love

You who are unchangeable in love

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
 
You who are unchangeable, whom nothing changes!
You who are unchangeable in love, 
    precisely for our welfare, not submitting to any change:
  may we too will our welfare, 
    submitting ourselves to the discipline of your unchangeableness,
    so that we may in unconditional obedience find our rest 
    and remain in rest in your unchangeableness.
You are not like us;
    if we are to preserve only some degree of constancy,
    we must not permit ourselves too much to be moved,
    nor by too many things.
You on the contrary are moved and moved in infinite love, by all things.
Even that which we human beings call an insignificant trifle,
    and pass by unmoved, 
    the need of a sparrow, even this moved You;
    and what we so often scarcely notice, 
    a human sigh, this moves You, 
You who are unchangeable!
 
You who in infinite love do submit to be moved,
    may this our prayer also move You to add Your blessing,
    in order that there may be brought about such a change in us
    who pray as to bring us into conformity with Your unchangeable will,
You who are unchangeable!
 
Soren Kierkegaard, 1813-1855, Danish philosopher and theologian
________________________________
 
 
So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise 
the unchangeable character of his purpose, 
he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, 
in which it is impossible for God to lie, 
we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement 
to hold fast to the hope set before us.

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loving Jesus, come into my soul

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image via pexels
 
O most gracious and loving Jesus,
    my Lord and my God,
    fountain of all grace.
  come into my soul with the fullness of your grace.
Jesus most patient, too long have I made you wait for me,
    yet come to me:  
        endure me a sinner, and make me, through your patience, 
        to endure all things, and to be patient with all.
Jesus most humble, make me through your humility so humble,
    that I may never lift up myself, 
    for anything against anyone, as to any one.
Jesus most loving, come with all your love into my soul,
    that I may love you with a burning love,
    and love each and everyone with your own love.
 
E.B. Pusey, 1800-1882, English churchman and leader of the Oxford Movement
 
_____________________________
 
 
This is how God showed his love among us: 
He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us 
    and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 
No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, 
    God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

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a prayer of love

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
photo by didin emelu on Unsplash
 
Gracious Lord,
Your name is love,
    in love receive my prayer.
My sins are more than the wide sea’s sand,
    but where sin abounds, there is grace more abundant.
Look to the cross of the your beloved Son,
    and view the preciousness of his atoning blood;
Listen to his never-failing intercession,
    and whisper to my heart, ‘Your sins are forgiven,
        be of good cheer, lie down in peace.’
Grace cataracts from heaven and flows for ever,
    and mercy never wearies in bestowing benefits.
Grant me more and more to prize the privilege of prayer,
        to come to you as a sin-soiled sinner,
        to find pardon in you,
        to converse with you;
        to know you in prayer as
            the path in which my feet tread,
            the latch upon the door of my lips,
            the light that shines through my eyes,
            the music of my ears,
            the marrow of my understanding,
            the strength of my will,
            the power of my affection,
            the sweetness of my memory.
May the matter of my prayer be always wise, humble, submissive,
    obedient, scriptural, Christ-like.
Give me unwavering faith that supplications are never in vain,
    that if I seem not to obtain my petitions
        I shall have larger, richer answers,
            surpassing all that I ask or think.
Unsought, you have given me the greatest gift,
    the person of your Son,
    and in him you will give me all I need.
 
The Valley of Vision, a collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions
slightly updated
 
________________________________________
 
 
God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. 
But as people sinned more and more, 
    God’s wonderful grace became more abundant. 
So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, 
    now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, 
    giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life 
    through Jesus Christ our Lord.
 

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Spirit of the Lord, we need you

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image via pxhere CCO
 
 
Spirit, we know that we have done wrong by You.  
Please forgive us for grieving, resisting, and quenching You.  
We have resisted You through sin, through our rebellion, and through our hardness of heart.  
At times, we have been spiritually blind.  
At other times, we knew what You wanted us to do, 
    but we chose to ignore Your promptings.
Yet this is not how we want to live now
 
We need You to change us.  
Only through You can we truly worship.  
Spirit of the Lord, You are the one who brings us to a place where we can worship.  
You are the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of holiness, the Spirit of life. 
Thank You for the truth, the holiness and the life You give us.
 
We need Your wisdom and understanding as we seek to live this life.  
Keep us from disbelief, from fear.  
We need Your strength to help us do what you are asking us to do
    and to live how You are asking us to live.  
Speak loudly and drown out the other voices calling us 
    to conform to the patterns of this world.
 
You are the Spirit of self-control and love.  
Give us the self-control needed to deny our flesh and follow You.  
Give us a love strong enough to motivate courageous action.  
Manifest Yourself through us that we may serve and love Your bride the church, as You do.
 
