the oath of allegiance when George I came to the throne; “Non-jurors” like Law held that the descendants of the Stuart line going back to James II remained kings of England, and believed that taking the oath of allegiance to more recent kings violated an earlier oath.  By this refusal Law came to be ineligible to hold any official position.  He served for a time as a tutor to the son of a wealthy family and then retired to his hometown, where he was eventually joined by two women in a small, informal religious community.  They lived a life of great simplicity and gave most of their money to support local schools and other charities.  One of his favorite devices was to invent imaginary characters whose behavior illustrated the flaws of a whole class of people—the discussion of “Calidus” in this except is one example.[ii]

Calidus [Law here invents a name for an imaginary typical character; the name means “eager” or “hasty” in Latin] has traded above thirty years in the greatest city of the kingdom; he has been so many years constantly increasing his trade and his fortune.  Every hour of the day is with him an hour of business; and though he eats and drinks very heartily, yet every mean seems to be in a hurry, and he would say grace if he had time.  Calidus ends every day at the tavern, but has not leisure to be there till near nine o’clock. He is always forced to drink a good hearty glass, to drive thoughts of business out of his head, and make his spirits drowsy enough for sleep.  He does business all the time that he is rising, and has settled several matters before he can get to his counting-room.  His prayers are a short ejaculation or two, which he never misses in stormy, tempestuous weather, because he has always something or other at sea.  Calidus will tell you, with great pleasure, that he has been in this hurry for so many years, and that it must have killed him long ago, but that it has been a rule with him to get out of the town every Saturday, and make the Sunday a day of quiet, and good refreshment in the country.

He is now so rich that he would leave off his business, and amuse his old age with building, and furnishing a fine house in the country, but that he is afraid he should grow melancholy if he was to quit his business.  He will tell you, with great gravity, that it is a dangerous thing for a man that has been used to get money, ever to leave it off.  If thoughts of religion happen at any time to steal into his head, Calidus contents himself with thinking that he never was a friend to heretics, and infidels, that he has always been civil to the minister of his parish, and very often given something to the charity of schools.

It must also be owned, that the generality of trading people, specially in great towns, are too much like Calidus.  You see them all the week buried in business, unable to think of anything else; and then spending the Sunday in idleness and refreshment, in wandering into the country, in such visits and jovial meetings, as make it often the worst day of the week. 

Now they do not live thus, because they cannot support themselves with less care and application to business; but they live thus because they want to grow rich in their trades, and to maintain their families in some such figure and degree of finery, as a reasonable Christian life has no occasion for.  Take away but this temper, and then people of all trades will find themselves at leisure to live every day like Christians, to be careful of every duty of the Gospel, to live in a visible course of religion, and be every day strict observers both of private and public prayer.

Now the only way to do this is for people to consider their trade as something that they are obliged to devote to the glory of God, something that they are to do only in such a manner as that they may make it a duty to Him.  Nothing can be right in business that is not under these rules.  The Apostle commands servants to be obedient to their masters “in singleness of heart, as unto Christ.  Not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good will doing service, as unto the Lord, and not to men” (Eph. 6:5; Col. 3:22, 23).[iii]

Daily Journaling

Servants of Christ 

Wednesday 3 July 2019 

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

This excerpt comes from a collection of sermons Martin Luther wrote in 1521-22, while hiding out in the Wartburg castle. The text for this sermon is Luke 2:15-20, in which the shepherds visit the baby Jesus and then return to their sheep.[iv]

…all works are the same to a Christian, no matter what they are.  For these shepherds do not run away into the desert, they do not don monk’s garb, they do not shave their heads, neither do they change their clothing, schedule, food, drink, nor any external work.  They return to their place in the fields to serve God there!  For being a Christian does not consist in external conduct, neither does it change anyone according to his external positions; rather it changes him according to the inner disposition, that is to say, it provides a different heart, a different disposition, will, and mind which do the works which another person does without such a disposition and will.  For a Christian knows that it all depends upon faith; for this reason he walks, stands, eats, drinks, dresses, works, and lives as any ordinary person in his calling, so that one does not become aware of his Christianity, as Christ says in Luke 17[vv. 20-21]:  “The kingdom of God does not come in an external manner and one cannot say ‘Lo, here and there,’ but the kingdom of God is within you.” Against this liberty the pope and the spiritual estate fight with their laws and their choice of clothing, food, prayers, localities, and persons.  They catch themselves and everybody else with such foul snares, with which they have filled the world, just as St. Antony saw in a vision.  For they are of the opinion that salvation depends on their person and work.  They call other people worldly, whereas they themselves in all likelihood are worldly seven times over, inasmuch as their doings are entirely human works concerning which God has commanded nothing.

…For we are unable to give to God anything, in return for his goodness and grace, except praise and thanksgiving, which, moreover, proceed from the heart and have no great need of organ music, bells, and rote recitation.  Faith teaches such praise and thanksgiving; as it is written concerning the shepherds that they returned to their flocks with praise and thanksgiving and were well satisfied, even though they did not become wealthier, were not awarded higher honors, did not eat and drink better, were not obliged to carry on a better trade. See, in this Gospel you have a picture of true Christian life, especially as pertains to its external aspects: on the outside, it shines forth not at all or at most a little bit in the sight of the people so that, indeed, most people see it as error and foolishness; but on the inside it is sheer light, joy, and bliss.  Thus we see what the apostle has in mind when he enumerates the fruits of the spirit in Galatians 5 [v. 22]:  “The fruits of the spirit [that is, the works of faith] are love, joy, peace, kindness, being able to get along, patience, confidence, mercy, chastity.[v]

Daily Journaling

Fruits of the spirit

Thursday 4 July 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

St. John of the Cross, “The Way to Enter the Night of Sense”

The soul enters the night of sense in two ways. One way is active, the other passive. The active way consists in that which the soul does of itself to enter the dark night.  The passive way is that wherein the soul does nothing but God works in it.  Here, only patience is required.  It will be well to set down briefly here the way which is to be followed to enter this night of the senses.  The counsels given here for conquering the desires are few and concise and adequate for one who sincerely desires to practice them.

Let the soul have an habitual desire to imitate Christ in everything.  Let it meditate on the life of Christ so it may know how to do this in the manner of Christ.  Let it renounce every pleasure that presents itself to the senses if it be not purely for the honor and glory of God.  The soul must never desire any sensual thing for its own sake.  It must not desire the pleasure of looking at things unless this helps it Godward; in its conversation let it also act this way.  And so in respect to all the senses insofar as it can, the soul must avoid the relevant pleasures.  If this is not possible, it must at least desire not to have it.  In this way it will soon reap great profit. 

The soul must strive to embrace with all its heart the following counsels so that it may enter into complete detachment with respect to all worldly things for the sake of Christ.  Try to prefer not that which is easiest but that which is most difficult.  Seek not that which gives the most pleasure but that which gives the least.  Choose not that which is restful but that which is wearisome.  Look not for that which is greatest, loftiest and most precious but for that which is least, lowest and most despised.  Strive to go about seeking not the best of temporal things but the worst.  If this is done with a full heart, the soul will quickly find in them great delight and consolation.

If these things be faithfully put into practice, they are quite sufficient for entrance into the night of sense.  For greater completeness, however, let us look at another exercise that will help us mortify those things that reign in the world and from which all other desires proceed; namely, concupiscence of the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes and the pride of life.  Let the soul strive to work, to speak and to think humbly of itself and desire all others to do so.

The following advice is given here in reference to the night of the sense but it will later also be applicable to the night of the spirit.  In order to have pleasure in everything, desire to have pleasure in nothing.  In order to possess everything, desire to possess nothing.  In order to be everything, desire to be nothing.  In order to know everything, desire to know nothing.  This does sound very harsh and difficult, but the proof of it is in the experience of those who have done it.  Their yoke is sweet and their burden is light.

When your mind dwells upon anything, you are ceasing to cast it upon God who is everything.  To arrive at the All, you must deny yourself everything.  When you possess the All you must possess it without desiring it.  In this kind of detachment, the spiritual soul finds its repose, for it covets nothing, and nothing wearies it.  This is not something that can be accomplished by human effort, but only through the grace of God.[vi]           

Daily Journaling

Rest in God

Friday 5 July 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Howard Thurman (1899-1981) grew up in poverty in Florida, raised by his grandmother, a former slave.  Educated at Morehouse, Columbia, and Rochester Seminary, he served many years as pastor of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco and Dean of the Chapel at Boston University. 

Give me the courage to live!

Really live—not merely exist.

