Thursday - March 16, 20223
Donald (Luke) Day
READING
From the Prayer of St. Francis
Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand.
WORDS OF HOPE
Lent is the best time of year to take some time to meditate on the meaning of familiar Scriptures of, in today’s reading, the familiar Prayer of St. Francis. Let’s expand these words of prayer:
" O Lord, grant that I share your divine presence in my life to comfort others, rather than always seeking that my relationships comfort me. In this world of conflicting opinions may I seek to listen to others instead of assuming that my viewpoint is the absolute truth”.
In both situations, consoling and understanding others, there is a common truth. If we are to be agents for divine action to help others, we must consider the need of the other individual as more significant than our own immediate needs. When the lifeguard jumps into the water to save a drowning person, he can't expect to be saved by the victim. All attention is focused on the one who is about to lose her life. Likewise, you can't console a person who has suffered loss and disappointment if you lay on them all your problems and seek their support. Focus on the other one and allow God's presence in your life to provide the words of comfort and guidance.
I’m sure we remember the old catchphrase from a few years ago, “Let go and let God…” If you allow God to work through your life, God will be the one which provides holy comfort and consolation to them! In a similar manner of thought, we are asked to be wise listeners rather than immediate dictators of conversations. We live in a world of crosstalk and disinformation; yet we must value the other person.
God values the other individual; we must also value them. And we demonstrate our respect by listening and then politely and simply stating our understanding. In that manner, we demonstrate to the other person that they have value.
PRAYER
O Lord, grant that I share your divine presence in my life to comfort others, rather than always seeking that my relationships comfort me. In this world of conflicting opinions may I seek to listen to others instead of assuming that my viewpoint is the absolute truth. Amen
DEVOTION AUTHOR
Donald (Luke) Day
Order of St. Francis and St. Clare
Need More Inspiration? Read our Daily Devotions
SCRIPTURE Micah 4:3 God will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. WORDS OF HOPE The Prophet Micah didn’t hold back when he had an important, often urgent, message to deliver. He spent a generous portion of his time condemning the corruption of God’s plan for the Hebrew people, especially by the organized religious leaders in wealthy big cities such as Jerusalem. A small-town boy himself, Micah, I’m sure, took great pleasure in informing them their promised Messiah would one day be born in the unremarkable tiny town of Bethlehem. A contemporary of the preeminent Prophet, Isaiah, Micah is listed among the Minor Prophets, but his impassioned words are some of the most-quoted passages of the Bible. His central message is the condemnation of war. He prophesies that only God can bring about the conclusion to centuries of the senseless devastating conflict that has plagued not just Israel, but all the other nations. He sees a future when the world will “beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” It is not difficult to understand why Micah was considered a Minor Prophet. In his era, no one was ready to hear these particular words that were spoken by God through the Prophet. There were already quite a few more wars on their agenda. Jesus, the most radical preacher of them all, heard Micah’s message loud and clear. How many of us in our century are finally ready to listen to Jesus? PRAYER Our faith has been kept alive by the eloquence of great women and men you have chosen throughout many centuries to be your messengers. Give us the wisdom to recognize your eternal wisdom today. DEVOTION AUTHOR Dan Peeler Order of St. Francis and St. Clare
SCRIPTURE Romans 8.26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit intercedes for us through wordless groans. WORDS OF HOPE When We Have No Words There are times when we simply have no words to describe what we feel, and times when we have no words to give the person who is grieving. Sometimes we simply admit our lack and offer hugs or share tears. God knows, and God cares. The scripture in Romans gives us an idea of how we can cope in the midst of our “no words” crisis. This scripture says, even when we do not know what to pray for, the Spirit intercedes for us through wordless groans! It is somewhat of a novel idea in our culture, but common in some others. My Aunt Esther used to regularly spend time in prayer for others. She often relied on “groaning in the spirit” when she was confused about how to pray. Now I too have learned to groan. I have experienced this in praise and worship, when the singers switch from words to pure vocal harmonies. It is powerful and calls to the depths of my soul as I commune with God beyond words. Let us give ourselves up to the many ways of being intimate with God. PRAYER Loving God, may your Holy Spirit speak for me everything that I cannot. Hear my groanings and know even the things I cannot know. I trust you to love me and care for me and those whom I love. DEVOTION AUTHOR Carole Anne Sarah
