Esther denouncing Haman by Ernest Normand, via Wikimedia Commons
O unknown Love!
We are inclined to think that your marvels are over,
and that all we can do is to copy the ancient Scriptures
and quote your words from the past.
We fail to see that your inexhaustible action is the source of
new thoughts, new sufferings, new actions,
new leaders, new prophets, new apostles, new saints,
who have no need to copy each other’s lives and writings,
but live in perpetual self-abandonment to your operations.
We hear perpetually of the ‘early centuries’ and the ‘times of the saints’.
What a way to talk!
Are not all times and events the successive result of your grace,
pouring itself forth on all instants of time,
filling them and sanctifying them?
Your divine action will continue until the world ends
to shed its glory on the souls who abandon themselves
to your providence without reserve.
Jean Pierre de Causade, 1675-1751, French Jesuit priest and writer
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When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai, he sent back this answer: “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”
Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”
prayer & verse 
This prayer reminds of the importance of “keeping in step with the Spirit”, listening, understanding, and responding to His voice in the everyday fabric of life. We find ourselves in particular places and stations of life by God’s design so the issue becomes do we recognize this and move in synch with the Spirit.
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