Live dangerously,

Scorning risk!

Live honestly,

Daring the truth—

Particularly the truth of myself!

Live resiliently—

Ever Changing, ever growing, ever adapting.

Enduring the pain of change

As though ‘twere the travail of birth.

Give me the courage to live,

Give me the strength to be free

And endure the burden of freedom

And the loneliness of those without chains;

Let me not be trapped by success,

Nor by failure, nor pleasure, nor grief,

Nor malice, nor praise, nor remorse!

Give me the courage to go on!

Facing all that waits on the trail—

Going eagerly, joyously on,

And paying my way as I go,

Without anger or fear or regret

Taking what life gives,

Spending myself to the full,

Head high, spirit winged, like a god—

On…on…till the shadows draw close.

Then even when darkness shuts down,

And I go out alone, as I came,

Naked and blind as I came—

Even then, gracious God, hear my prayer:

Give me the courage to live!

Daily Journaling

Courage to change 

Saturday 6 July 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen 

Reflection

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1960-1945) grew up in Berlin, the son of a prominent psychiatrist; his career in theology surprised his relatively secular family.  He was active in the “Confessing Church,” the German Protestants who were opposed to Hitler’s efforts to control the churches, eventually teaching at the Confessing Church’s more or less underground seminary.  While visiting the United States just before the beginning of World War II, he was invited to stay here, but concluded that no one who avoided the hard times Germany was facing would have the moral authority to have influence in Germany after the war.  He was arrested, imprisoned, and shortly before the end of the war, executed.  In this book, published in 1937, he addressed the radical demands Christianity might make on one’s life and the central importance of obedience to Jesus’ call.  In an earlier chapter he attacked the idea of “cheap grace,” the notion that god’s forgiveness leaves Christians free of tough ethical demands.[vii]

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

And as he passed by he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the place of toll, and he saith unto him, Follow me.  And he arose and followed him. Mark 2:14

The call goes forth, and is at once followed by the response of obedience.  The response of the disciples is an act of obedience, not a confession of faith in Jesus. How could the call immediately evoke obedience?  The story is a stumbling-block for the natural reason, and it is no wonder that frantic attempts have been made to separate the two events.  By hook or by crook a bridge must be found between them. Something must have happened in between, some psychological or historical event.  Thus we get the stupid questions:  Surely the publican must have known Jesus before, and that previous acquaintance explains his readiness to hear the Master’s call.  Unfortunately our text is ruthlessly silent on this point, and in fact it regards the immediate sequence of call and response as a matter of crucial importance.  It displays not the slightest interest in the psychological reasons for a man’s religious decisions.  And why? For the simple reason that the cause behind the immediate following of call by response if Jesus Christ himself. It is Jesus who calls, and because it is Jesus, Levi follows at once.  This encounter is a testimony to the absolute, direct, and unaccountable authority of Jesus.  There is no need of any preliminaries, and no other consequence but obedience to the call. Because Jesus is the Christ, he has the authority to call and to demand obedience to his word.  Jesus summons men to follow him not as a teacher or a pattern of the good life, but as the Christ, the Son of God.  In this short text Jesus Christ and his claim are proclaimed to men.  Not a word of praise is given to the disciple for his decision for Christ.  We are not expected to contemplate the disciple, but only him who calls, and his absolute authority.  According to our text there is no road to faith or discipleship, no other road—only obedience to the call of Jesus.[viii] 

Daily Journaling

God’s authority on our lives

[i]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), pp. 4-5.

[ii]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), p. 303-304.

[iii]William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life(London:  Macmillan, 1898), 29-36.

[iv]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), p. 213.

[v]Martin Luther, The Gospel for the Early Christmas Service, trans. John G. Kunstmann, Luther’s Works, vol. 52 (Philadelphia:  Fortress, 1974), 36-38.  

[vi]William Meninger, OCSO, St. John of the Cross (New York: Lantern Books, 2014), p. 25-27.

[vii]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), p. 389-390.

[viii]Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, trans. R. H. Fuller (New York:  Macmillan, 1959), p. 48.

Reflections on Assessing your Spiritual Gifts by Jennifer LeBlanc 

When St. Paul writes his first letter to the Church in Corinth, he’s writing to a group of relatively new Christians who are growing deeper in faith while also seeing their community grow in both numbers and impact. It’s a letter full of practical instruction about growing our relationship with Christ, and one section begins this way: “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed” (1 Corinthians 12:1).  

After a successful, 20-year career in media and years of volunteer lay leadership at my church, I was called to use my gifts in a more direct way by working for the Church as an employee. It took much prayer and deliberation, but I left the money, the identity of who I am by what I do, and dove head-first into ministry.

The first year was scary. What had I done? It felt as though I was constantly looking for ways to reassure myself of this calling. I was blessed with one such tool of reassurance after taking a spiritual gift assessment. My top three gifts are Leadership, Discernment, and Shepherding. While some people’s spiritual gifts differ from their natural talents, mine were perfectly aligned. That was a gift all on its own.

God put me in a position and at a place where I could train-up Christian leaders, shepherd the young and serve as a student to the wise, to truly lean in to all of those years of leading teams, counseling and consulting with clients, and building effective communication strategies– all for the people of God and to the glory of God.  All I had to do was trust in Him, and let go.

After 5 years in ministry, I can tell you I am where God wants me to be, where he has called me to serve him and to bring others into a deeper relationship with him. No matter what you do or where you work, you can serve as a witness to the love and compassion of Jesus. You are equipped.

The Church has an urgent mission in this world, and the only way we fulfill that mission to the level we need to is through each of us using our God given gifts to the fullest. And we can’t do it without each other. That’s what Paul was telling that fledging church in Corinth, and that’s what he—and God—are calling you and me to realize in our own lives.

Sunday 23 June 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Judges 4:4-10

At that time Deborah, a prophetess, wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel. She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the Israelites came up to her for judgement. She sent and summoned Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali, and said to him, ‘The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you, “Go, take position at Mount Tabor, bringing ten thousand from the tribe of Naphtali and the tribe of Zebulun. I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin’s army, to meet you by the Wadi Kishon with his chariots and his troops; and I will give him into your hand.” ’ Barak said to her, ‘If you will go with me, I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.’ And she said, ‘I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.’ Then Deborah got up and went with Barak to Kedesh. Barak summoned Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh; and ten thousand warriors went up behind him; and Deborah went up with him.

Daily journaling

Prayer for courage

Monday 24 June 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

John Henry Newman (1801-1890) studied at Oxford, was ordained in the Church of England, and returned to Oxford to teach and preach.  His sermons were deeply influential not only at the university but all over England…This sermon, preached at Oxford in the 1830s, when he was till a member of the Church of England, deals with the nature of faith and, in a very different way, with Kierkegaard’s question: how can we receive a call to faith where nearly everyone is brought up as a Christian?[1] 

John Henry Newman, “Divine Calls”

For in truth we are not called once only, but many times; all through our life Christ is calling us.  He called us first in Baptism; but afterwards also; whether we obey His voice or not, He graciously calls us still.  If we fall from our Baptism, He calls us to repent; if we are striving to fulfill our calling, He calls us from grace to grace, and from holiness to holiness, while life is given us….

It were well if we understood this; but we are slow to master the great truth, that Christ is, as it were, walking among us, and by His hand, or eye, or voice, bidding us follow Him.  We do not understand that His call is a thing which takes place now.  We think it took place in the Apostles’ days; but we do not believe in it, we do not look out for it in our own case.  We have not eyes to see the Lord; far different from the beloved Apostle, who knew Christ even when the rest of the disciples knew Him not.  When He stood on the shore after His resurrection, and bade them cast the net into the sea, “that disciple who Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord” (John 21:7). 

And these Divine calls are commonly, from the nature of the case, sudden now, and as indefinite and obscure in their consequences as in former times.  The accidents and events of life are, as is obvious, one special way in which the calls I speak of come to us; and they, as we all know, are in their very nature, and as the word “accident” implies, sudden and unexpected.  A man is going on as usual; he comes home one day, and finds a letter, or a message, or a person, whereby a sudden trial comes on him, which, if met religiously, will be the means of advancing him to a higher state of religious excellence….

