Equip us to fight the enemy

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
 
 
Do not let us avoid the reading of the diving Scriptures, Lord.
For that would be Satan’s devising – not wanting us to see the treasure,
    otherwise we would gain the riches.
So he would say that hearing the divine laws means nothing.
Otherwise, if we did, we might become doers of the word,
    as well as hearers.
Knowing then his evil plan, Lord, 
    let us fortify ourselves against him on every side.
Fenced with this kind of armor,
    we can live unconquered lives,
    as well as strike a heavy blow to his head.
Then, crowned with glorious wreaths of victory, 
    we can attain the good things to come,
    by the grace and love towards others of our Lord Jesus Christ,
    to whom be glory and might for ever and ever, Amen.
 
John Chrysostom, c. 347- 407
 
____________________________
 
 
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness 
    to be tempted by the devil. 
And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 
And the tempter came and said to him, 
“If you are the Son of God, 
    command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 
But he answered, “It is written,
    “‘Man shall not live by bread alone,
        but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

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You are . . .

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
photo by Mario La Pergola on Unsplash
 
 
You alone are holy, Lord God, Worker of Wonders.
You are mighty.  You are great.  You are the Most High.
You are omnipotent, our holy Father, King of heaven and earth.
You, Lord God, three in one, are our every good.
You, Lord God, all good, our highest good – Lord God living and true.
You are charity and love.
You are wisdom. You are humility.
You are patience.
You are security.  You are peace.
You are joy and gladness.
You are justice and temperance.
You are riches altogether sufficient.
You are beauty.  You are meekness.
You are our refreshment.
You are our hope.  You are our faith.
You are our most profound sweetness.
You are our eternal life, great and admirable Lord,
    omnipotent God, merciful Savior!
 
Carlo Carretto, 1910 – 1988, Italian writer and minister
 
____________________________
 
 
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
    “For who has known the mind of the Lord,
        or who has been his counselor?”
    “Or who has given a gift to him
        that he might be repaid?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be glory forever. Amen.

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Forgiveness and Hope

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Christ is Risen, Lawrence OP, Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
 
 
Our God, whose Son is the light of the world,
    in his penetrating light, we acknowledge our darkness;
    in his constant grace, our careless love;
    in his generous giving, our sordid grasping;
    in his equal justice, our dire prejudice;
    in his fortitude, our fearful failure;
    in his inclusive love, our deep divisions;
    in his pure sacrifice, our soiling sins.
 
But in his Cross is our forgiveness,
  and in his resurrection our enduring hope.
This pardon and the promise we now claim,
  in penitence and faith, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
 
Horton Davies, 1916-2005, Professor of Religion Princeton University
 
________________________
 
 
And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, 
    the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. 
The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. 
And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, 
    he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.

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Reveal yourself to us

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Fresco from the great Cloister of Santa Maria Novella in Florence / Lawrence OP
 
 
O Christ, the brightness of God’s glory 
    and express image of his person,
    whom death could not conquer,
    nor the tomb imprison;
  as you have shared our mortal frailty in the flesh,
    help us to share your immortal triumph in the spirit.
Let no shadow of the grave affright us 
    and no fear of darkness turn our hearts from you.
Reveal yourself to us as the first and the last,
    the Living One, our immortal Savior and Lord.
Amen,
 
Henry Van Dyke, 1852 – 1933, American diplomat and Presbyterian clergyman
 
_____________________
 
 
As they were talking about these things, 
Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, 
    “Peace to you!” 
But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. 
And he said to them, 
    “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?
     See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. 
     Touch me, and see. 
     For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 
And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.
 

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Why have You forsaken me?

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Study for Crucifixion (1947) by Graham Sutherland, CC BY-NC 2.0
 
 
Lord, 
you were not only tempted for forty days down by the Jordan 
but constantly all through your ministry.
 
Not to obvious blatant sins
but to the subtler deflections from the Father’s will;
to cunning compromise which would defeat the Father’s purpose.
 
