Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path. (Psalm 119)
Gen 3:9-20 & Eph 1:3-12 & Luke 1:26-38 It is not by my own word, reflecting my own understanding and ‘craftiness’, that my life will become abundant with every spiritual blessing –the fruits of truth and love, of justice and holiness, of joy and peace, compassion, purity and faithfulness. Rather it is by allowing God to work his word in and through our lives, as he nurtured the Word made flesh, Jesus Emmanuel, through Mother Mary’s life. When I allow the Holy Spirit to cultivate God’s word in my life, I am able to live into my inheritance as a redeemed and beloved [daughter] of the Lord God. Holy Spirit of God, let it be done to me according to your word. In my God is the joy of my soul. (Isaiah 40) Soli ad gloriam dei
0 Comments
Adoration: Christ Jesus, I join you in your saving work . . .
Isaiah 30:19-26 & Matthew 9:35 – 10:8 Intercession: Christ Jesus, help N_______ to join you in your saving work. When I join Jesus’ team of harvest hands going off into the fields of the world, what am I to do? I am not in charge of ‘snatching souls from the gate of hell’; this is Jesus’ role. Rather, Jesus tasked his disciples –and you and me today –with proclaiming the good news, that the kingdom of heaven has come near. “Cure the sick [in heart and spirit], raise the dead [to abundant life], cleanse the lepers [any who have been dis-connected from society due to mental or other dis-ease] and cast out demons.” This is what I am to do in the fields of society. Christ Jesus, I join you in your saving work. Help N._______ to join you in your saving work. And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” (Isaiah 30) Soli ad gloriam dei Isaiah 29:17-24 & Matt 9:27-31
Christ Jesus, heal us of our blindness… So often our spiritual blindness is a collective activity. Jacobs children, the twelve tribes of Israel, became blind spiritually as a group in much the same ways we go astray today. Just as ‘we’ build up each others’ faith, so ‘we’ can build up untruths, judgments and prejudices, god-less ideologies and many other varieties of disconnection from the love and the truth of God. When I am complicit with others in these ways, it is hard to see my own blindness. The good news for both the Jews and for any of us today, as individuals or as ‘us’, is the incarnation of Christ Jesus who does have mercy on us when we ask him to let us see again. Christ Jesus, heal us of our blindness. On that day the deaf shall hear the words of the scroll, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see. (Isaiah 29) Soli ad gloriam dei Isaiah 11:1-10 & Luke 10:21-24
‘It’s not what you know, but who you know’ the saying goes. It is not how much I know about God, or Judeo-Christian scriptures, or even about the Church and all its complexities, that gives abundant life. It is who I know God to be –as Father-creator, as Son-redeemer and healer, and as Holy Spirit who is helper, guide and teacher (to name but a few traits of God’s glorious being) –that makes the difference. How much do I know God? How much time and energy do I spend with the three persons of the Trinity getting to know them? Holy Spirit, help me to know God the Father and God the Son, and you, the gift of Grace present. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord… (Isaiah 11) |
AuthorBeverly Illauq lives in Kemptville, Ontario, where she greets each morning by seeking the Gospel Mystery of the Day - the Word of the Lord for direct and practical application to the specific challenges & joys of the day. Archives
March 2024
Categories |