Come, Holy Spirit, come.  
We don’t know exactly what that means and looks like for each of us yet, 
    in the particular places You’ve called us to inhabit.  
But, nonetheless, whatever it means, we ask for Your presence.  
Come, Holy Spirit, come.
 
Francis Chan, 1967- , American pastor and author
from Forgotten God, pg 165-166
 
_______________________________

1 Corinthians 3:16

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
 

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Help me to live your Gospel

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
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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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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desiring you with my whole heart

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
 
 
Give me grace, O my Father,
    to be utterly ashamed of my own reluctance.
Rouse me from sloth and coldness,
    and make me desire you with my whole heart.
Teach me to love 
    meditation, sacred reading and prayer.
Teach me to love 
    that which must engage my mind 
         for all eternity.
 
John Henry Newman, 1801-1890, English Catholic priest and poet
 
_________________________
 
 
You will seek me and find me, 
    when you seek me with all your heart.

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The Church should be a verb

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash
 
Granted, it’s a tough assignment, the original assignment. I get that. 
Love – Lord help us, could we not have been assigned something easier,
    like astrophysics or quantum mechanics?
But no – love those you cannot love.
Love those who are poor and broken and fouled and dirty 
    and sick with sores.
Love those who wish to strike you on both cheeks.
Love the blowhard, the pompous ass, the arrogant liar.
Find the Christ in each heart, even those.
Preach the Gospel and only if necessary talk about it.
Be the Word.
It is easy to advise and pronounce and counsel
    and suggest and lecture;
  it is not easy to do what must be done 
    without sometimes shrieking.
Bring love like a bright weapon against the dark.
The Rabbi did not say build churches, or retreat houses, 
    or secure a fleet of cars for general use, or convene conferences,
    or issue position papers.
He was pretty blunt about the hungry and the naked and the sick.
He was not reasonable; we forget this.
The Church is not a reasonable idea.
The Church should be a verb.
When it is only a noun it is not what the Founder asked of us.
Let us pray that we are ever after dissolving 
    the formal officious arrogant thing that wants to rise,
 and ever fomenting the contradictory revolutionary
    countercultural thing that could change life on this planet.
It could, you know.
Let’s try again today.
And so: Amen.
 
Brian Doyle, 1956 – 2017, Catholic author from Oregon
____________________________
 
 
God has put all things under the authority of Christ 
    and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church. 
And the church is his body; it is made full and complete by Christ, 
    who fills all things everywhere with himself.

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teach us the unity of Thy family

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
 
O God, who has made man in thine own likeness,
    And who loves all whom Thou hast made,
  suffer us not because of difference of race, color, or condition
    to separate ourselves from others
    and thereby from Thee;
  but teach us the unity of Thy family
    and universality of Thy Love.
As Thou Savior, as a Son, was born of a Hebrew mother,
    who had the blood of many nations in her veins;
    and ministered first to Thy brethren of the Israelites,
    but rejoiced in the faith of a Syro-Phoenician woman and of a Roman soldier,
    and suffered your cross to be carried by an Ethiopian;
  teach us, also, while loving and serving our own,
    to enter into the communion of the whole family;
  and forbid that from pride of birth, color, achievement and hardness of heart,
    we should despise any for who Christ died,
    or injure or grieve any in whom He lives.
We pray in Jesus’ precious name. AMEN.
 
Robert C. Lawson, 1883-1961, 20th-century African American clergyman
 
_______________________
 
 
I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters,
    by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
    to live in harmony with each other. 
Let there be no divisions in the church. 
Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose.

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You became human, really human.

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Te tamari no atua, Paul Gauguin, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
You became human, really human.
While we endeavor to grow out of our humanity,
    to leave our human nature behind us,
    You became human,
    and we must recognize that You want us also to be human – 
    really human.
Whereas we distinguish between the godly and the godless,
    the good and the evil, the noble and the common,
    You love real human beings without distinction. . . .
    You take the side of real human beings and the real world
        against all their accusers. . . .
 
But it’s not enough to say that You take care of human beings.
This sentence rests on something
    infinitely deeper and more impenetrable, 
    namely, that in the conception and birth of Jesus Christ, 
    You took on humanity in bodily fashion.
You raised your love for human beings 
    above every reproach of falsehood and doubt and uncertainty
    by yourself entering into the life of human beings as a human being,
    by bodily taking upon yourself 
    and bearing the nature, essence, guilt, and suffering of human beings.
 
Out of love for human beings, You became a human being.
You do not seek out the most perfect human being
    in order to unite with that person.
Rather, You take on human nature as it is.
 
after Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906 – 1945, German  theologian and martyr
 
________________________
 
 
Look! The virgin will conceive a child!
    She will give birth to a son,
and they will call him Immanuel,
    which means ‘God is with us.’

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