Let us beg and pray Him day by day to reveal Himself to our souls more fully; to quicken our senses; to give us sight and hearing, taste and touch of the world to come; so to work within us that we may sincerely say, “Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and after that receive me to glory.  Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee:  my flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever” (Ps. 73:24-26)[2] 

Daily Journaling

The covenant of baptism

Tuesday 25 June 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

John Calvin (1509-1564) grew up in France, where he joined the Protestant cause in his early twenties.  Passing through the Swiss city of Geneva in 1536, he was recruited to provide religious leadership for its newly born Protestantism; what had been intended to be an overnight stay occupied all but three years of the rest of his life.  Calvin’s goal was to make the whole city of Geneva what medieval monasteries had been at their best—a foretaste of God’s kingdom.  This selection comes from his greatest work, Institutes of the Christian Religion, originally published in 1536 but constantly revised….Calvin sets out the basic principles of the Christian life and then turns to what he has to say about calls.[3] 

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, “The Lord’s Calling a Basis of Our Way of Life”

Finally, this point is to be noted:  the Lord bids each one of us in all life’s actions to look to his calling.  For he knows with what great restlessness human nature flames, with what fickleness it is borne hither and thither, how its ambition longs to embrace various things at once.  Therefore, lest through our stupidity and rashness everything be turned topsy-turvy, he has appointed duties for every man in his particular way of life.  And that no one may thoughtlessly transgress his limits, he has named these various kinds of living “callings.”  Therefore each individual has his own kind of living assigned to him by the Lord as a sort of sentry post so that he may not heedlessly wander about throughout life.  Now, so necessary is this distinction that all our actions are judged in his sight by it, often indeed far otherwise than in the judgment of human and philosophical reason.  No deed is considered more noble, even among philosophers, than to free one’s country from tyranny.  Yet a private citizen who lays his hand upon a tyrant is openly condemned by the heavenly judge (1 Sam. 24:7,11; 26:9)

But I will not delay to list examples.  It is enough if we know that the Lord’s calling is in everything the beginning and foundation of well-doing.  And if there is anyone who will not direct himself to it, he will never hold to the straight path in his duties.  Perhaps, sometimes, he could contrive something laudable in appearance; but whatever it may be in the eyes of men, it will be rejected before God’s throne.  Besides, there will be no harmony ordered when it is directed to this goal.  For no one, impelled by his own rashness, will attempt more than his calling will permit, because he will know that it is not lawful to exceed its bounds.  A man of obscure station will lead a private life ungrudgingly so as not to leave the rank in which he has been placed by God.  Again, it will be no slight relief from cares, labors, troubles, and other burdens for a man to know that God is his guide in all these things.  The magistrate will discharge his functions more willingly; the head of the household will confine himself to his duty; each man will bear and swallow the discomforts, vexations, weariness, and anxieties in his way of life, when he has been persuaded that the burden was laid upon him by God.  From this will arise also a singular consolation;  that no task will be so sordid and base, provided you obey your calling in it, that it will not shine and be reckoned very precious in God’s sight…[4]

Daily Journaling

Obedience to calling 

Wednesday 26 June 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Thomas Keating; Open Mind, Open Heart

Take everything that happens during the periods of centering prayer peacefully and gratefully, without putting a judgment on anything  Even if you should have an overwhelming experience of God, this is not the time to think about it.  Let the various kinds of thoughts come and go.  The basic principle for handling them in this prayer is this:  Resist no thought, retain no thought, react emotionally to no thought.  Whenever an image, feeling, reflection, or experience attracts your attention, return to the sacred word.

Don’t judge centering prayer on the basis of how many thoughts come or how much peace you enjoy.  The only way to judge this prayer is by its long-range fruits:  whether in daily life you enjoy greater peace, humility, and charity.  Having come to deep interior silence, you begin to relate to others beyond the superficial aspects of social status, race, nationality, religion, and personal characteristics. 

To know God in this way is to perceive a new dimension to all reality.  The ripe fruit of centering prayer is to bring back into the humdrum routines of daily life not just the thought of God, but the spontaneous awareness of God’s abiding presence in, through, and beyond everything.  He Who Is—the infinite, incomprehensible, and ineffable One—is the God of pure faith.  In this prayer we confront the most fundamental human question:  “Who are you, Lord?”—and wait for the answer.[5]

Daily Journaling

Knowing God

Thursday 27 June 2019 

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Anonymous,The Cloud of Unknowing

Chapter 12

That in contemplation sin is destroyed and every kind of goodness is nourished.

And so to stand firmly and avoid pitfalls, keep to the path you are on.  Let your longing relentlessly beat upon the cloud of unknowing that lies between you and your God.  Pierce that cloud with the keen shaft of your love, spurn the thought of anything less than God, and do not give up this work for anything.  For the contemplative work of love by itself will eventually heal you of all the roots of sin.  Fast as much as you like, watch far into the night, rise long before dawn, discipline your body, and if it were permitted—which it is not—put out your eyes, tear out your tongue, plug up your ears and nose, and cut off your limbs; yes, chastise your body with every discipline and you would still gain nothing.  The desire and tendency toward sin would remain in your heart.

What is more, if you wept in constant sorrow for your sins and Christ’s Passion and pondered unceasingly on the joys of heaven, do you think it would do you any good?  Much good, I am sure.  You would profit no doubt and grow in grace but in comparison with the blind stirring of love, all this is very little.  For the contemplative work of love is the best part, belonging to Mary. It is perfectly complete by itself while all these disciplines and exercises are of little value without it. 

The work of love not only heals the roots of sin, but nurtures practical goodness.  When it is authentic you will be sensitive to every need and respond with a generosity unspoiled by selfish intent.  Anything you attempt to do without this love will certainly be imperfect, for it is sure to be marred by ulterior motives.

Genuine goodness is a matter of habitually acting and responding appropriately in each situation, as it arises, moved always by the desire to please God.  He alone is the pure source of all goodness and if a person is motivated by something else besides God, even though God is first, then his virtue is imperfect. This is evident in the case of two virtues in particular, humility and brotherly love.  Whoever acquires these habits of mind and manner needs no others, for he will possess everything.[6]

Daily Journaling

Humility and brotherly love

Friday 28 June 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Richard Baxter (1615-1691) maintained a moderate Puritan throughout the political changes in England during his life.  By the end of the 1630s he had rejected the idea that the church should have bishops; this put him on the side of the “nonconformists” against the established Church of England.  In the midst of conflicts among Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Independents, Baxter tried to find grounds for cooperation and mutual respect.  This excerpt shows his characteristic moderation and common sense.[7]

Richard Baxter, Directions about Our Labor and Callings

For that calling may be one man’s blessing which would another’s misery and undoing.  A weak body cannot undergo those labors that require strength, and a dull and heavy mind and wit cannot do the works which require great judgment and ingenuity.  It has been the calamity of the church, and undoing of many ministers themselves, that well-meaning parents out of love to the sacred work of God have set their children to be ministers that were unfit for it; and many self-conceited persons themselves are ready to thrust themselves into that holy office when they have some inconsiderable smattering of knowledge and some poor measure of gifts, overvalued by themselves, that know not what is required to so great a work.  Be sure that you first look to the natural ingenuity of your children (or yourselves) and then to their grace and piety, and see that none be devoted to the ministry that have not naturally a quickness of understanding and a freedom of expression, unless you would have him live upon the ruin of souls and wrong of the church and work of God and turn an enemy to the best of his flock, when he sees that they value him but as he deserves; and let none be so unwise as to be a preacher of that faith and love and holiness which he never had himself. And even to the calling of a physician none should be designed that have not a special ingenuity, and sagacity, and natural quickness of apprehension, unless he should make a trade of killing men, for it is a calling that requires a quick and strong conjecturing ability, which no study will bring a man that hath not a natural acuteness and aptitude thereto.  Thus also as to all other callings; you must consider not only the will of the child or parents, but their natural fitness of body and mind.[8]

Daily Journaling

Natural abilities 

Saturday 29 June 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Howard Thurman (1899-1981) grew up in poverty in Florida, raised by his grandmother, a former slave.  Educated at Morehouse, Columbia, and Rochester Seminary, he served many years as pastor of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco and Dean of the Chapel at Boston University.  His commitment to non-violence deeply influenced Martin Luther King, Jr., and other leaders of the civil rights movement.  He gave this sermon, based on Matthew 4:1-11, many time, beginning in the 1920s.[9]

Howard Thurman, “What Shall I Do with My Life?”

In the first temptation Jesus was hungry…Jesus was hungry because he had foregone these demands under the impelling power of a great concentration.  He was caught in the agonizing grip of a great challenge:  What shall I do with my life?  What must be for me an adequate disposition of my life?

