Sunday-Ps.32 is a great penitential psalm, perfect for the first sunday in Lent.This time I’ve noticed that silence about sin beings distress, and confession brings relief. It relies on the goodness of God as a refuge in times of distress. that includes sin.
Monday-We cannot live in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a hope. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening. To use our own voice. To see our own light. - Hildegard argues from the perspective of one often silenced in society. I think it would be better ot balance her statement and see the world interpreted by others and by ourselves and to seek a balance there and to accept the tension always there.
Tuesday-“The Eucharist is a drama in three acts---faith, hope, love---through which we share God’s life and begin even now to be touched by God’s happiness. Each act prepares for the next." Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, Why Go To Church?
Wednesday-"...the Lord is more constant and far more extravagant than it seems to imply. Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don't have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see. Only, who could have the courage to see it?" The Reverend John Ames in Marilynne Robinson's "Gilead: A Novel"
Thursday-"No, my life is not this precipitous hour through which you see me passing at a run. I stand before my background like a tree.Of all the many mouths I am but one, and that which soonest chooses to be dumb.I am the rest between two notes which, struck together, sound discordantly,because death's note would claim a higher key.But in that dark pause, trembling, the notes meet, harmonious.And the song continues sweet."("Poems from the Book of Hours" by Rainer Maria Rilke)
Friday-Miroslav Volf Living on the surface and in the present bereft of strong echoes of the past, we are (occasionally) happy, but rarely truly joyous. why does surface living preclude joy do you think? what is the distinction between joy and happiness in your mind?
Saturday-One of the greatest teachers in the Celtic world, John Scotus Eriugena in ninth-century Ireland, also taught that Christ is our memory. We suffer from the “soul’s forgetfulness,” he says. Christ comes to reawaken us to our true nature. He is our epiphany. He comes to show us the face of God. He comes to show us also our face, the true face of the human soul. This leads the Celtic tradition to celebrate the relationship between nature and grace. Instead of grace being viewed as opposed to our essential nature or as somehow saving us from ourselves, nature and grace are viewed as flowing together from God. They are both sacred gifts. The gift of nature, says Eriugena, is the gift of “being”; the gift of grace, on the other hand, is the gift of “well-being.” Grace is given to reconnect us to our true nature. At the heart of our being is the image of God, and thus the wisdom of God, the creativity of God, the passions of God, the longings of God. Grace is opposed not to what is deepest in us but to what is false in us. It is given to restore us to the core of our being and to free us from the unnaturalness of what we are doing to one another and to the earth.
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