Christ Has No Body . . .

 

Christ has no body but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks with Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good, Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours, Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.                                                                                                        -Teresa of Avila

Ever present Presence . . .

 

 God is there in these moments of rest and can give us in a single instant exactly what we need. Then the rest of the day can take its course, under the same effort and strain, perhaps, but in peace.  And when night comes, and you look back over the day and see how fragmentary everything has been, and how much you planned that has gone undone. . . just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God’s hands and leave it with God.  Then you will be able to rest in God ~ really rest ~ and start the next day as a new life.

St. Teresa Benedict of the Cross (Edith Stein)

August 9 Feastday

Photo by Doris Klein, CSA

Remembering . . .

 

On August 6 we commemorate the bombing of Hiroshima. Please use this prayer to remember the victims and to end all forms of weapons of mass destruction.

A time for remembrance and challenge. At 8:15 in the morning of August 6, 1945 an atomic bomb was dropped from a USA B-29 bomber on Hiroshima, Japan. More than seventy thousand people died instantly or within hours. Few were soldiers. …

Leader: Let us join in prayer on this day of remembrance for Hiroshima, to recall the past, to be challenged in the present and to seek hope for the future.

People: O God of power, gracious in love, you have given humankind responsibility to care for all the earth. But we have put our faith in military power, while you call us to build a community of trust and love.

Leader: By our actions and by our inaction, and by our participation in the systems of society we often become agents of violence and destruction.

People: O God of us all, let Hiroshima become for us a symbol of hope that nuclear weapons will never again be used to kill and destroy.

Leader: Let us remember Hiroshima as a beacon to commit ourselves to find ways to live together in peace, that we may not be just peace lovers, but peacemakers.

People: O God of infinite possibility, transform our hearts and minds and give us courage to use our skills and technology to transform weapons that destroy into all that upholds life.

Leader: Isaiah said: “It shall come to pass that the peoples shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.

All: We pray for the time when “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

Source: Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice. Prayer by Susan Adams, a missionary in Japan for 13 years, now serves as a volunteer at Asian Rural Institute in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan.

Transparency and transfiguration!

Transfiguration is not unique to Jesus. Neither is witnessing powerful change a prerogative of the disciples who knew the historical Jesus. All of us are called to go up the mountain, to climb the steep ground of truth where prejudices are identified, where the unexplored places of our souls are traversed, and where dormant possibilities of love are awakened. Transfiguration involves a lifetime journey. We go up the mountain of transformation accompanied by those closest to us, those who love us enough to challenge us. As we tell our deepest truth to someone, we become more transparent. The very process of interpersonal sharing, in context of trust, makes us more radiant - revealing a brilliance that is numinous.
(Enter the Story by Fran Ferder)  

A prayer of waiting, looking, loving . . .

  

 

You keep us waiting.

You, the God of all time,

Want us to wait for the right time

in which to discover

Who we are, where we must go,

Who will be with us, and what we must do.

So, thank you . . . for waiting time.

 

You keep us looking.

You, the God of all space,

Want us to look in the right and wrong places

for signs of hope,

For people who are hopeless,

For visions of a better world

that will appear among the disappointments

of the world we know.

So, thank you . . . for the looking time.

 

You keep us loving.

You, the God whose name is Love,

Want us to be like you –

To love the loveless and the unlovely and the unlovable;

To love without jealousy or design or threat,

And most difficult of all, to love ourselves.

So, thank you . . . for loving time.

 

And in all this you keep us,

Through hard questions with no easy answers;

Through falling where we hoped to succeed

and making an impact when we felt useless;

Through the patience and the dreams

and the love of others;

And through Jesus Christ and his Spirit, you keep us.

(By Lisa Terneus of the Iona Community in Scotland

Walking in Trust . . .

  

The Courage to be myself . . .

I have the courage to . . .

Embrace my strengths ~

Get excited about life ~ Enjoy giving

and receiving love ~ Face and transform

my fears ~ Ask for help and support

when I need it ~

Spring free of the Superwoman Trap~

Trust myself ~ Make my own decisions

and choices ~ Befriend myself ~ Complete

unfinished business ~ Realize that I have

emotional and practical rights ~

Talk as nicely to myself

as I do to my plants ~ Communicate

lovingly with understanding as my goal ~

Honor my own needs ~

Give myself credit for my accomplishments ~

Love the little girl within me ~

Overcome my addiction to approval ~

Grant myself permission to play ~

Quit being a Responsibility Sponge ~

Feel all of my feelings and act on them

appropriately ~ Nurture others because

I want to, not because I have to ~

Choose what is right for me ~ Insist on being

paid fairly for what I do ~

Set limits and boundaries and stick by them ~

Say “yes” only when I really mean it ~

Have realistic expectations ~ Take risks and

accept change ~ Grow through challenges ~

Be totally honest with myself ~

Correct erroneous beliefs and assumptions ~

Respect my vulnerabilities ~

Heal old and current wounds ~

Savor the mystery of Spirit ~

Wave good-bye to guilt ~ Plant “flower,”

not “weed” thoughts in my mind ~

Treat myself with respect and teach others

to do the same ~

Fill my cup first, then nourish

others from the overflow ~

Own my own excellence ~

Plan for the future but live

in the present ~ Value my

intuition and wisdom ~ Know that I am

lovable ~ Celebrate the differences between

women and men ~ Develop healthy,

supportive relationships ~

Make forgiveness a priority ~

Accept myself just as I am now ~

(Author Unknown)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inner knowing, inner listening. . .

 

Discernment is an invitation . . .

to be attentive to the voices of our deep inner knowing.  

It demands time to quiet the outer noises and listen to our heart and our body which, when we walk in integrity, will tell the truth even a truth we may not want to hear.                      

~ Doris Klein, CSA