…The danger for a hungry man in such a reflection is that the importance of food may be greatly overemphasized, for it is very natural to idealize possessions which we are denied.  With reference to the problem before him Jesus reached an amazingly significant conclusion.  Man must live on bread but not bread alone.  There is more besides, and it is this that reveals the true stature of the man.  Man must have food, yes.  But admitting this and seeing its practical significance in terms of actual survival, what then?  He must let the bias of his life be on the side of those needs that cannot be adequately included in creature demands.  …My interests in creature needs must be genuine and practical, but I must see these needs as things which may stand clearly in the way of the realization of the higher ends of life.  Feed the hungry?  Yes, and always.  But I must know that man is more than his physical body.  There is something in him that calls for beauty and comradeship and righteousness.  I love Jesus for the shaft of light that he throws across the pathway of those who seek to answer the question, What shall I do with my life?

In the second temptation Jesus is facing the problem of one of life’s great illusions.  The tempter suggests to him that if he were to go to the pinnacle of the temple and cast himself down, he would not be hurt; in other words, the operation of what we call natural law would be interrupted in his behalf and God would perform a miracle on the spot.  For, the tempter quietly whispers, the world of nature is not really orderly. …His choice here was on the side of the normal, natural working of the simple laws of life, demanding nothing of them that dared to stretch them out of shape.  To do so would have been to deceive himself and to have created a spiritual problem for which no solution could have been found..It is a terrible truth that life does not have a habit of making exceptions in our case even though we may be good in general, even though our fathers may be great men and our reputations of outstanding merit.  Let us not be deceived by the great illusions, but let us see the finger of God moving in the natural unfolding of antecedents and consequences.  I love Jesus for the shaft of light that he throws across the pathway of those who seek to answer the question, What shall I do with my life?

In the third temptation the tempter strikes at the center of Jesus’ dominant passion, to bring society under the acknowledged judgment of God and thereby insure its purification.  More and more as he lived, Jesus became the embodiment of this great desire.  He thought of himself as the example of the judgment and of the salvation of God. The tempter said to him, “Behold the kingdoms of the world. You want them to become the Kingdom of God.  But they belong to me.”  It seems to me that the full realization of the tempter’s thought came to Jesus with tremendous shock.  His reasoning may have been, “God created me; God created the world of nature; God created all mankind.  Therefore, God is the creator of the relationships that exist between men.” At this point the devil suggested, “You may be logical, but you are not true.  I made the relationships between men.”

..It seems to me that experience reveals a potent half-truth; namely, that the world can be made good if all the men in the world as individuals become good men.  After the souls of men are saved, the society in which they function will be a good society.  This is only a half-truth…It is not enough to save the souls of men; the relationships that exist between men must be saved also.

…We must, therefore, even as we purify our hearts and live our individual lives under the divine scrutiny, so order the framework of our relationships that good men can function in it to the glory of God.  I love the shaft of light that he throws across the pathway of those who seek to answer the question, What shall I do with my life?[10]

Daily Journaling

Living in community

[1]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), p. 343.

[2]John Henry Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons (London:  Longmans, Green, 1900), 11-15, 17-19.

[3]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), p. 232.

[4]John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill and trans. For Lewis Battles (Philadelphia:  Westminister, 1967), 2:974-976.

[5]Thomas Keating; Open Mind, Open Heart (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 1986), pp. 127-128.

[6]Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing, ed. By William Johnston (New York:  Doubleday, 1973), pp. 63-64.

[7]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), p. 278-279.

[8]Richard Baxter, The Practical Works of the Rev. Richard Baxter(London:  James Duncan, 1830), 577-87, Spelling and punctuation modernized.

[9]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), p. 385.

[10]Howard Thurman, “What Shall I Do with My Life? in A Strange Freedom, ed. Walter Earl Fluker and Catherine Tumber (Boston: Beacon, 1998), 30-34.  

Sunday 16 June 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Exodus 3:1-15, 4:10-17

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.’ When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then he said, ‘Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’ He said further, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

Then the Lord said, ‘I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.’ But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’ He said, ‘I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.’

But Moses said to God, ‘If I come to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your ancestors has sent me to you”, and they ask me, “What is his name?” what shall I say to them?’ God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’^* He said further, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “I am has sent me to you.” ’ God also said to Moses, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “The Lord,^* the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you”:
This is my name for ever, and this my title for all generations. 

But Moses said to the Lord, ‘O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.’ Then the Lord said to him, ‘Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak.’ But he said, ‘O my Lord, please send someone else.’ Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, ‘What of your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he can speak fluently; even now he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you his heart will be glad. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do. He indeed shall speak for you to the people; he shall serve as a mouth for you, and you shall serve as God for him. Take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs.’

Daily journaling

Facing your fears 

Monday 17 June 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Thomas Keating, Open Mind Open Heart

Contemplative prayer is the world in which God can do anything.  To move into that realm is the greatest adventure.  It is to be open to the Infinite and hence to infinite possibilities. Our private, self-made worlds come to an end; a new world appears within and around us and the impossible becomes an everyday experience.  Yet the world that prayer reveals is barely noticeable in the ordinary course of events.

Christian life and growth are founded on faith in our own basic goodness, in the being that God has given us with its transcendent potential.  This gift of being is our true Self.  Through our consent by faith, Christ is born in us and He and our true Self become one. Our awakening to the presence and action of the Spirit is the unfolding of Christ’s resurrection in us.

All true prayer is based on the conviction of the presence of the Spirit in us and of His unfailing and continual inspiration Every prayer in this sense is prayer in the Spirit.  Still, it seems more accurate to reserve the term prayer in the Spirit,for that prayer in which the inspiration of the Spirit is given directly to our spirit without the intermediary of our own reflections or acts of the will.  In other words, the Spirit prays in us and we consent.  The traditional term for this kind of prayer is contemplation.

Contemplative prayeris a process within contemplative life.  The former is an experience or series of experiences leading to the abiding state of union with God.  The term contemplative life is the abiding state of divine union itself, in which one is habitually and continuously moved both in prayer and action by the Spirit.  Centering prayer is an entrance into the process that leads to divine union.

The root of prayer is interior silence.  We may think of prayer as thoughts of feelings expressed in words, but this is only one of its form.  “Prayer,” according to Evagrius, “is the laying aside of thoughts.”  This definition presupposes that there are thoughts.  Centering prayer is not so much the absence of thoughts as detachment from them.  It is the opening of mind and heart, body and emotions—our whole being—to God, the Ultimate Mystery, beyond words, thoughts, and emotions—beyond, in other words, the psychological content of the present moment.  In centering prayer we do not deny or repress what is in our consciousness.  We simply accept the fact of whatever is there and go beyond it, not by effort, but by letting go of whatever is there….

In using this ancient formula it is important to keep in mind that it is not we who do the lifting.  In every kind of prayer the raising of the mind and heart to God can only be the work of the Spirit.  In prayer inspired by the Spirit we let ourselves flow with the lifting movement and drop all reflection.  Reflection is an important preliminary to prayer, but it is not prayer.  Prayer is not only the offering of interior acts to God: it is the offering of ourselves, of who we are just as we are.[1] 

Daily journaling

Offer yourself to God

Tuesday 18 June 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Simone Weil, “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God”

Simone Weil (1909-1943), precociously brilliant, studied and taught philosophy, and then involved in movements for workers’ rights, worked in an auto factory and did farm labor.  When the Germans occupied France, she joined the Resistance and later fled to England.  As a gesture of solidarity with those still in France, she refused to eat more than the minimum ration allowed to them.  She wrote this essay in 1942 for a group of Catholic school children.[2]

The key to a Christian conception of studies is the realization that prayer consists of attention.  It is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable towards God.  The quality of the attention counts for much in the quality of the prayer.  Warmth of heart cannot make up for it. 

Of school exercises only develop a lower kind of attention.  Nevertheless they are extremely effective in increasing the power of attention which will be available at the time of prayer, on condition that they are carried out with a view to this purpose and this purpose alone…

If we concentrate our attention on trying to solve a problem of geometry, and if at the end of an hour we are no nearer to doing so than at the beginning, we have nevertheless been making progress each minute of that hour in another more mysterious dimension.  Without our knowing or feeling it, this apparently barren effort has brought more light into the soul.  The result will one day be discovered in prayer.  Moreover, it may very likely be felt besides in some department of the intelligence in no way connected with mathematics.  Perhaps he who made the unsuccessful effort will one day be able to grasp the beauty of a line of Racine more vividly on account of it. But it is certain that this effort will bear its fruit in prayer.

