Verse of the day
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
– 1 Corinthians 12:27
Voice of the day
The world is opening up to the fact that genius does not stem from individuals … but rather genius emerges from the collective. We are all products of our context; we are all descendants of something and someone.
– Daniel Kwan, co-director of Everything Everywhere All at Once(2022)
Prayer of the day
Remind us what it means to be members of one body Lord; may we remember the stories that we come from and the people who have prepared the way before us.
One of the many things that I admire and appreciate about Thomas Merton is how he sometimes gently and sometimes bluntly makes me stop and consider my own journey and vocation as a Christ-follower. In today’s reading from the Lent/Easter Devotion Lent and Easter Wisdom From Thomas Merton once again offers me a challenge to put aside selfishness and rather take on the selfless nature of Jesus.
We must be able to put aside the “economic” concern with our superficial selves, and emerge into the open light of the Christian “polis” where each one lives not for himself but for others, taking upon himself the responsibility for the whole. Of course no one assumes this responsibility merely in obedience to arbitrary whim or to the delusion that he is of himself capable of taking the troubles of the whole Assembly on his own shoulders. But he emerges “in Christ” to share the labor and worship of the whole Christ, and in order to do this he must sacrifice his own superficial and private self. The paradoxical fruit of this sacrifice of his trivial and “selfish” (or simply immature) self is that he is then enabled to discover his deep self, in Christ. Thomas Merton in Seasons of Celebration, p. 25 (from the book Lent and Easter Wisdom From Thomas Merton, Day 21)
One of the interesting learning experiences for me as we continue the journey with my dad as his dementia and health concerns is the lesson of love. Yesterday he was thanking Denise and me for taking such good care of him and mom during her last few weeks of life. I told dad that for years he and mom took care of me and that this was my/our opportunity to share that same loving gift with him and with mom.
The vast majority of our vacation time for the last six years has been spent traveling to care for our parents and loved ones. I guess you could call that time a “working vacation.” Yet it really is so much more than that. It really is a gift of love. To share these gifts of love with my mom, Shirley, Denise’s mom Jeanne and dad Roland, and her former mother-in-law and dear friend Betty who have all crossed the threshold from this life to the next has been a blessing and an honor for us. This gift of love continues for my dad, George who is on his own journey towards that threshold. In the words of Merton, we are living not for ourselves but for others.
The closing prayer for Tuesday in the Third week in Lent sums it up and so I’ll close this reflection with this prayer. May it be your prayer as well, dear reader, as your own journey continues.
Give me the grace, Lord, to transcend my limited and private self so that I might become a Christian adult responsible for those you have given me in Christ. You have called me into the politics that struggles for a just, equitable for all, society. Let me take my place among those who care for and do justice for the poor, the disenfranchised, and all those left behind by a society that worships idols and not the Father of All and for All. (pp. 44-45)
Every time you make free time for God, you clear up a bit of the descending path, and you see where you can plant your feet on the way to love. Nothing spectacular or sensational. It may be simply a matter of what you say, what you read, to whom you speak, where you go on a free afternoon, or how you regard yourself and other people. What’s fascinating is that the first step invariably makes the second one easier. You begin to discover that love begets love, and step-by-step you move further forward on the way to God. Gradually, you shed your misgivings about the way of love; you see that “in love there is no room for fear,” and you feel yourself drawn to descend deeper and deeper on the way that Jesus walked before you. — Henri Nouwen
“The heart of healing work is transformation—transforming pain, wounds, self-imposed limitations, grief and loss, and discovering within them a gift or grace.”
— Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE, Birthing the Holy: Wisdom from Mary to Nurture Creativity and Renewal
What gifts have you discovered in your healing work?
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“It takes nothing away from a human to be kind to an animal.”—Joaquin Phoenix
“Truth alone will endure, all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time. I must continue to bear testimony to truth even if I am forsaken by all. Mine may today be a voice in the wilderness, but it will be heard when all other voices are silenced, if it is the voice of Truth.”—Gandhi, Basic Education
“War is a judgment that overtakes societies when they have been living upon ideas that conflict too violently with the laws governing the universe. . . . Never think that wars are irrational catastrophes: they happen when wrong ways of thinking and living bring about intolerable situations.” — Dorothy Sayers
Verse of the day
Jesus went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.
– Matthew 4:23
Voice of the day
Our material needs are important to God, and having everyone’s needs met is God’s vision for society. We are called to act so God’s vision of universal thriving is realized.
– Edith Rasell, “Does Abundant Life Include a Living Wage?”
Prayer of the day
Thank you for the work you are still doing today to meet our needs, Lord. May we not miss your call to action as we bring about your vision of universal thriving.
“Anyone who thinks war is the highest form of struggle, or the means of resolving conflicts, still has a very limited vision of humanity.” — Danilo Dolci, “the Gandhi of Sicily”
“They say that if you do not forgive, you become the oppressor. . . . Who can stand unfazed in the face of grace? Only the expertly numb. The rest, the majority of the world shakes to its core every time forgiveness is administered.”— Lyla June Johnston
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