Verse of the day
Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written: “Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion. Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!”
– John 12:14-15
Voice of the day
There is a miracle in belonging to a God who rejects the image and status of a gloried hero. And instead comes to us on a donkey, centering the plight of those who suffer. Liberation begins with this: do not be afraid.
– Cole Arthur Riley
Prayer of the day
What a comfort it is to belong to a God who came to this Earth humbly. Thank you for sending your liberation not on a war horse, but a meek colt.
Far too often throughout Lent, the focus of so many people is on fear, divine judgment, and retribution. Their God is a God of wrath who zaps sinners with lightning bolts. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the people expected a warrior descendant of King David to lead the army that would slaughter the hated Romans and restore David’s Kingdom to its former glory. Jesus was not the revolutionary that most of the people wanted. I believe that Jesus called them and today calls us to a revolution of love where swords are beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks in the spirit of the prophet Isaiah’s call in Isaiah 2:4. As I enter this Holy Week, my prayer is that the transformative power of love will be revealed and allowed to change lives.
In his book Seasons of Celebration, Thomas Merton points to that revelation and revolution. Sin cannot be pardoned and healed without love, because all sin is, at its root, a refusal of love. No matter how great our sin may be, it is forgiven when we consent to love… —Thomas Merton in Seasons of Celebration (p. 219)
May the healing power of God’s love play a central role in your Holy Week journey, dear reader. May that power transform our lives and the lives of those whom we come into contact each day.
“It is really a thought that built this portentous war establishment, and a thought shall also melt it away.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Wonder is where love begins, but the failure to wonder is the beginning of violence. Once people stop wondering about others, once they no longer see others as part of them, they disable their instinct for empathy. And once they lose empathy, they can do anything to them. Entire institutions built to preserve the interests of one group of people over another depend on this failure of imagination. Violence comes in the form of policies by the state and sometimes bloodshed in the streets. More often, it comes in forms that are hard to see, unless we find a way to make them visible through our stories.”—Valarie Kaur, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love
“One of the prevailing myths of our time is that peace flows from the capacity, willingness, and announced intention to eliminate our enemies. There is another way, the way of nonviolence and negotiation. To create such alternatives with all of the ardor we can muster is the number one priority of the world today.”—Louie Vitale, OFM
Verse of the day
One night the Lord said to Paul in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent.”
– Acts 18:9
Voice of the day
If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.
– Attributed to Zora Neale Hurston
Prayer of the day
God who speaks, we refuse to let our silence be misinterpreted as compliance; teach us when and how to speak up.
“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”—Lilla Watson, Aboriginal Australian (Murri) activist
“All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished.”—Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life
Verse of the day
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
– John 15:13
Voice of the day
Hate the system that made your brother evil. It is the system we must destroy.
– Clark V. Poling
Prayer of the day
Lord, remind us that our battle is against the rulers, authorities, and systems of this dark world that pit us against each other.
“Hope is a stance of radical openness to the God of newness and possibility. When we hope, we acknowledge that God has an imagination far more expansive than ours.”
— Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE, Sacred Seasons: A Yearlong Journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year – A Self-Study Online Retreat
In what way is hope as “radical openness to God” worlds apart from anticipatory hope?
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