Sunday, November 30, 2008
the quality of our life
It is very hard to accept an early death. When friends die who are seventy, eighty, or ninety years old, we may be in deep grief and miss them very much, but we are grateful that they had long lives. But when a teenager, a young adult, or a person at the height of his or her career dies, we feel a protest rising from our hearts: "Why? Why so soon? Why so young? It is unfair."
But far more important than our quantity of years is the quality of our lives. Jesus died young. St. Francis died young. St. Therese of Lisieux died young, Martin Luther King, Jr., died young. We do not know how long we will live, but this not knowing calls us to live every day, every week, every year of our lives to its fullest potential.
-- Henri Nouwen Society
But far more important than our quantity of years is the quality of our lives. Jesus died young. St. Francis died young. St. Therese of Lisieux died young, Martin Luther King, Jr., died young. We do not know how long we will live, but this not knowing calls us to live every day, every week, every year of our lives to its fullest potential.
-- Henri Nouwen Society
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Eucharistic prayer
Unite us all to one another who become partakers of the one Bread and the Cup in the communion of the one Holy Spirit. Grant that none of us may partake of the holy Body and Blood of Your Christ to judgment or condemnation; but, that we may find mercy and grace with all the saints who through the ages have pleased You... And grant that with one voice and one heart we may glorify and praise Your most honored and majestic name, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages. Amen.
-- Saint Basil the Great (4th century)
-- Saint Basil the Great (4th century)
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Thanksgiving
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts,
to which indeed you were called in the one body.
And be thankful.
-- Colossians 3:15
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
solitude
When we enter into solitude to be with God alone, we quickly discover how dependent we are. Without the many distractions of our daily lives, we feel anxious and tense. When nobody speaks to us, calls on us, or needs our help, we start feeling like nobodies. Then we begin wondering whether we are useful, valuable, and significant. Our tendency is to leave this fearful solitude quickly and get busy again to reassure ourselves that we are "somebodies." But that is a temptation, because what makes us somebodies is not other people's responses to us but God's eternal love for us.
To claim the truth of ourselves we have to cling to our God in solitude as to the One who makes us who we are.
-- Henri Nouwen Society
To claim the truth of ourselves we have to cling to our God in solitude as to the One who makes us who we are.
-- Henri Nouwen Society
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
it's that time
Friday, November 21, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
death
It is very hard to accept an early death. When friends die who are seventy, eighty, or ninety years old, we may be in deep grief and miss them very much, but we are grateful that they had long lives. But when a teenager, a young adult, or a person at the height of his or her career dies, we feel a protest rising from our hearts: "Why? Why so soon? Why so young? It is unfair."
But far more important than our quantity of years is the quality of our lives. Jesus died young. St. Francis died young. St. Therese of Lisieux died young, Martin Luther King, Jr., died young. We do not know how long we will live, but this not knowing calls us to live every day, every week, every year of our lives to its fullest potential.
-- Henri Nouwen Society
But far more important than our quantity of years is the quality of our lives. Jesus died young. St. Francis died young. St. Therese of Lisieux died young, Martin Luther King, Jr., died young. We do not know how long we will live, but this not knowing calls us to live every day, every week, every year of our lives to its fullest potential.
-- Henri Nouwen Society
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
next Sunday
This coming Sunday I will be filling in for Pastor Andrew at Cross of Glory Lutheran Church in Mounds View, MN. I'd love to see you there! For directions and service times, please check their web site .
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008
humor & holiness
Humor comes out of being able to talk to God and with God. People who talk for God are always serious and have no sense of humor.
-- Abbot Thomas
(for the full text of his comments, click here )
Sunday, November 16, 2008
solitude
When we enter into solitude to be with God alone, we quickly discover how dependent we are. Without the many distractions of our daily lives, we feel anxious and tense. When nobody speaks to us, calls on us, or needs our help, we start feeling like nobodies. Then we begin wondering whether we are useful, valuable, and significant. Our tendency is to leave this fearful solitude quickly and get busy again to reassure ourselves that we are "somebodies." But that is a temptation, because what makes us somebodies is not other people's responses to us but God's eternal love for us.
To claim the truth of ourselves we have to cling to our God in solitude as to the One who makes us who we are.
-- Henri Nouwen Society
To claim the truth of ourselves we have to cling to our God in solitude as to the One who makes us who we are.
-- Henri Nouwen Society
Saturday, November 15, 2008
more on hiddenness
If indeed the spiritual life is essentially a hidden life, how do we protect this hiddenness in the midst of a very public life? The two most important ways to protect our hiddenness are solitude and poverty. Solitude allows us to be alone with God. There we experience that we belong not to people, not even to those who love us and care for us, but to God and God alone. Poverty is where we experience our own and other people's weakness, limitations, and need for support. To be poor is to be without success, without fame, and without power. But there God chooses to show us God's love.