Students must therefore work without any wish to gain good marks, to pass examinations, to win school successes; without any reference to their natural abilities and tastes; applying themselves equally to all their tasks, with the idea that each one will help to form in them the habit of that attention which is the substance of prayer. 

The second condition is to take great pains to examine squarely and contemplate attentively and slowly each school task in which we have failed seeing how unpleasing and second-rate it is, without seeking any excuse of overlooking any mistake or any of our tutor’s corrections, trying to get down to the origin of each fault.  There is a great temptation to do the opposite, to give a sideways glance at the corrected exercise if it is bad, and to hide it forthwith.   Most of us do this nearly always. 

If these two conditions are perfectly carried out, there is no doubt that school studies are quite as good a road to sanctity as any other.  …It is the part played by joy in our studies that makes of them a preparation for spiritual life, for desire directed towards God is the only power capable of raising the soul.  Or rather, it is God alone who comes down and possesses the soul, but desire along draws God down.  He only comes to those who ask him to come; and he cannot refuse to come to those who implore him long, often and ardently…..Twenty minutes of concentrated, untired attention is infinitely better than three hours of the kind of frowning application which leads us to say with a sense of duty done:  “I have worked well!”

Attention consists of suspending our thought, leaving it detached, empty and ready to be penetrated by the object, it means holding in our minds, within reach of this thought, but on a lower level and not in contact with it, the diverse knowledge we have acquired which we are forced to make use of.  Our thought should be in relation to all particular and already formulated thoughts, as a man on a mountain who, as he looks forward, sees also below him, without actually looking at them, a great many forests and plains.  Above all our thought should be empty, waiting, not seeking anything, but ready to receive in its naked truth the object which is to penetrate it.

We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them but by waiting for them.  Man cannot discover them by his own powers, and if he sets out to seek for them he will find in their place counterfeits of which he will be unable to discern the falsity.

Our first duty towards school-children and students is to make known this method to them, not only in a general way but in the particular form which bears on each exercise.  It is not only the duty of those who teach them, but also of their spiritual guides.  Moreover, the latter should bring out in a brilliantly clear light the correspondence between the attitude of the intelligence in each one of these exercises and the position of the soul, which, with its lamp well filled with oil, awaits the Bridegroom’s coming with confidence and desire.  May each loving adolescent, as he works at his Latin prose, hope through this prose to come a little nearer to the instant when he will really be the slave—faithfully waiting while the master is absent, watching and listening—ready to open the door to him as soon as he knocks.  The master will then make his slave sit down and himself serve him with meat.[3]

Daily journaling

Joy in studying

Wednesday 19 June 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Ignatius Loyola (1491 or 1495-1556), son of a Spanish noble family, pursued the life of a soldier until he was seriously wounded in battle. Forced to reflection during a long convalescence, he turn to a life of severe asceticism and then set about getting an education.  Some fellow students attracted by his passion and insight began the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits.  Parts of Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises have no more literary elegance than a cookbook, but, particularly when used by a spiritual director to guide a month-long retreat, the Exerciseshave been profoundly influential in shaping many lives.[4]

Ignatius Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises

Introduction to Making a Choice of a Way of Life

In every good choice, in so far as it depends upon us, the direction of our intention should be simple.  I must look only to the end for which I am created, that is, for the praise of God our Lord and for the salvation of my soul. Therefore, whatever I choose must have as its purpose to help me to this end.  I must not shape or draw the end to the means, but the means to the end. Many, for example, first choose marriage, which is a means, and secondarily to serve God our Lord in the married state, which service of God is the end.  Likewise there are others who first desire to have benefices (church offices with a guaranteed income), and afterward to serve God in them.  These individuals do not go straight to God, but want God to come straight to their inordinate attachments.  Acting thus, they make a means of the end, and an end of the means, so that what they ought to seek first, they seek last.  My first aim, then, should be my desire to serve God, which is the end, and after this, to seek a benefice or to marry, if it is more fitting for me, for these things are but means to the end.  Thus, nothing should move me to use such means or to deprive myself of them except it be only the service and praise of God our Lord and the eternal salvation of my soul….. 

Making a wise and good choice contain six points:

The first point:  To place before my mind’s eye the thing on which I wish to make a choice.

The second point:  I must have as my aim the end for which I am created, which is the praise of God our Lord and the salvation of my soul.

The third point:  I must ask God our Lord to deign to move my will and to reveal to my spirit what I should do to best promote His praise and glory in the matter of choice. 

The fourth point:  I will use my reason to weigh the many advantages and benefits that would accrue to me.

The fifth point:  After having thus weighed the matter and carefully examined it from every side I will consider which alternative appears more reasonable.

The sixth point:  After such a choice or decision has been reached I should turn with great diligence to prayer in the presence of God our Lord and offer Him this choice that His Divine Majesty may deign to accept and confirm it if it be to His greater service and praise.[5] 

Daily journaling

For what am I created

Thursday 20 June 2019 

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen. 

Reflection

John Wesley, “Sermon 51:  The Good Steward”

“Give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward.” (Luke 16:2)

The relation which man bears to God, the creature to his Creator, is exhibited to us in the oracles of God under various representations.  Considered as a sinner, a fallen creature, he is there represented as a debtor to his Creator.  He is also frequently represented as a servant, which indeed is essential to him as a creature; insomuch that this appellation is given to the Son of God when in his state of humiliation:  He “took upon him the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:7). 

But no character more exactly agrees with the present state of man than that of a steward.  Our blessed Lord frequently represents him as such; and there is a peculiar propriety in the representation.  It is only in one particular respect, namely, as he is a sinner, that he is styled a debtor and when he is styled a servant, the appellation is general and indeterminate.  But a steward is a servant of a particular kind; such a one as man is in all respects. This appellation is exactly expressive of his situation in the present world; specifying what kind of servant he is to God, and what kind of service his Divine Master expects from him. 

In so many respects are the children of men stewards of the Lord, the Possessor of heaven and earth:  So large a portion of his goods, of various kinds, hath he committed to their charge.  But it is not for ever, no indeed for any considerable time:  We have this trust reposed in us only during the short, uncertain space that we sojourn here below, only so long as we remain on earth, as this fleeting breath is in our nostrils.  The hour is swiftly approaching; it is just at hand, when we “can be no longer stewards” (Luke 16:2)!  The moment the body “returns to the dust as it was, and the spirit to God that gave it” (Eccl. 12:7), we bear that character no more; the time of our stewardship is at an end.  Part of those goods wherewith we were before entrusted are now come to an end; at least, they are so with regard to us; nor are we longer entrusted with them:  And that part which remains can no longer be employed or improved as it was before….

Didst thou employ thy health and strength, not in folly or sin, not in the pleasures which perished in the using, ‘not in making provision for the flesh, to fulfill the desires thereof’ (Rom. 13:14); but in a vigorous pursuit of that better part which none could take away from thee? Didst thou employ whatever was pleasing in thy person or address, whatever advantages thou had by education, whatever share of learning, whatever knowledge of things or men, was committed to thee, for the promoting of virtue in the world, for the enlargement of my kingdom?  Did thou employ whatever share of power thou had, whatever influence over others, by the love or esteem of thee which they had conceived, for the increase of their wisdom and holiness?  Didst thou employ that inestimable talent of time, with wariness and circumspection, as duly weighing the value of every moment, and knowing that all were numbered in eternity?  Above all, wast thou a good steward of my grace, preventing, accompanying, and following thee?  Did thou duly observe and carefully improve all the influences of my Spirit? every good desire? every measure of light? All his sharp or gentle reproofs?  How didst thou profit by ‘the Spirit of bondage and fear,’ which was previous to ‘the Spirit of adoption’ (Rom. 8:15)”  And when thou were made a partaker of this Spirit, crying in thy hear, ‘Abba, Father’ (Rom. 8:15), didst thou stand fast in the glorious liberty wherewith I made thee free?  Did thou from thenceforth present thy soul and body, all thy thoughts, thy words, and actions, in one flame of love, as a holy sacrifice, glorify me with thy body and thy spirit?  Then ‘well done, good and faithful servant!  Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord’ (Matt. 25:21)!”[6] 

Daily journaling

A good steward

Friday 21 June 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Gordon T. Smith; The Voice of Jesus, Discernment, Prayer and the Witness of the Spirit

Taking responsibility for our choices and decisions is a part of becoming an adult and maturing in our faith.  As noted, we are not alone, so when in our choosing we seek to be attentive to the Spirit, we are not escaping from the world or evading the act of choosing.  Rather, recognizing our capacity to choose poorly, and longing to choose not only the good but the best, we approach our decision making with a posture of discernment. We seek to make our choices in a way that is informed by our personal encounter with Christ and the inner witness of the Spirit to our hearts.  And what we find is that where the Spirit is, there is freedom, and thus choices and decisions lie before us not as burdens but as challenges and opportunities to grow in faith, hope and love.  We can act with courage, grace and generosity. 

