Archive for 2009
Glory to God in the Highest: A Prayer on Christmas Day
Glory to God in the Highest! A Prayer on Christmas Day O Lord, open my lips. And my mouth shall declare your praise. Glory to God in the highest. And peace to God’s people on earth. CHRISTMAS PRAYER At the coming in the flesh of your own dear Son, O great Light of all nations,…
Read MoreAdvent 4: The Courage to Say Yes
“We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born.” Meister Eckhart In the fourth week of Advent we begin to move beyond waiting and preparation to a deeper sense of joyful anticipation. We are moving closer to the birth of our Lord and the Old and New…
Read MoreAdvent 3: The Messenger and the Message
“The house of my soul is too narrow for Thee to come in; let it be enlarged by Thee. It is in ruins. Do Thou restore it.” -Augustine In this week’s Gospel reading (Luke 3:7-18), John the Baptist is on a rant. I guess we could describe it more delicately by calling it a prophetic…
Read MoreAdvent 2: Necessary Preparations
“The word of God came to John in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of Isaiah, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” ~from Luke 3:1-6 Recently I started writing a new book which…
Read MoreAdvent: The Courage to Wait
“God comes to us like the sun in the morning…when it is time. We must assume an attitude of waiting, accepting the fact that we are creatures and not the creator. We must do this because it is not our right to do anything else. The initiative is God’s, not ours. We are able to…
Read MoreSweet Hours of Prayer: How Fixed Hour Prayer Nurtures Community
Part II “We are formed together as we learn to pray together. Ancient Jews and Christians uttered sacred prayers together. They did this every day—together. These prayers established sacred rhythms to their days and lives as a community. And they can do the same today. For us. As the Church. As a community of faith.”…
Read MoreInvitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God’s Transforming Presence
“Without solitude it is impossible to have a spiritual life.” –Henri Nouwen It is a wonderful thing to be invited. Not coerced or manipulated but truly invited. To the home of someone you have looked forward to getting to know…to a party with fun people…on a date with someone who is intriguing. There is something…
Read MoreAvailable to God on Behalf of Others
“On the day I called, you answered me, you increased my strength of soul.” Psalm 138:3 This week I went to a funeral with my daughter, Haley. It was the funeral for one of her friends who died in a complicated way from causes that were not entirely clear. An Eagle Scout, a disciplined athlete,…
Read MoreHoly Week: An Invitation to Walk with Christ
“Stay together, friends, don’t scatter and sleep. Our friendship is made of being awake.” Rumi In her book Cloister Walk, Kathleen Norris comments that in a monastery, Holy Week is “a total surrender to worship.” This surrender allows for a greater focus on the events leading up to and moving us through Resurrection Sunday—Jesus’ gathering…
Read MorePracticing Repentance
“While the truth that we cannot escape God’s all-seeing eye may weigh us down at times, it is finally the only remedy for our uneasiness. Only under God’s steady gaze of love are we able to find the healing and restoration we so desperately need.” –Marjorie Thompson I remember an experience with a church elder…
Read MoreLent: An Invitation to Return to God
“Yet even now, says the Lord, repent and return to me with all your heart.” Joel 2:13 Today is Ash Wednesday—the beginning of the Church’s observance of the Lenten season. It is a space in time in which we are called to stop whatever we are doing, no matter how important it might be, and…
Read MoreMake a Joyful Silence
“On the day I called, you answered me, you increased my strength of soul.” Psalm 138:3 Long ago, a wise spiritual director said to me, “Ruth, you are like a jar of river water all shaken up. What you need is to sit still long enough so that the sediment can settle and the water…
Read MoreSpiritual Transformation: Hype or Hope?
Why are you so downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. Psalm 42:5 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2 Let’s be honest. To…
Read MoreDiscernment: Finding God in All Things
“Discernment in its fullness takes a practiced heart, fine-tuned to hear the word of God and the single-mindedness to follow that word in love. It is truly a gift from God, but not one dropped from the skies fully formed. It is a gift cultivated by a prayerful life and the search for self-knowledge.” –Ernest…
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