Both solitude and poverty protect the hiddenness of our lives.
-- Henri Nouwen Society
Both solitude and poverty protect the hiddenness of our lives.
-- Henri Nouwen Society
Friday, November 14, 2008
hiddenness
Two weeks ago I was invited by the Latvian Lutheran Church of Minneapolis and St. Paul to give a talk about monasticism. In preparing for the talk I couldn't help but analyze my motives for becoming an oblate of St. Benedict through Blue Cloud Abbey . The following from the Henri Nouwen Society illustrates one of my reasons -- hiddenness.
One of the reasons that hiddenness is such an important aspect of the spiritual life is that it keeps us focused on God. In hiddenness we do not receive human acclamation, admiration, support, or encouragement. In hiddenness we have to go to God with our sorrows and joys and trust that God will give us what we most need.
In our society we are inclined to avoid hiddenness. We want to be seen and acknowledged. We want to be useful to others and influence the course of events. But as we become visible and popular, we quickly grow dependent on people and their responses and easily lose touch with God, the true source of our being. Hiddenness is the place of purification. In hiddenness we find our true selves.
In our society we are inclined to avoid hiddenness. We want to be seen and acknowledged. We want to be useful to others and influence the course of events. But as we become visible and popular, we quickly grow dependent on people and their responses and easily lose touch with God, the true source of our being. Hiddenness is the place of purification. In hiddenness we find our true selves.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
orni-theology
Theologian, John Stott, has authored "The Birds Our Teachers: Biblical Lessons from a Lifelong Bird Watcher" relating his study of Scripture to his love of bird watching. Included are photos by the author. I have not read the book, but you can find a review here . It might make a nice Christmas gift for someone you know.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
with Thanksgiving Day approaching ...
In our own day we see many people at prayer but, unfortunately, we see none of them turning back to give thanks to God... "Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine?" As I think you will remember, it was in these words that our Savior complained about the lack of gratitude of the other nine lepers. We read that they knew well how to make "supplications, prayers, petitions" since they lifted up their voices, crying out: "Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!" But they lacked the fourth thing required by the apostle Paul: "thanksgiving" (1 Timothy 2:1) for they did not turn back nor give thanks to God.
We see still more in our own day people who implore God for what they lack but a mere handful who seem to be grateful for the blessings they have received. There is no harm in imploring him, but what causes God not to grant our prayers is his finding us lacking in gratitude. After all, perhaps it is even an act of mercy on his part to hold back from the ungrateful what they are asking for so that they may not be judged all the more rigorously on account of their ingratitude... For it is sometimes out of mercy that God holds back his mercy...
So you see that not all those who are healed of the leprosy of this world, I mean their manifest complaints, profit by their healing. Indeed, many are secretly afflicted with an ulcer worse than leprosy, all the more dangerous in that it is more interior. That is why it was right that the Savior of the world should ask where the other nine lepers were, since sinners avoid healing. So, too, after his sin, God questioned the first man: "Where are you?" (Genesis 3:9).
-- Saint Bernard (1091-1153), Cistercian monk
We see still more in our own day people who implore God for what they lack but a mere handful who seem to be grateful for the blessings they have received. There is no harm in imploring him, but what causes God not to grant our prayers is his finding us lacking in gratitude. After all, perhaps it is even an act of mercy on his part to hold back from the ungrateful what they are asking for so that they may not be judged all the more rigorously on account of their ingratitude... For it is sometimes out of mercy that God holds back his mercy...
So you see that not all those who are healed of the leprosy of this world, I mean their manifest complaints, profit by their healing. Indeed, many are secretly afflicted with an ulcer worse than leprosy, all the more dangerous in that it is more interior. That is why it was right that the Savior of the world should ask where the other nine lepers were, since sinners avoid healing. So, too, after his sin, God questioned the first man: "Where are you?" (Genesis 3:9).
-- Saint Bernard (1091-1153), Cistercian monk
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.
-- Ephesians 5:10
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Like birds hovering overhead,
so the LORD of hosts
will protect Jerusalem;
he will protect and deliver it,
he will spare and rescue it.
-- Isaiah 31:5
Saturday, November 08, 2008
welcoming strangers
How do you know whether it is not God you are receiving while you are thinking that you are only dealing with men? Abraham welcomed some strangers but, in reality, he received into his home God and his angels. So you, too, who welcome a stranger are receiving God. The Lord Jesus bears witness in the Gospel: "I was a stranger and you welcomed me. Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me." (Matthew 25:35-40)
-- Saint Ambrose (c.340-397)
-- Saint Ambrose (c.340-397)
Friday, November 07, 2008
Sandhill Crane
Thursday, November 06, 2008
going after the lost sheep
I was distancing myself more and more from you, my Lord and my life. My life, too, was beginning to become a death, or rather it was already death in your sight. And yet, within that state of death, you upheld me... All faith had gone but my respect and esteem remained intact. You showed me further graces, O my God: you preserved the attraction for study in me, for serious reading, beautiful things, a revulsion for vice and ugliness. I did evil yet I neither approved nor loved it... You granted me that vague uneasiness of a bad conscience, which though it may be asleep is not altogether dead.