The grace we seek is to discern and embrace the life to which we are called by God, to act with integrity, to see and appreciate how God is active in our world.  Moreover, what we seek is not just awareness of the general way in which God is at work in the world but the specific way in which God is calling us to act. God’s call on our lives is specific and unique.  There is no set formula for our lives.  Rather, as women and men in Christian community who live in active engagement with the Scriptures, we seek the best for our lives, particularly in the choices we make. 

God is fully present to us in our times of decision, but we will learn to appropriate this reality and respond to the inner witness in times of choice only if we learn, in turn, to be present to God. And this requires that we be intentional, not impulsive.  We can learn not to trust the moment or what feels good or right but rather approach our decisions with thoughtfulness.  Good decision making is the fruit of a choice that is well considered.

Wise Christians are not impressed by the common notion that spontaneity is more life giving, more fun or a great reflection of the presence of the Spirit in our lives.  To the contrary, they recognize that the Spirit is very much present to us, but that we cannot trust the impulses of our hearts.  We cannot trust spontaneity but must be discerning.[7] 

Daily journaling

Choosing well 

Saturday 22 June 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

1. I. Packer, “Finding God’s Will”

Even with right ideas about guidance in general, however, it is still easy to go wrong, particularly in vocational choices. No area of life bears clearer witness to the frailty of human nature, even regenerate human nature.  The work of God in these cases is to incline first our judgment and then our whole being to the course that, of all the competing alternatives, he has marked out as best suited for us, for his glory and for the good of others through us.  But the Spirit can be quenched, and we can all too easily behave in a way that prevents this guidance from getting through.  It is worth listing some of the main pitfalls.

First, unwillingness to think.  It is false piety, supernaturalism of an unhealthy and pernicious sort, that demands inward impressions that have no rational base and declines to heed the constant biblical summons to consider. God made us thinking beings, and he guides our minds so that in his presence we think things out—no guidance otherwise!  “O that they were wise…that they would consider“(Deut 32:29KJV).

Second, unwillingness to think aheadand weigh the long-term consequences of alternative courses of action.  “Think ahead” is part of the divine rule of life no less than of the human rule of the road.  Often we can only see what is wise and right (and what is foolish and wrong) as we dwell on long-term consequences.  “O that they were wise ..that they would consider their latter end.”

Third, unwillingness to take advice.  Scripture is emphatic on the need for this.  “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice” (Prov 12:15).  It is a sign of conceit and immaturity to ignore advice in major decisions.  There are always people who know the Bible, human nature, and our own gift and limitations better than we do.  Even if we cannot finally accept their advice, only good will come to us from carefully weighing what they say.

Fourth, unwillingness to suspect oneself.  We dislike being realistic with ourselves, and we do not know ourselves at all well; we can recognize rationalizations in others and quite overlook them in ourselves. States of feeling that have an ego-boosting, escapist, self-indulging or self-aggrandizing base must be detected and discredited, not mistaken for guidance…..

Fifth, unwillingness to discount personal magnetism.   Those who have not been made deeply aware of pride and self-deception in themselves cannot always detect these things in others.  This has from time to time made it possible for well-meaning but deluded people with a flair for self-dramatization to gain an alarming domination over the minds and consciences of others…They and their views must be respected but may not be idolized.  “But test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thess 5:21).

Sixth, unwillingness to wait.  “Wait on the Lord” is a constant refrain in the Psalms.  It is a necessary word, for God often keeps us waiting.  He is not in such a hurry as we are, and it is not his way to give more light on the future than we need for action in the present or to guide us more than one step at a time.  When in doubt, do nothing, but continue to wait on God.  When action is needed, light will come.[8]

Daily journaling

Sound judgment

[1]Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 1986), pp. 11-12.

[2]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), p. 400.

[3]Simone Weil, Waiting on God, trans. Emma Gruafurd (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951), 51-57.

[4]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), p. 239.

[5]The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, trans. Anthony Mottola (Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1964), 82-87.

[6]John Wesley, “Sermon 51,” in The Works of John Wesley(Grand Rapids:  Baker, 2002), 4:136-37, 139-140,147.

[7]Gordon T. Smith, The Voice of Jesus; Discernment, Prayer and the Witness of the Spirit (Downers Grove, IL:  Intervarsity Press, 2003), pp. 132-134.

[8]J. I. Packer, “Finding God’s Will” (Downers Grove, IL:  InterVarsity Press, 1985), p. 17-22.

The Rev. Dr. James Detrich: Reflections on Spiritual Autobiography

During my discernment for the priesthood, I met with my Parish Committee on Vocations.  In my experience, the folks at my parish came prepared and they asked me good questions.  They included my wife in one of those meetings, which I believe is essential.  They asked me to write a biography of who I was as a person—and that began a very vital part of the process for me.  That part is simple:  who are you? What I’ve seen in ministry is that if you don’t know who you are—how God has formed and shaped you—what strengths and weaknesses you have—I don’t think you can be terribly effective as a leader. Knowing often provides confidence. And it can help you shape the decisions you make (i.e., hiring staff/recruiting volunteers who provide strengths that you simple cannot).  My only suggestion would be that perhaps more of that could be part of the process. How can parishes more effectively emphasize the importance of knowing yourself and what kind of exercises can an aspirant do to maybe help with that process?  Knowing yourself and discerning a call, it seems to me, come together as they feed off one another. 

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

The Cloud of Unknowing is an anonymous work of Christian mysticism written in Middle English in the latter half of the 14th century. The text is a spiritual guide on contemplative prayer in the late Middle Ages. The book counsels a young student to seek God, not through knowledge of the mind, but through intense contemplation, motivated by love, and stripped of all thought.

Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 3

How the work of contemplation shall be done; of its excellence over all other works. 

This is what you are to do:  lift your heart up to the Lord, with a gentle stirring of love desiring him for his own sake and not for his gifts.  Center all your attention and desire on him and let this be the sole concern of your mind and heart.  Do all in your power to forget everything else, keeping your thoughts and desires free from involvement with any of God’s creatures or their affairs whether in general or in particular.  Perhaps this will seem like an irresponsible attitude, but I tell you, let them all be; pay no attention to them.

What I am describing here is the contemplative work of the spirit.  It is this which gives God the greatest delight.  For when you fix your love on him, forgetting all else, the saints and angels rejoice and hasten to assist you in every way—though the devils will rage and ceaselessly conspire to thwart you.  Your fellow men are marvelously enriched by this work of yours, even if you may not fully understand how; the souls in purgatory are touched, for their suffering is eased by the effects of this work; and, of course, your own spirit is purified and strengthened by this contemplative work more than by all others put together.  Yet for all this, when God’s grace arouses you to enthusiasm, it becomes the lightest sort of work there is and one most willingly done. Without his grace, however, it is very difficult and almost, I should say, quite beyond you. 

And so diligently persevere until you feel joy in it.  For in the beginning it is usual to feel nothing but a kind of darkness about your mind, or as it were, a cloud of unknowing.  You will seem to know nothing and to feel nothing except a naked intent toward God in the depths of your being.  Try as you might, this darkness and this cloud will remain between you and your God. You will feel frustrated, for your mind will be unable to grasp him, and your heart will not relish the delight of his love.  But learn to be at home in this darkness.  Return to it as often as you can, letting your spirit cry out to him whom you love. For if, in this life, you hope to feel and see God as he is in himself it must be within this darkness and this cloud. But is you strive to fix your love on him forgetting all else, which is the work of contemplation I have urged you to begin, I am confident that God in his goodness will bring you to a deep experience of himself. 

Daily journaling

Center your thoughts on God.

