Matthew 7:7-12                                                  
 
God’s economy is driven entirely by relationship, God to human kind and human kind to God. It is an economy of love. When I ask for help from God, God goes to great lengths to make the asking bring me even deeper into a love relationship with him. It is the asking that prompts me to seek and find God’s gifts, and to finally knock at the door of God’s nearer presence, so I can find even more mysterious and profound depths of love and faith. Last night, for example, I asked for the healing of my jaw joint – I haven’t been able to chew or sleep comfortably for a few days. Was it healed overnight? No, so I begin to seek so that I can find how God is drawing me deeper into his love. Seeking allowed me to knock at the door of my heart where my Father dwells, asking him about the lag in healing.  In the asking he responds that he’s ‘got it’… and asks how am I doing otherwise? We have a ‘good chat’, and I realize that the deeper help I need is with the ‘fasting’ agenda I have for Lent: When I can’t eat comfortably, I am truly reticent to snack – and greatly and prayerfully thankful for each mouthful of food I can swallow. When I do not receive what I have asked from God, will I seek to find the real gifts he longs to give to me and knock at the door of God’s presence to understand the depths of the love where he longs to lead me?  Holy Spirit of God, help me to seek so that I find.
  
The Lord will fulfil his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever.   (Psalm 138:8)
                             
Incline my heart according to your will, O God;
Speed my steps along your path.
 Responsory, Liturgy of the Hours, Wednesday, Week, Morning Prayer
 
Soli ad gloriam
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Matthew 6:7-15                                                  

 
I can only imagine how God’s will, will be done in the intricacies of human lives. At any given moment in my life I can only know -and can trust -that God’s perfect will can work out in the world through the obedience of those who love and embrace Truth in Love and Love in Truth.  Although I don’t know exactly how God’s will might be done through my life, I can choose to be open and committed to trusting God. With each moment that I live, I have opportunity to live in a godly and life-giving way that will ripple out into my family, my work place, my community, and the world in which I live.  Will I do my part by putting aside my own will, avoiding the faulty will of others, and living into God’s ways of Truth and Love, Forgiveness and Provision? Holy Spirit of God may your will be done in me as in heaven.
  
He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.   (Psalm 25: 9)
                             
Incline my heart according to your will, O God;
Speed my steps along your path.
 Responsory, Liturgy of the Hours, Wednesday, Week, Morning Prayer
 
 
Soli ad gloriam
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Mark 1:12-15                                                      

 
Each of us has ‘wilderness’ experiences in our lives.  For Jesus, it was 40 days in the desert, for me it has been a wide variety of scenarios, from hours in an emergency waiting room, to days in Poustinia retreat, to weeks camping in the Arctic, to years living alone. Each wilderness experience provides forced fasting of some kind, and a time when I am separated from those I have been leaning on, a time when I alone face demons and God. Being in the wilderness, one is tested beyond personal strength, and has opportunity to fully realize the grace of God. It is in the wilderness that we, like Jesus, are prepared for the challenges of day to day life and ministry to others – and develop trust in the provision of God for what we truly need. Will I flee or live into the wilderness experience(s) provided along the way of my life’s journey? Holy Spirit help me trust you in the wilderness for sustenance.  
 
He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.   (Psalm 25: 9)
                             
Be content to be obedient, which is never a small thing for a soul which has chosen God for its portion.
 Saint Pio of Pietrelcina 
 
* The two hands of forgiveness – one hand that stops the person who hurts us, and the other that reaches out as one sinner who understands another sinner. See Don’t Forgive Too soon: Extending the Two Hands That Heal by Dennis Linn, Sheila Fabricant and Matthew Linn  
 
Soli ad gloriam
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Joel 2:12-18 & Matthew 6:1-18

Fasting is a discipline that goes far beyond the season of Lent. Jesus taught that only by fasting and prayer are we, like Jesus himself, able to heal and release others from the captivity of darkness as he instructed us to do. When I fast from food or from any other appetites then I am able to ‘empty my cache’ of physical and sentimental delights and to find deep within my being my hunger for all things holy and Godly. My mind readily grasps these concepts of fasting,  but my heart, soul and body are weak, and seem to have difficulty staying the course of committed and disciplined fasting of any kind. As I work through these next forty days, I am ready to repent of my past failures to discipline myself, and resolve to turn for help to the Holy Spirit of God. Will you join me? May our Lenten fast lead to a faith that moves mountains of deceit, despair and disease, that stand in the way of the Peace and Joy of God dominating our lives. Holy Spirit of God, instruct and strengthen me in my Lenten fast. 
 
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.    (Psalm 51)
                             
Your deeds may be the only sermon (message about God) some people hear today.  
Saint Francis of Assisi  
 
Soli ad gloriam
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Mark 8:11-13

 
When I am not familiar with the inner chambers of my own heart, I, like the Pharisees, try to find external clues to the existence of God. Then miracles, signs and what ‘they’ say take on more importance than the conversation God is having with me in my own spirit. No wonder Jesus answered the spiritual surfers of his day with such terseness. Writing to the Christians of the early church, St. James likened living externally to mortal sin, and encouraged his readers to look deep within their hearts for the Word of God, written as it is in the DNA of each human being. “Life! Love! Light!” our internal coding cries out, “you are designed to know and love God! Here I am.  I AM is within you!”. Will I respond to the Holy Spirit of God calling out to me from within?  Will I open the door to Christ’s knocking and let him come into my life, to ‘sup’ with me? Holy Spirit, help me receive and submit to your word deep in my heart.    
 
Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, you upright in heart!   (Psalm 32:11)
                             
Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you, O God!
Saint Augustine of Hippo 
 
Soli ad gloriam
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