You Are Called: Week 5

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Sunday 7 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

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.

You Are Called: Week 4

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Video: Spiritual Assessment 

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.

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The Commission on Ministry offers this six-week program to help participants discern their call to serve God's Kingdom. Each week includes a theme, and each day offers a prayer, reflection, and journal entry assignment to aid vocation discernment for laity. The program's principal book is Gordon Smith's, "Consider Your Calling, Six Questions for Discerning Your Vocation."