Monday 10 June 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen 

Reflection

The expansion of factories and industry in the nineteenth century created a class of wealthy owners, a class of industrial workers, and a host of new social problems.  Socialists proposed that the state should take over the factories from private ownership.  In this official papal statement, Leo XIII (1810-1903, pope from 1878 until his death) sought a middle ground, recognizing the oppression workers could suffer but rejecting the abolition of private property as a solution.  In the Catholic tradition, Leo thinks of a job primarily as a way to support one’s family, not as a calling in itself.  “Rerum Novarum” (“New things”) is conservative on issues of the father’s place in the family, but it was and is radical on issues of labor and capital.[1] 

Pope Leo XIII, “Rerum Novarum,” The Papal Encyclicals 1878-1903

But the Church, with Jesus Christ as her Master and Guide, aims higher still.  She lays down precepts yet more perfect, and tries to bind class to class in friendliness and good feeling.  The things of earth cannot be understood or valued aright without taking into consideration the life to come, the life that will know no death.  Exclude the idea of futurity, and forthwith the very notion of what is good and right would perish; nay, the whole scheme of the universe would become a dark and unfathomable mystery.  The great truth which we learn from nature herself is also the grand Christian dogma on which religion rests as on its foundation—that, when we have given up this present life, then shall we really begin to live.  God has not created us for the perishable and transitory things of earth, but for things heavenly and everlasting; He has given us this world as a place of exile, and not as our abiding place.  As for riches and the other things which men call good and desirable, whether we have them in abundance, or are lacking in them—so far as eternal happiness is concerned—it makes no difference; the only important thing is to use them aright.  Jesus Christ, when He redeemed us with plentiful redemption, took not away the pains and sorrows which in such large proportion are woven together in the web of our mortal life.  He transformed them into motives of virtue and occasions of merit; and no man can hope for eternal reward unless he follow in the blood-stained footprints of his Savior. “If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him” (Rom. 8:17).  Christ’s labors and sufferings, accepted of His own free will, have marvelously sweetened all suffering and all labor.  And not only by His example, but by His grace and by the hope held forth of everlasting recompense, has He made pain and grief more easy to endure; “for that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17).

It rests on the principle that it is one thing to have a right to the possession of money and another to have a right to use money as one wills.  Private ownership, as we have seen, is the natural right of man, and to exercise that right especially as members of society, is not only lawful, but absolutely necessary.  “It is lawful,” says St. Thomas Aquinas, “for a man to hold private property; and it is also necessary for the carrying on of human existence.” But if the question be asked; How must one’s possession be used?—the Church replies without hesitation in the words of the same holy Doctor;  “Man should not consider his material possessions as his own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others are in need. Whence the apostle saith, ‘Command the rich of this world….to offer with no stint, to apportion largely’” (1Tim. 6:17-18).  To sum up, then, what has been said;  Whoever has received from the divine bounty a large share of temporal blessings, whether they be external and material, or gifts of the mind, has received them for the purpose of using them for the perfecting of his own nature, and, at the same time, that he may employ them, as the steward of God’s providence, for the benefit of others.

As for those who posses not the gifts of fortune, they are taught by the Church that in God’s sight poverty is no disgrace, and that there is nothing to be ashamed of in earning their bread by labor.  This is enforced by what we see in Christ Himself, who, “whereas He was rich, for our sakes became poor’ (2 Cor. 8:9); and who, being the Son of God, and God Himself, chose to seem and to be considered the son of a carpenter—nay, did not disdain to spend a great part of His life as a carpenter Himself.  “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” (Mark 6:3)[2]

Daily Journaling

The gift of work

Tuesday 11 June 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) grew up, the son of an artist, in France, England, and the United States.  After studying at Columbia University in New York, he was writing poetry and very much living the life of a young bohemian until his conversion to Catholicism in 1938. In 1941, he joined the Trappist monastery at Gethsemani in Kentucky.  Dedicated to a life of silence, the Trappists, an offshoot of the Cistercian order, are perhaps that most rigorous of monastic orders today. Merton’s autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, published in 1948, became a best-seller, and he continued to write poems and essays, attacking racism, poverty, and nuclear armament as well as discussing the spiritual life. He died in Bangkok, where he had gone to a meeting between Catholic and Buddhist monks.[3]

Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island

Each one of us has some kind of vocation.  We are all called by God to share in His life and in His Kingdom,  Each one of us is called to a special place in the Kingdom. If we find that place we will be happy. If we do not find it, we can never be completely happy.  For each one of us, there is only one thing necessary:  to fulfill our own destiny, according to God’s will, to be what God wants us to be.

We must not imagine that we discover this destiny only by a game of hide-and-seek with Divine Providence.  Our vocation is not a sphinx’s riddle which we must solve in one guess or else perish. Some people find, in the end, that they have made many wrong guesses and that their paradoxical vocation is to go through life guessing wrong.  It takes them a long time to find out that they are happier that way.

Our vocation is not a supernatural lottery but the interaction of two freedoms, and therefore, of two loves.  It is hopeless to try to settle the problem of vocation outside the context of friendship and of love.  We speak of Providence:  that is a philosophical term.  The Bible speaks of our Father in Heaven.  Providence is, consequently, more than an institution, it is a person. More than a benevolent stranger, He is our Father.  And even the term “Father” is too loose a metaphor to contain all the depths of the mystery:  for He loves us more than we love ourselves, as if we were Himself.  He loves us, moreover, with our own wills, with our own decisions.  How can we understand the mystery of our union with God Who is closer to us than we are to ourselves?  It is His very closeness that makes it difficult for us to think of Him.  He Who is infinitely above us, infinitely different from ourselves, infinitely “other” than we, nevertheless dwells in our souls, watches over every movement of our life with as much love as if we were His own self.  His love is at work bringing good out of all our mistakes and defeating even our sins.

In planning the course of our lives, we must remember the importance and the dignity of our own freedom.  A man who fears to settle his future by a good act of his own free choice does not understand the love of God.  For our freedom is a gift God has given us in order that He may be able to love us more perfectly, and be love by us more perfectly in return.

There is something in the depths of our being that hungers for wholeness and finality. Because we are made for eternal life, we are made for an act that gathers up all the powers and capacities of our being and offers them simultaneously and forever to God.  The blind spiritual instinct that tells us obscurely that our own lives have a particular importance and purpose, and which urges us to find out our vocation, seeks in do doing to bring us to a decision that will dedicate our lives irrevocable to their true purpose.[4]

Daily Journaling

God’s gift of freedom  

Wednesday 12 June 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) grew up in a prosperous Danish family and was preparing to get married and studying for ordination as a Lutheran pastor.  But he felt himself called to be a kind of Christian Socrates.  Just as Socrates had challenged Athenians to realize how little they knew, so Kierkegaard challenged Danish Christians to realize how little faith they had.  He faced, he wrote, the particularly difficult task of introducing real Christianity into a country where everyone thought they were already Christians—but they were far too comfortable, they thought faith far too easy.  He wrote a series of books; Fear and Trembling appeared as written by “Johannes de Silentio.”  Johannes admits that he is not a Christian; he lacks faith.  But, reading the story in Genesis 22 of how God called Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, Johannes at least recognizes that Abraham’s kind of faith is an amazing thing, far beyond what he can understand.  Faith—a faith that goes beyond resignation in the face of life’s tragedies and may challenge basic ethical principles—may be the highest vocation of all.[5]

Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

By faith Abraham emigrated from the land of his fathers and became an alien in the promised land.  He left one thing behind, took one thing along:  he left behind his worldly understanding, and he took along his faith. Otherwise he certainly would not have emigrated but surely would have considered it unreasonable.  By faith he was an alien in the promised land, and there was nothing that reminded him of what he cherished, but everything by its newness tempted his soul to sorrowful longing.  And yet he was God’s chosen one in whom the Lord was well pleased!  As a matter of fact, if he had been an exile, banished from God’s grace, he could have better understood it—but now it was as if he and his faith were being mocked.  There was also in the world one who lived in exile from the native land he loved.  He is not forgotten, nor are his dirges of lamentation when he sorrowfully sought and found what was lost.  There is no dirge by Abraham.  It is human to lament, human to weep with one who weeps, but it is greater to have faith, more blessed to contemplate the man of faith. 

By faith he received the promise that in his seed all the generation of the earth would be blessed.  Time passes, the possibility was there, Abraham had faith; time passed, it became unreasonable, Abraham had faith.  ….We have no dirge of sorrow by Abraham.  As time passed, he did not gloomily count the days; he did not stop the course of the sun so she would not become old and along with her his expectancy; he did not soothingly sing his mournful lay for Sarah.  Abraham became old, Sarah the object of mockery in the land, and yet he was God’s chosen one and heir to the promise that in his seed all the generations of the earth would be blessed.