As when the presence of the seeking Greeks
suggested the possibility of a wider mission
in which you might have been listened to and welcomed,
without the necessity of the cross.
 
As when in the Garden of Olives across the valley,
you wrestled with the doubt that death could be the Father’s will.
 
Or when, in the presence of Pilate
you might have pleaded your case with your accusers;
or in those fiercest moments of pain,
acquiesced to the mocking cry of the crowd to
    ‘Come down from the cross and we will believe,’
 
Until one temptation remained –
the final test, the last claim of love,
the fiercest attack of evil –
more subtle and shattering than the rest,
when, cloaked in a blanket of darkness
came the whispering doubt:
    What if God too has forsaken you?
 
And at last, the battle done, the last temptation met,
faith complete, the task finished, evil defeated,
love triumphant, you said:
    ‘Father into your hands I commend my spirit –
    the rest lies with you, Father, dear Father.’
 
And then it was that by the cross with its limp body
there must surely have sounded the voice from heaven 
    once more:
    ‘This is my beloved Son.’
    Son in call,
    Son in obedience,
    Son in love
    Son in death and in triumphant life.
 
George Appleton, 1902 – 1993, Anglican Bishop in England and Jerusalem
 
_____________________
 
 
It was now about noon, 
    and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon,
    for the sun stopped shining. 
And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 
Jesus called out with a loud voice, 
    “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
When he had said this, he breathed his last.
 

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Help me to live your Gospel

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Woe unto You, Scribes and Pharisees, James Tissot, Brooklyn Museum
 
 
Lord, it is too late for you to be quiet,
    you have spoken too much;
    you have fought too much;
You were not sensible, you know, 
    you exaggerated, it was bound to happen.
You called the better people a breed of vipers;
You told them that their hearts were black sepulchers
    with fine exteriors;
You kissed the decaying lepers;
You spoke fearlessly with unacceptable strangers;
You ate with notorious sinners,
    and you said that the street-walkers would be the first in Paradise;
You got on well with the poor, the tramps, the crippled;
You belittled the religious regulations;
Your interpretations of the Law reduced it to one little commandment: 
    to love.
Now they are avenging themselves.
They have taken steps against you;
    they have approached the authorities and action wlll follow.
 
Lord, I know that if I try to live a little like you,
     I shall be condemned.
I am afraid.
They are already singling me out.
Some smile at me, others laugh, some are shocked, 
    and several of my friends are about to drop me.
I am afraid to stop,
I am afraid to listen to men’s wisdom.
It whispers: you must go forward little by little,
    everything can’t be taken literally,
    it’s better to come to terms with the adversary . . .
And yet, Lord, I know that you are right.
Help me to fight,
Help me to speak,
Help me to live your Gospel,
To the end,
To the folly of the Cross.
 
Michel Quoist,1918 – 1997, French Catholic priest and writer
Prayers of Life

_________________________
 
 
Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 
Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, 
    it remains only a single seed. 
    But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 
Anyone who loves their life will lose it, 
    while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 
Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. 
My Father will honor the one who serves me.”
 

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to learn repentance and avoid sin

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Photo by fauve othon on Unsplash

 
Lord Christ, grant to us your servants 
    the blessing of learning the discipline of repentance.
And as we learn repentance, 
    it is also good for us to learn to avoid sin –
    so we will have no need to repent.
 
Those who have escaped a shipwreck 
    generally tend to avoid ships and the sea in the future.
By keeping fresh the memory of disaster,
    they honor the second chance you gave them.
They honor their deliverance,
    and are not willing to tempt your mercy all over again.
 
We have escaped once.
Now let us allow ourselves to experience sin’s danger that far only –
    and no farther!
Even if it seems that chances are good for us to escape a second time.
 
