Inspiration for your journey to God!

Month: October 2015 (Page 4 of 10)

My latest retreat

Recently I had the opportunity to go to Erie, PA to spend time in retreat at Mt. St. Benedict, a monastery of Benedictine nuns.  What a warm, gracious, welcoming community! My friends and I felt so blessed to have had an opportunity to share in their liturgies and to share meals and conversation with them.  While there,  I picked up a small book entitled God Speaks in Many Tongues by Joan Chittister.  In the book Joan Chittister takes 40 sacred texts and shares a meditation.  Here is one I found quite poignant:

Meditation 12

In my soul there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church where I kneel.

Prayer should bring us to an altar where no walls or names exist.

In my soul there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church that dissolve, that dissolve in God.

– Rabia, Sufi

Religion is the toxin that too often poisons the idea of the God in whose name we speak.

When we use religion to divide, to demean, to assert our own superiority, then we have made ourselves our religion.

Then God is shamed and, possibly, ignored.

Then no one with a right mind could possibly believe what we believe.

Good for them.

– Joan Chittister

We often  wonder why so many people have lost their sense of faith and no longer seek the comfort and direction of the Almighty.  This meditation challenges us to look in the mirror. What are we doing to welcome them back?  Are we displaying attributes of ourselves that will make people say: “I want what they have”?  If we aren’t, then we definitely should.

Take a moment for God

Another from my morning ritual:

 

Dear Lord, I thank You for this day. I thank You for my being able to wake once again, to see and to hear this morning.  I’m blessed because You are a forgiving God and an understanding God.  You have done so much for me and You continue to bless me.  Please forgive me every day for anything I have done, said or thought that was not pleasing to you, and I ask now for Your forgiveness.  Please keep me safe from all danger and harm.  Help me to start this day with a new attitude and plenty of gratitude.  Let me make the best of each and every day to clear my mind so that I can hear from You.  Please broaden my mind that I can accept all things.  Let me not whine and whimper over things I have no control over.  Let me continue to see sin through God’s eyes and acknowledge it as evil.  And when I sin, let me repent, and confess with my mouth my wrongdoing, and receive Your forgiveness.  And when this world closes in on me, let me remember Jesus’ example – to slip away and find a quiet place to pray.  It’s the best response when I’m pushed beyond my limits.  Continue to use me to do Your will.  Continue to bless me that I may be a blessing to others.  Keep me strong that I may help the weak.  Keep me uplifted that I may have words of encouragement for others.  I pray for those that are lost and can’t find their way. I pray for those that are misjudged and misunderstood.  I pray for those who don’t know You intimately.  I pray for those that don’t believe and I’m grateful that you are in my heart.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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