But Abraham had faith and did not doubt; he believed the preposterous. If Abraham had doubted, then he would have done something else, something great and glorious, for how could Abraham do anything else but what is great and glorious!  He would have gone to Mount Moriah, he would have split the firewood, lit the fire, drawn the knife.  He would have cried out to God, “Reject not this sacrifice; it is notthe best that I have, that I know very well, for what is an old man compared with the child of promise, but it is the best I can give you.  Let Isaac never find this out so that he may take comfort in his youth.” He would have thrust the knife into his own breast.  He would have been admired in the world, and his name would never be forgotten; but it is one thing to be admired and another to become a guiding star that saves the anguished.  [6]

Daily Journaling

God provides

Thursday 13 June 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Gordon T. Smith, The Voice of Jesus

Spiritual discernment is an intentional way by which we respond with courage and integrity to our world.  Discernment enables us both to see the world more clearly and to respond well to what we see.  We discern our circumstances; we then, in turn, discern the appropriate response.

This discernment includes the capacity to know one’s vocation, or how one is being called, at this time and in this place, to give of one’s energies, whether that is in a career or in volunteer service.  It also involves moral discernment—the capacity to see how one should respond in love and justice to a moral dilemma.  Both have to do with discerning how we act in the world, in response to the call of Christ.  And in both cases we are being called to offer not a vague, general response to God but a specific response to whom we are being called to be at this time and place. 

What this means for the Christian believer is that vocational discernment intersects our lives at regular intervals.  It is not now (if it ever was) a spiritual exercise merely for the young person who is trying to choose a career.  The task of discerning vocation is fundamental for anyone who wishes to live with personal integrity, courage, and authenticity.  We come up against the challenge of vocational discernment again and again and again.  …Nothing is routine other than the reality that at frequent intervals we are challenged with discerning vocation—who am I and to what am I being called?  And when we face these passages, what we long for is to hear the voice of Jesus. 

Further, there is a sense in which part of Christian discipleship is accepting with grace that we each have a cross to bear.  This is not some kind of martyr complex or masochism.  Rather, it is an acknowledgment that in our calling we identify with the suffering of Christ.  The brokenness of the world inevitably impacts our lives, and so our work will, in either an obvious or more subtle way, be a mysterious means by which we identify with Christ and his work (Rom 8:17). 

But though we are called to bear the cross, we are certainly not called to bear each and every cross!  Jesus, in the last moments before his Passion, probably had a keen awareness of the cross he was facing.  Nevertheless there, in the Garden of Gethsemane, he discerned with certainty that he was to accept the horror and humiliation of crucifixion and the abuse of the religious and political leaders of his day.  And in our identification with him, while we may not have a Gethsemane counterpart, our discernment will often include an awareness of the cross that we are, or may be, called to bear.[7] 

Daily Journaling

Identifying with Christ’s Passion

Friday 14 June 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

Francis of Assisi (1181-1226), the son of an Italian merchant, found himself called to a life of radical poverty and service. When others sought to follow him, he obtained the permission of Pope Innocent III to found a new order, eventually called the Franciscans.  Bonaventure (about 1217-1274) joined the Franciscan order less than twenty years after Francis’s death and became one of the great theologians of his time.  His biography of Francis came to be the official account of the saint’s life.[8]

Up to this time, however, Francis was ignorant of God’s plan for him.  He was distracted by the external affairs of his father’s business and drawn down toward earthly things by the corruption of human nature.  As a result, he had not yet learned how to contemplate the things of heaven nor had he acquired a taste for the things of God.  Since affliction can enlighten our spiritual awareness (Isa. 28:19), the hand of the Lord came upon him (Ezek. 1:3) and the right hand of God effected a change in him (Ps. 76:11), God afflicted his body with a prolonged illness in order to prepare his soul for the anointing of the Holy Spirit.  After his strength was restored, when he had dressed as usual in his fine clothes, he met a certain knight who was of noble birth, but poor and badly clothed.  Moved to compassion for his poverty, Francis took off his own garments and clothed the man on the spot.  At one and the same time he fulfilled the two-fold duty of covering over the embarrassment of a noble knight and relieving the poverty of a poor man.

The following night, when he had fallen asleep, God in his goodness showed him a large and splendid palace full of military weapons emblazoned with the insignia of Christ’s cross.  Thus God vividly indicated that the compassion he had exhibited toward the poor knight for love of the supreme King would be repaid with an incomparable reward. And so when Francis asked to whom these belonged, he received an answer from heaven that all these things were for him and his knights.  When he awoke in the morning, he judged the strange vision to be an indication that he would have great prosperity; for he had no experience in interpreting divine mysteries nor did he know how to pass through visible images to grasp the invisible truth beyond.  Therefore, still ignorant of God’s plan, he decided to join a certain count in Apulia, hoping in his service to obtain the glory of knighthood, as his vision seemed to foretell.

He set out on his journey shortly afterwards; but when he had gone as far as the next town, he heard during the night the Lord address him in a familiar way, saying:  “Francis, who can do more for you, a lord or a servant, a rich man or a poor man?” When Francis replied that a lord and a rich man could do more, he was at once asked:  “Why then, are you abandoning the Lord for a servant and the rich God for a poor man?”  And Francis replied:  “Lord, what will you have me do?” (Acts 9:6).  And the Lord answered him:  “Return to your own land (Gen. 32:9), because the vision which you have seen foretells a spiritual outcome which will be accomplished in you not by human but by divine planning.”  In the morning (John 21:4), then, he returned in haste to Assisi, joyous and free of care; already a model of obedience, he awaited the Lord’s will.[9] 

Daily Journaling

Waiting for God’s will

Saturday 15 June 2019

Prayer

Most powerful Holy Spirit, come down upon us and subdue us. From heaven, where the ordinary is made glorious, and glory seems but ordinary, bathe us with the brilliance of your light like dew. Amen

Reflection

St. John of the Cross, Juan de Ypes y Alvarez, was born in 1542 of Jewish ancestry, in the town of Fontiveros near Avila, Spain. He died, aged 49, in 1591.  He was ordained a priest in 1567.  Soon after that he met St. Teresa of Avila who persuaded him to join her in the reform of the Carmelites.  ….St. John of the Cross seems to have found his inspiration for his teachings on mystical theology from his own experience.  He knew the Scriptures by heart and was well versed in the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas.  …He teaches, evidently from his own experience, that the soul must empty itself of itself in order to be filled with God.           

St. John of the Cross, The Dark Night of the Soul

By way of love this dark contemplation infuses into the soul a secret, dark wisdom.  It is called secret and dark because it is not known to the intellect or our other faculties.  This wisdom cannot be fathomed by the intellect or the world or the flesh or the devil since it is given directly by God.  Thus it is protected from them all.  This contemplation, or wisdom of love, communicates an illumination which is ineffable.  The soul cannot adequately express it or describe it or communicate it in any way.

It is beyond the ability of the imaginative faculty to deal with it.  It is so spiritual and intimate to the soul that it transcends everything sensory and even the ability of the exterior and interior senses.  This results in the soul being so elevated and exalted that it sees every created thing as deficient and inadequate in dealing with this divine experience.  The soul has been brought into the realm of mystical theology which is essentially dark and secret to all of its faculties and natural capacity.

This secret wisdom is like a ladder which the soul climbs to get to the treasures of heaven.  Like a ladder it goes up and down, up to God and down to self-humiliation.  According to Proverbs the soul is humbled before it is exalted and it is exalted before it is humbled.  Tempests and trials usually follow prosperity.  Abundance and peace succeed misery and torment. Perfect love of God and contempt of self cannot exist without knowledge of God and knowledge of self.  The former is exultation; the latter is humility. Like a ladder, or step by step, this secret knowledge both illumines and enamors the soul raising it up to God. [10]

Daily Journaling

Knowledge of God and self

[1]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), pp. 359-360.

[2]Pope Leo XIII, “Rerum Novarum,” The Papal Encyclicals 1878-1903, ed. Claudia Carlen Ihm (Raleigh, N. C.:  McGrath, 1981) 241-47, 251-53.

[3]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005), p. 421.

[4]Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island(New York:  Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1955), 131-33, 140-48, 152-57.

[5]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005),  p. 333.

[6]Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 17-21, 28-30, 32-33, 37-41.

[7]Gordon T. Smith, The Voice of Jesus; Discernment, Prayer and the Witness of the Spirit (Downers Grove, IL:  Intervarsity Press, 2003), pp. 183, 185, 186. 

[8]William C. Placher, Callings, Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 2005),  p. 143.

[9]Bonaventure, The Life of St. Francis, trans. Ewert Cousins (Mahwah, N.J.:  Paulist, 1978), 186-88.

[10]William Meninger, OCSO; St. John of the Cross (New York:  Lantern Books, 2014), pp. 185-187.