Timing is everything . . .

 

 

O God of all seasons and senses, grant us the sense of your timing             
to submit gracefully and rejoice quietly in the turn of the seasons.

In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach us the lessons of endings;
children growing, friends leaving, loved ones dying,
grieving over,
grudges over,
blaming over,
excuses over.

O God, grant us a sense of your timing.
In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach us the lessons of beginnings;
that such waitings and endings may be the starting place,
a planting of seeds which bring to birth what is ready to be born—
something right and just and different,
a new song, a deeper relationship, a fuller love—
in the fullness of your time.

O God, grant us the sense of your timing.

Taken from Guerrillas of Grace by Ted Loder

 

Good-bye Winter ~ Hello Spring!

 

Within the grip of winter, it is almost impossible to imagine the spring. The gray perished landscape is shorn of color. Only bleakness meets the eye; everything seems severe and edged.

Winter is the oldest season; it has some quality of the absolute. Yet beneath the surface of winter, the miracle of spring is already in preparation; the cold is relenting; seeds are waking up.

Colors are beginning to imagine how they will return. Then, imperceptibly, somewhere one bud opens and the symphony of renewal is no longer reversible. From the black heart of winter a miraculous, breathing plenitude of color emerges.

The beauty of nature insists on taking its time. Everything is prepared. Nothing is rushed. The rhythm of emergence is a gradual slow beat always inching its way forward; change remains faithful to itself until the new unfolds in the full confidence of true arrival.

Because nothing is abrupt, the beginning of spring nearly always catches us unawares. It is there before we see it; and then we can look nowhere without seeing it. 

(Thresholds/To Bless the Space Between Us by
John O’Donohue)

Streams of Hope!

Help Us to Hope 

O loving God,
we thank you for bringing us the rivers and streams of this world.
May the rivers we know be an image of the stream
that you want to flow within each one of us.
Teach us now, take away all fear,
dare to let us believe that we could really be a small part
of a reconstructed society, that we could build again.
Take away our cynicism.
Take away our lack of hope.
Take away our own anger and judgments.
We thank you for the faith and the desire that is in our hearts.
You have planted it there. Now help us to preserve it,
protect it and increase it.
We long for vision, God.
We need vision and we know we will perish without it.
Help us open each new day to a new meaning,
to a new hope, to a deeper desiring.
Show us your face, loving God, and we will be satisfied.
We ask for all this in Jesus’ name.
AMEN. (Richard Rohr, ofm)

Prayer for hope, healing, peace . . .

 

Father, Mother, God,

 Thank you for your presence

 during the hard and mean days.

 For then we have you to lean upon.

 

 Thank you for your presence

 during the bright and sunny days,

 for then we can share that which we have

 with those who have less.

 

 And thank you for your presence

 during the Holy Days, for then we are able

 to celebrate you and our families

 and our friends.

 

 For those who have no voice,

 we ask you to speak.

 For those who feel unworthy,

 we ask you to pour your love out

 in waterfalls of tenderness.

 For those who live in pain,

 we ask you to bathe them

 in the river of your healing.

 For those who are lonely, we ask

 you to keep them company.

 For those who are depressed,

 we ask you to shower upon them

 the light of hope.

 

 Dear Creator, You, the borderless

 sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the

 world that which we need most—Peace.

 

Prayer - Maya Angelou

Leaving our Water Jars Behind:

 

Leaving our Water Jars Behind

                                          

The Third Sunday in Lent 2026 

March 8, 2026

www.johnpredmoresj.com | predmore.blogspot.com

Exodus 17:3-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-8; John 4:5-42

 

The overwhelming theme in this passage is that we thirst and that God is the only reality that quenches our real thirst. Moses deals with the grumbling Israelites as they stumble through the parched desert. God provides a supply of water from a rock to settle their physical thirst. We are not in our right minds if we are thirsty, and many of us do not hydrate well enough. The Israelites hardened their hearts of Meribah and Massah and they doubted God’s care.

 

The woman at the well was spiritually thirsty and the encounter with Jesus revealed the depth of her desires for God and for liberation. The conversation with Jesus reveals her identity, her mission, and her redemption. She becomes the person she was designed to be from the beginning without shame, without regret, and with great courage. Jesus also becomes the person he was designed to be when he lay on the cross and yelled, “I thirst.” 

 

A detail in the Gospel that strikes me as important is that this woman left behind her water jar. She was full, full of her restored personhood. She was spiritually filled. Her conversion was complete through that encounter with Jesus. This is the invitation for Lent for us because we fill ourselves with so many things that do not satisfy. We remain thirsty until we have this needed encounter with Christ. 

 

We consume in order to be nourished, and we miss the mark. We thirst because our needs are not met. What are some of those things that we seek? Affirmation and acceptance, the pursuit of success and a sense of belonging, positive regard and respect from others, control over people and situations, intimacy and meaningful relationships, and so much more. We thirst for many needs that remain unmet. We have been trying to drink many things that are not God, and we remain restless. We try to pray, we fast, we do good works, and we have to let “thirst” become our prayer because only God can provide this living water. 

 

The woman at the well had to stay in conversation and her sarcasm moved to sincerity. That’s what we want. Authenticity. To be seen and known. To be valued. To be embraced at our core. The living water that we seek is a real encounter with God that moves us to stay in the conversation. We want a meaningful relationship with God in which we can relate comfortably and often. We want to feel the presence of God so we know we are on the right track. We need to stay open enough to receive what God wants to generously give to us. God’s grace is a gift to us. Jesus reminds the woman, and us, If you knew the gift of God…” All we have to do is ask. 

 

Our work is to believe in these words of the Gospel: Jesus said to her,
“I am he, the one speaking with you.” Our belief helps us to worship in spirit and in truth, and we can be like the faithful woman at the well. We can leave our water jars behind. 

 

 

The Gift of Hope . . .

https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/guest-voices/these-hopeless-times-hope-gift-and-choice

A Blessing in stormy times . . .

 

May God be the Anchor of your life, keeping you steady in stormy times, holding you in a place of trust when waves of violence and hopelessness threaten to rock your life. May you cling to this Anchor of unconditional love and may you be an anchor of love and compassion to those around you. May God the Anchor, the God of Stability, bless and keep you.

--Maxine Shonk, OP