If you dare to believe that you are beloved before you were born, you may suddenly realize that your life is very, very special. You become conscious that you were sent here just for a short time, for twenty, forty, or eighty years, to discover and believe that you are a beloved child of God. The length of time doesn’t matter. You are sent into this world to believe in yourself as God’s chosen one and then to help your brothers and sisters know that they are also beloved sons and daughters of God who belong together. You’re sent into this world to be a people of reconciliation. You are sent to heal, to break down the walls between you and your neighbors, locally, nationally, and globally. Before all the distinctions, the separations, and the walls built on the foundations of fear, there was unity in the mind and heart of God. Out of that unity, you are sent into this world for a little while to claim that you and every other human being belongs to that same God of Love who lives from eternity to eternity. — Finding My Way Home: Pathways to Life and the Spirit
Reflection Question: Where might God be calling you to break down walls with your neighbors today?
The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved – you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. – Jeremiah 31: 3
Verse of the day
But the Lord said to him, “Peace be to you; do not fear; you shall not die.”
– Judges 6:23
Voice of the day
The worries and desires and hatreds have dwindled, stretched out upon the earth, tired of existing. And at the level of my mouth all I find is the sweet, pure air of calm renunciation.
– Clarice Lispector, “Letters to Hermengardo” (1941)
Prayer of the day
Give us the wherewithal to renounce false witness, and keep us ready to stand true in the face of existential dread.
“If actions speak louder than words, then may we be people of active compassion, mercy and justice, embodying the Holy loud and clear for the world.”
—Richard Bruxvoort Colligan, Exile and Coming Home: An Archetypal Journey through the Scriptures — An Online, Self-Study Retreat
How are you invited to embody the Holy today?
Verse of the day
Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.
– 1 Timothy 4:12
Voice of the day
Despite everything we have been through, we dream beyond what’s possible. All the trauma we’ve accumulated in movement spaces that intentionally exclude our voices have been converted into a choice, to still, change the world.
– Alexa Leclercq
Prayer of the day
God who refuses to disdain the young, let this passion infuse into the world. May our combined efforts lead to multigenerational flourishing.
Verse of the day
Learn to do good; seek justice; rescue the oppressed; defend the orphan; plead for the widow.
– Isaiah 1:17
Voice of the day
Christ himself would agitate against them. He would agitate against the plutocrats and hypocrites who tell workers to go down on their knees and get right with God. Christ, the carpenter’s son, would tell them to stand up on their feet and fight for righteousness and justice on earth.
– Mary Harris “Mother” Jones
Prayer of the day
God who hears our pleas and petitions, transform the hearts of those who malign us so that they may hear us too, and keep us responsive to the causes that agitate us.
Solitude is a way to get a little control over our own inner life. It’s not easy. Once we start spending time alone, we discover how chaotic our minds are. We start thinking about thousands of other things – what we should do, whom we are mad at. If these thoughts come up, gently return to the center. Gradually if you really discover, for instance, that the Lord is your shepherd, you might be able to let go of a few things and be a lot more at peace. You don’t have to be filled with garbage. You can be more centered. — The Road to Peace: Writings on Peace and Justice
A religion of much praying but with hypocrisy in the heart is not Christian. A church that sets itself up only to be well off, to have a lot of money and comfort, but that forgets to protest injustices, would not be the true church of our divine Redeemer. — The Violence of Love, p. 15
I just started reading a new book that is a collection of quotes from Archbishop Romero’s sermons. It is eye opening reading and very relevant to these times when religion is being used as a cudgel or club to beat people into submission.
The common good will not be attained by excluding people. We can’t enrich the common good of our country by driving out those we don’t care for. We have to try to bring out all that is good in each person and try to develop an atmosphere of trust, not with physical force, as though dealing with irrational beings, but with a moral force that draws out the good that is in everyone… Thus, with all contributing their own interior life, their own responsibility, their own way of being, all can build the beautiful structure of the common good, the good that we construct together and that creates conditions of kindness, of trust, of freedom, of peace. — The Violence of Love, p. 3 (Kindle Edition)
This bit from Thomas Merton’s book When the Trees Say Nothing: Writings on Nature made me smile and think of our own backyard neighbours.
In the afternoon: I knew there was an intruder in the front room of the hermitage, where I could hear movement. I went to see, and it was a Carolina wren which had been thinking of coming in already the day before yesterday. It flew out again, as though it were not welcome! (p. 81, Kindle Edition)
On the Feast of the Transfiguration (excerpt)
Let us see your glow
erupting in all the hidden corners,
in all the places you
have been forgotten.
—Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, A Book of Everyday Blessings: 100 Prayers for Dancing Monks, Artists, and Pilgrims
What helps keep your mind and heart attuned to the Divine unfolding around you?
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