I have never felt that same sadness, lassitude, unease except then. Oh my God, was it then your gift? How far I was from doubting it! How good you are! And while, by this invention of your love, you prevented my soul from drowning altogether, you kept my body safe: for if I had died then I should have been in hell... Those dangers of the journey, great and various as they were, from which you enabled me to come out as if by a miracle! That unchanging health in the most unhealthy of places, in spite of such great fatigue! Oh my God, how your hand was upon me and how little I was aware of it! How you protected me! How you sheltered me under your wings when I did not even believe in your existence! And while you were thus protecting me time passed by, you judged that the time was approaching to draw me back into the fold.
In spite of me you undid all the wrong attachments that would have kept me away from you; you even undid all the healthy bonds that would have prevented me from becoming all yours one day... Your hand alone carried out the beginning, middle and end in all this. How good you are! It was needed in order to prepare my soul for truth; the devil is too much master of an unchaste soul to let it enter into truth; you would not be able, my God, to enter a soul in which the demon of squalid passions reigned as lord. But you wanted to enter mine, Oh good Shepherd, and so you cast out your enemy yourself.
-- Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916), hermit and missionary in the Sahara
I have never felt that same sadness, lassitude, unease except then. Oh my God, was it then your gift? How far I was from doubting it! How good you are! And while, by this invention of your love, you prevented my soul from drowning altogether, you kept my body safe: for if I had died then I should have been in hell... Those dangers of the journey, great and various as they were, from which you enabled me to come out as if by a miracle! That unchanging health in the most unhealthy of places, in spite of such great fatigue! Oh my God, how your hand was upon me and how little I was aware of it! How you protected me! How you sheltered me under your wings when I did not even believe in your existence! And while you were thus protecting me time passed by, you judged that the time was approaching to draw me back into the fold.
In spite of me you undid all the wrong attachments that would have kept me away from you; you even undid all the healthy bonds that would have prevented me from becoming all yours one day... Your hand alone carried out the beginning, middle and end in all this. How good you are! It was needed in order to prepare my soul for truth; the devil is too much master of an unchaste soul to let it enter into truth; you would not be able, my God, to enter a soul in which the demon of squalid passions reigned as lord. But you wanted to enter mine, Oh good Shepherd, and so you cast out your enemy yourself.
-- Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916), hermit and missionary in the Sahara
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
seedtime
As long as the earth endures, seedtime ... shall not cease.
-- Genesis 8:22
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Church of the Poor
When we claim our own poverty and connect our poverty with the poverty of our brothers and sisters, we become the Church of the poor, which is the Church of Jesus. Solidarity is essential for the Church of the poor . Both pain and joy must be shared. As one body we will experience deeply one another's agonies as well as one another's ecstasies. As Paul says: "If one part is hurt, all the parts share its pain. And if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy" (1 Corinthians 12:26).
Often we might prefer not to be part of the body because it makes us feel the pain of others so intensely. Every time we love others deeply we feel their pain deeply. However, joy is hidden in the pain. When we share the pain we also will share the joy.
-- Henri Nouwen Society
Often we might prefer not to be part of the body because it makes us feel the pain of others so intensely. Every time we love others deeply we feel their pain deeply. However, joy is hidden in the pain. When we share the pain we also will share the joy.
-- Henri Nouwen Society
Monday, November 03, 2008
rich or poor
My brethren, here below the rich are those who are poor; it is good that the rich man discovers his own poverty. Does he think himself satisfied? This is to be puffed up, not full. Let him recognise his own emptiness so as to be capable of satisfaction. What does he have? Gold. What does he still lack? Eternal life. Let him take good note of what he has and recognise what he lacks. Brothers, let him give away what he possesses so as to receive what he has not.
-- Saint Augustine (354-430)
-- Saint Augustine (354-430)
Sunday, November 02, 2008
It would take too long to call to mind everything in Holy Scripture that should bring us all consolation. It is enough to hope in the resurrection and raise our eyes to the glory of our Redeemer since it is in him that we are already raised, as our faith gives us to believe, according to the apostle Paul's words: "If we have died with Christ we believe that we shall also live with him." (Romans 6:8)
-- Saint Braulion of Saragossa (c.590-651)
-- Saint Braulion of Saragossa (c.590-651)
Saturday, November 01, 2008
"Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory" (John 17:24)... We are following you, Lord Jesus; but that it may be so, call us, since no one rises up without you. You are the way, the truth, the life (John 14:6), the possibility, the faith, the reward. Receive us; strengthen us; grant us life.
-- Saint Ambrose (c.340-397), Bishop of Milan and Doctor of the Church