SCRIPTURE Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations. WORDS OF HOPE God’s GPS What God has planned for you nothing, no person, no force on Earth or in heaven, no demon, absolutely nothing can stop it from coming to pass. You may be doubting whether or not you are going to get the money you need, that college degree, the house that you have always wanted, or the baby that you keep seeing in your dreams, but if God wants you to have it, then it is already yours. You can relax. Stop doubting. God has something special for you that isn’t for anyone else. Just because you do not see it, does not mean that it is not on its way. This is the GPS. No, not the navigation system in your car. This is God’s Postal Service and it is fast, reliable, and always on time. If your dream has not arrived yet, then that does not mean that you should give up on your dream. It could mean that something is not ready yet. When God wants to bless you, God wants to make sure that you are ready for the blessing. The bigger the blessing the bigger the preparation. When we stop trying, stop believing, and stop seeking we sometimes stop what God is trying to do in our lives. Time will pass and another opportunity will present itself for you to achieve your dream. This is not a coincidence but God trying once again to bless you. However, if we keep turning away, ignoring the signs, then eventually we will become deaf to God’s voice urging us to keep trying. God does not do all the work. God opens doors but it is we who must walk through them. Take a chance on investing in yourself. There are always going to be risks, but you are not taking the risk alone. God will be there guiding you. If you are not meant to have something, then you will know because the distance between you and what you are seeking will keep getting further and further apart. It will feel like something is pulling you in another direction. That could be God leading you towards another path. Do not be discouraged by this because it is always the case that God’s plans are better than our own. Keep fighting for your dreams; it may take years, but the rewards are greater than you can even imagine. PRAYER Spirit of Wisdom, Give us discernment for the journey, patience for the waiting, and gratitude when we finally receive the promise. You have loved us before we loved You and have plotted our course. We praise You, not because You give us gifts, but because You give us the assurance of Your love. Help us to be as steadfast in our faith inasmuch as You are steadfast in loving us. We pray by Your holy name, Jesus. Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Jonathon McClellan Order of St. Francis and St. Clare
SCRIPTURE Genesis 1:28-31 God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. ’God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. ’And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. WORDS OF HOPE The population of the Earth is well over 8 Billion. That is a lot of people and it is fair to say that if people have failed to follow God’s instructions in most things, we’ve done a good job with ‘fill the earth’. There are some interesting things to note. God uses almost the same language about blessing, being fruitful and multiplying a few passages earlier; before the creation of humans. Similar words are spoken to Noah as he departs the ark. God again says things of this nature when talking to Abraham about Isaac and Ishmael. But just as we have gone overboard with multiply, humans have taken subdue and dominion a bit far. We often treat this place with distain. The heat we are living under is a result of that distain. Our resources, plants, animals, air, water are all in peril. We conduct wars which not only destroy people but also animals, plants, habitation, the earth itself. We tear up the earth to mine the materials for our lives. I do not know what the original Hebrew word in the Bible was that was translated as dominion. But I do know that the root of the word dominion is domus, Latin for home. So, as we contemplate the world and the huge number of people in it, keep in mind and your prayers all the people of the earth. This place is our home and is meant for everyone. There are a lot of us and many, perhaps most of us have great needs in basic survival. Pray for our home, where we all live. PRAYER Creator, you made this place and all the universe to be home for your creation. May we come to love and cherish Your creation as the gift you mean it to be. May we remember that this is our home. DEVOTION AUTHOR Weber Baker Order of Saint Francis and Saint Clare
