Dear All,
I was looking at the reading we will have tomorrow & was struck not by the main texts but particularly by the psalm which is said or sung as a response to the first reading – in this case some verses from Isaiah. The psalm verses are taken from psalm 32 (33 in some translations.) Amongst the attachments you will find it & it has some words highlighted – love, hope, faithful, trust, justice, alive, waiting, help. These words have led me to the other attachments. I hope something resonates with you today.
The blessing is ‘Dona Nobis Pacem’ from The Song & the Silence. I will pray it for you & anyone you are concerned about at this time.
Peace be yours when dawn is breaking,
Peace be yours when shadows fall;
May your restless heart be cradled in the one who holds us all.
Peace when storms surround & shake you,
Peace through wind & rain & hail;
Know that God will not forsake you though your heart & spirit fail.
Peace be yours through pain & sadness,
Peace when hope seems at an end;
May the God of joy & gladness ever be your guide & friend.
God’s own peace be ever with you, may your spirit dwell in light,
‘Til the day beyond tomorrow, ‘til the dawn beyond all night.
With love
Verses from Psalm 32 (33)
May your love be upon us, O Lord,
as we place all our hope in you.
The Word of the Lord is faithful
and all his works to be trusted.
The Lord loves justice & right
and fills the earth with his love.
The Lord looks on those who revere him,
on those who hope in his love,
to rescue their souls from death,
to keep them alive in famine.
Our soul is waiting for the Lord.
The Lord is our help & our shield.
May your love be upon us, O Lord,
as we place all our hope in you.
It is by love
That we draw out
The reality of who we are,
God’s image in us
That God made.
In love with God’s
creative love in others;
Beginning to reflect
His sublime
Transforming light
Abiding in us;
Having the look of love about us
In opening to others;
Doing the truth in love
Drawn out by faith,
The salt that gives taste,
Now authentic prophets
Of the Son
Shining out
With God’s dear light
And blazing with his Love’s fire.
David Hodges
To do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with God – these may embody all that we need to know in order to be faithful and to be human. They are not three “virtues”. They are not “things to do.” Rather, they speak of three dimensions of a life of faithfulness, each of which depends on and is reinforced by the other two.
To love kindness means to enter into relationships of abiding solidarity. It means to make commitments and to keep commitments. And so the questions come:
With whom? And it what way? The New Testament struggles with the question of the limits of solidarity.
In Luke 10:29, the neighbour question is the overriding question of the community, as it still is… We learn how to practice solidarity by discerning the ways in which God practices solidarity… The solidarity of God’s kindness is not a powerful, overriding solidarity, but it is a patient, attentive, waiting, hoping solidarity.
With Hope in My Heart
by Rev. Sarah Are
I refuse to believe that I am powerless.
I refuse to believe that injustice and hatred are simply the way it has to be.
I refuse to believe that I am better or more deserving than my neighbour.
I refuse to believe that my self-worth is rooted in my accomplishments or appearance.
I refuse to believe that the Church is dying, because I see God all around me.
I refuse to believe that the traditions of old are the only path for moving forward.
I refuse to believe that I cannot make a difference.
So with hope in my heart, I will strive to live a life of courage, conviction, and compassion,
just as Jesus taught us.
Amen.
Trust in the Slow Work of God
Teilhard de Chardin
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown, something new.
Yet it is the law of all progress, that it is made by passing through some stages of instability, and that may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.
Let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Do not try to force them on
as though you could be today what time-that is to say,
grace- and circumstances
acting on your own good will will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new Spirit gradually forming in you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God, our loving vine-dresser.