My heart is ready, O God

My heart is ready, O God;
I will sing, sing your praise.
Awake, my soul;
awake, lyre and harp.
I will awake the dawn.
 
I will thank you, Lord, among the peoples,
among the nations I will praise you,
for your love reaches to the heavens
and your truth to the skies.
 

O God, arise above the heavens;
may your glory shine on earth!

Psalm 108.7-11

  

YOU are my Lord, my God

Let there be no foreign god among you,
no worship of an alien god.

I am the Lord your God,
who brought you from the land of Egypt.

Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.

Psalm 81.6

  

Lord, help me to stay on track

"He who thinks that he is finished, is finished. 

How true. 

Those who think that they have arrived, 

have lost their way. 

Those who think they have reached their goal, 

have missed it. 

Those who think they are saints, 

are demons."

Henri Nouwen, "The Genesee Diary"

  

Lord, I give thanks to you.

It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
    to make music to your name, O Most High,
    to proclaim your love in the morning
    and your truth in the watches of the night.

Psalm 92.1-2

  

Lord, teach me the way I should go.

Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning,
for in you I put my trust. 

Teach me the way I should go,
for to you I lift up my soul. 

Psalm 143:8

  

Lord Jesus, may our heart and mind be like yours.

All of you should be like-minded, sympathetic,
      loving toward one another, kindly disposed, and humble. 

Do not return evil for evil or insult for insult. 

Return a blessing instead. 

This you have been called to do, 

      that you may receive a blessing as your inheritance.

1 Peter 3:8-9

  

Lord, make me a means of your goodness

You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High; 

for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, 

to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.

From the Canticle of Zecheriah

  

May your Wisdom, Lord, be upon us

Simply I learned about Wisdom,
and ungrudgingly do I share,
her riches I do not hide away;
      For to men she is an unfailing treasure;
      those who gain this treasure win the friendship of God,
      to whom the gifts they have from discipline commend them.

Wisdom 7:13-14

  

May we serve through works of faith, hope, and love

Take our shame away from us, Lord, and make us rejoice in your saving works. May all who have been chosen by your Son always abound in works of faith, hope, and love in your service.

Psalm Prayer, Lauds, June 13, 2015

   

"But today the eros has become the erotic..."

"But today the eros has become the erotic, which means one drinks the water, destroys the vessel – the pleasure enjoyed, the person ignored. The ego projects itself into another, pretends that it is worshiping the other when actually it is only idolizing its ego in the other person. The partner, then, is something only functional."

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Facebook status, June 9, 2015
    

Lord, inspire us to yearn for you always

Father in heaven, when your strength takes possession of us we no longer say: Why are you cast down, my soul?  So now that the surging waves of your indignation have passed over us, let us feel the healing calm of your forgiveness. Inspire us to yearn for you always, like the deer for running streams, until you satisfy every longing in heaven.

Psalm Prayer, June 8, 2015 (Week2, Monday)
   

Ture Joy :: The Kingdom of God

True joy is something beyond pleasure
      and can co-exist with renunciation and pain.
It is dependent rather
      on honesty, transparency, and gratitude,
      the real hallmarks of sanctity.

Ron Rolheiser, OMI

Love: The greatest of gifts.

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues.

Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?  Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?  But earnestly desire the higher gifts.

And I will show you a still more excellent way.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;  it is not arrogant or rude.

Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.  For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;  but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.

So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 12:27-31, 13:1-13 (NRSVCE)

Musings shared with a friend

Whether it is the wisdom that comes with age or simply age, sans the wisdom, that causes most to reflect on life and death, I am not sure. Although I will be 70 in January, it has been about 35 years now that I would occasionally delve into musings about life and death. (There are reasons for this that I now find myself marveling at, but I won't get into those right now.)

What strikes me in your reflection -- that you have very generously shared, thank you -- is the notion of death being a "problem" that really becomes a non-issue "when life is accepted as a gift and entrusted daily to God".

As for me, the pressing issue is the possibility of sin - my sin - because, as you say, it alienates one from God. That is the death that I fear, not so much being afraid for my own sake, but for the horror of displeasing God who is all good and eternally worthy of all our love.

But then, I take vigilant comfort in our belief in "the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting". And then I realize, especially now that I am getting up there in years, that being vigilant about avoiding the reality of spiritual death due to sin actually dispels the fear.

Even if we are half a world apart, I can still hear you singing your eloquently hopeful melody that fear dispelled by a firm trust in God "becomes not an occasion for despair but an opportunity for prayer".

May 30, 2015

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