READING “In indigenous ways of thinking, we don’t call these natural resources. We call them relatives. They are beings, people, which share their gifts with each other and us. When someone shares their gifts with you, your first response is gratitude, and that gratitude cements a response of love.” Robin Wall Kimmerer WORDS OF HOPE I slide my fingers slowly over the inside of her outstretched arm, smooth and brown, learning, as with a lover’s hands, each part of her. A low curved ridge curls over a shallow trough —the sinew and ligament of her limb-- and border the long muscular shape. The word “limb” arcs the synapses of the brain to suggest that we are both limbed beings, kindred, Sisters. Sister crepe myrtle has been rooted in my back yard for years. First planted as a small scrub, she has grown wildly, her crown shaped eastward—as some of the sunlight has been absorbed by a much larger hackberry tree which overshadowed her. Still, her rangy arms stretch in their own design over my yard. She is not “aesthetically pruned”, as some like to do, and tiny scratch marks from 1000s of squirrel journeys cover her trunk, but to me she is beautiful in all seasons with her fushia blossoms in summer, orange-red tinged leaves in fall, and polished bare branches in winter. Though I have always been of Nature’s tribe, stopping to behold the tiniest purple flower in the grass and listening raptly to the joy-song of the wren, I have realized that even this deep appreciation is objectifying in some sense—I the observer, they the other, I the witness, they the witnessed. At this time of my life, I am seeking to learn, pray into, and practice an even deeper spirituality of relationship with the natural world. One of my teachers in this school of relationality is Robin Wall Kimmerer-- plant ecologist, scientist, author of Braiding Sweetgrass , and wisdom-carrier of the Patowatomi people. Kimmerer notes that nowhere in our conservation dogma does the word love appear. And yet for her love based in gratitude is at the heart of things. The task is to invite people to love the world, as we will sacrifice to save what we love. She references an ecopsychologist who asserts that we have a “species loneliness”—separate as most of us are from the living world. And, from the stories that people have shared with her, many are feeling an almost desperate longing for renewed connection. Kimmerer believes that the earth too is lonely for us and yearns to be in loving relationship. Now, in this time she calls the Great Remembering, we are recalling what it was like to hold the earth in love and be held by her. May we learn our lessons well and become not just stewards of the land, but her lovers. PRAYER Oh God, who loved and blessed all creation, animate in us the devotion and love necessary to sacrifice for the preservation and flourishing of the living world. Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Dr. Pat Saxon
SCRIPTURE John 11.32-35 When Mary [of Bethany] reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” she replied. Jesus wept. Centering Prayer : Lord God, quiet my thoughts and open my spirit to receive your words into my soul. May they find rich opportunity to grow and nourish my spiritual journey with you. Amen. WORDS OF HOPE We live in a harsh society in which compassion sometimes seems out sync with our daily lives, but hear these words: "God is full of compassion and mercy, come let us adore God." This phrase forms an introductory statement to a Franciscan morning prayer which has been prayed for centuries, and its message represents an essential aspect of the Christian journey. Let’s look at the word compassion . From its Latin origin, it is a compound word: com meaning with and passio meaning sympathy; to be in sympathy with, suffer with, experience the distress or sorrow of others. Referring back to that introductory phrase ("God is full of compassion"), it means that God experiences our suffering alongside us. This is a startling pronouncement about the character of the Absolute Sovereign God of this universe. Earlier humanity viewed God as very distant, up in the heavens and away or out of reach for human beings. However, Jesus revealed to us a God which is close, nearby, whose Spirit can live with and in our daily experiences; a God which also senses our sorrow, pain, loss and even our joy; a God which wants to be a true participant in our full life. God wants to live our daily life, step-by-step, in intimate relationship with us! Jesus is the great revelation of this divine nature as expressed in human form. The Gospel of John (Chapter 11) gives the account of Jesus’ response to the emotional pain experienced by the sisters and friends of Lazarus who had died. When he arrived, Jesus found them in deep sorrow and crying over the loss of this friend who was such a good man. "When Jesus saw them weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved." As he approached the tomb, we read the shortest verse in all the Bible: "Jesus wept". Jesus felt their pain and sorrow. As a human, Jesus genuinely expressed sorrow for the loss of Lazarus' friendship and cried as we might do in that experience. Jesus demonstrated to us in human form the depth of God's compassion at Lazarus' death and the family's grief. As the Franciscan prayer phrase reads: "Our God is full of compassion", let us adore the compassionate God who knows us and who loves us so much and wishes to experience that love in an intimate relationship with our full life. PRAYER God of all, today, may we strive to practice the same compassion for others as you have forever felt for us. Devotion Author Donald (Luke) Day Order of St. Francis and St. Clare