Tertullian, c. 155 AD – c. 220 AD, Theologian from Carthage, North Africa
 
_________________________
 
 
I am not sorry that I sent that severe letter to you, though I was sorry at first, 
    for I know it was painful to you for a little while. 
Now I am glad I sent it, not because it hurt you, 
    but because the pain caused you to repent and change your ways. 
It was the kind of sorrow God wants his people to have, 
    so you were not harmed by us in any way. 
For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin 
    and results in salvation. 
There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. 
But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.
 

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St. Patrick’s Creed

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St Patrick catechising, Lawrence OP, Flickr
 
 
There is no other God,
    and there never was another,
    nor will there be any after him
    except God the Father, without beginning.
From him is all beginning.
He upholds all things.
And his Son Jesus Christ
    whom together with the Father
    we testify to have always existed.
Before the beginning of the world
    he was spiritually present with the Father.
Begotten in an indescribable manner before all beginning.
By him all things visible and invisible were made.
He was made man,
    and having overcome death
    was received into heaven to the Father:
And the Father has bestowed on him
    the name that is above every name,
    so that at the name of Jesus
    every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
    and every tongue confess
    that Jesus Christ is Lord and God.
In him we believe,
    and we await his coming
    who before long shall judge the quick and dead.
He will render to everyone according to his deeds,
    and has poured out abundantly on us
    the gift of the Holy Spirit,
    even the pledge of immortality,
  who makes those that believe and obey
    to be the sons of God the Father
    and joint-heirs with Christ.
Him we confess and adore —
    one God in the Trinity of the sacred name.
 
St. Patrick, c.389-461, missionary and bishop in Ireland
 
_______________________________
 
 
 
But for us,
 There is one God, the Father,
    by whom all things were created,
    and for whom we live.
 And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ,
    through whom all things were created,
    and through whom we live.

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Drive me deep to face myself

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image by Ümit Bulut umit, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
Lord, grant me your peace,
    for I have made peace
        with what does not give peace,
            and I am afraid.
Drive me deep, now,
    to face myself so I may see
that what I truly need to fear is
    my capacity to deceive
        and willingness to be deceived,
    my loving of things
        and using of people,
    my struggle for power
        and shrinking of soul,
    my addiction to comfort
        and sedation of conscience,
    my readiness to criticize 
        and reluctance to create,
    my clamor for privilege
        and silence at injustice,
    my seeking for security
        and forsaking the kingdom.
Lord, grant me your peace.
Instill in me such fear of you
    as will begin to make me wise,
and such quiet courage
    as will enable me to begin to make
        hope visible,
            forgiving delightful,
        loving contagious,
            faith liberating,
        peace making joyful
            and myself open and present
            to other people
            and your kingdom.
 
Ted Loder, born 1930, American Methodist minister
 
______________________________
 
 
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. 
Not as the world gives do I give to you. 
Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

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Gather me into your loving arms, O Lord

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
 
 
Dear Father: How it must crush you when I turn my back on you and walk away.
How you must weep when you see me disappear over a far horizon
    to squander my life in a distant country.
Thank you that although I have sometimes left home,
    I have never left your heart.
Though I have forgotten about you,
    you have never forgotten about me.
Thank you for the financial crisis or the famine or the pigsty
    or whatever it took to bring me to my senses.
And thank you that even though what brought me home 
    were pangs of hunger instead of pangs of conscience,
    yet still, even on those terms, you welcome me back.
Thank you for the forgiveness and the restoration you have lavished on me –
    me, the one who needed them most but deserved them least.
 
I confess that there is inside me not only the prodigal son,
    but also a critical older brother.
How dutiful I have sometimes been, 
    and yet so proud of the duties I have done.
How generous I have been in my opinion of myself,
    and yet so judgmental in my opinion of others.
How often I have entered into criticism,
    and yet how seldom I have entered into your joy.
 
Gather both the prodigal part of myself and the critical part of myself
    in your loving arms, O Lord.  And bring them home.
 
Ken Gire, American author and speaker
 
_____________________________
 
 
‘For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; 
    he was lost and is found.’ 
So they began to celebrate.

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