July 16 Week Reflections

Sunday-Ps. 119:105-112 could easily be missed in the  midst of this long, long prayer. In what ways is the message of God a light for you? How do you hold your life (or soul, perhaps)  in your hand and seek to follow God? When have you been afflicted? Where does your heart incline, in what direction(s)?

Monday-"God can be reached and held by means of love, but by means of thought, never."

~ The Cloud of Unknowing a 14-century spiritual guide's text on contemplative prayer

Tuesday-Albert Einstein-Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he feels it. But from the viewpoint of daily life – without going deeper – we exist for each other; in the first place, for those on whose smiles and welfare all our happiness depends, and next, for all those unknown to us personally, with whose destinies we are bound up by the tie of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depends on the labors of others, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.

Wednesday-Mother Maria Skobtsova-The eyes of love will perhaps be able to see how Christ himself departs, quietly and invisibly, from the sanctuary that is protected by a splendid iconostasis. The singing will continue to resound, the clouds of incense will arise, the faithful will be overcome by the ecstatic beauty of the services. But Christ will go out onto the church steps and mingle with the crowd: the poor, the lepers, the desperate, the embittered, the holy fools. Christ will go out into the streets, the prisons, the low haunts and dives. Again and again.

Thursday-Albert Schweitzer-We live in a time when the good faith of peoples is doubted more than ever before. Expressions throwing doubt on the trustworthiness of each other are bandied back and forth.… We cannot continue in this paralyzing mistrust...We must approach them in the spirit that we are human beings, all of us, and that we feel ourselves fitted to feel with each other; to think and will together in the same way.

Friday-perhaps Christ is nearer to you than He is to me: this I say without shame or guilt because I have learned to rejoice that Jesus is in the world in people who know Him not, that He is at work in them when they think themselves far from Him, and it is my joy to tell you to hope though you think that for you of all hope is impossible. Hope not because you think you can be good, but because God loves us irrespective of our merits and whatever is good in us comes from His love, not from our own doing. Hope because Jesus is with those who are poor and outcasts and perhaps despised even by those who should seek them and care for them most lovingly because they act in God's name. No one on earth has reason to despair of Jesus because Jesus loves man, loves him in his sin, and we too must love man in his sin." (Thomas Merton)

Saturday-Dorothy Day-Paperwork, cleaning the house, dealing with the innumerable visitors who come all through the day, answering the phone, keeping patience and acting intelligently, which is to find some meaning in all that happens – these things, too, are the works of peace.