Christ as a light - celtic prayer

Christ, as a light
illumine and guide me.
Christ, as a shield
overshadow me.
Christ under me;
Christ over me;
Christ beside me
on my left and my right.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Be in the heart of each to whom I speak;
in the mouth of each who speaks unto me.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Christ as a light;
Christ as a shield;
Christ beside me
on my left and my right
- Celtic daily prayer from Northumbria Community

Image courtesy of dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net 

Celtic prayer

"As this day begins Christ be with us,
Be in our hearts and in our minds,
Be in our souls and in our spirits,
Be in our thoughts and in our desires.
As this day begins Christ walk beside us,
Show us the love only you can give,
Show us the light only you can provide,
Show us the wholeness only you can reveal.
As this day begins Christ surround us,
Circle us with your presence,
Keep protection near and danger far,
Bring us the assurance of your love."
- Celtic prayer

Image courtesy of zole4 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Jesuit wisdom

After I heard that the new pope was a member of the Jesuit order I looked up the internet to find a succinct summary of Jesuit wisdom. I found the following...

Fr James Martin SJ suggests the following five points to summerise Jesuit wisdom...

“Allow yourself to be human.  You’re a human being with a body, after all, and sometimes bodies get sick.  So why not just allow yourself to be human?”

“You don’t have to be someone else to be holy. Just be yourself.  That’s the person God called into the Jesuits, after all.” 

“You’re not married to everyone. There’s no need to please everyone.  Plus, you couldn’t if you tried.  Just be kind and generous and the rest will take care of itself.” 

“Don’t let anyone prevent you from becoming the person you want to be. God desires you to become loving and charitable.  Don’t let the way anyone else is distract you.” 

“You’re not Jesus. No one person can do everything.  And even Jesus didn’t heal everyone in Palestine.  Accepting your limitations helps you to do your best and leave the rest up to God.”

This was written by American priest James Martin, SJ, who is a contributing editor to America magazine and author of "Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor and Laughter are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life," and "The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything." 

 Image courtesy of  xedos4 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Bread for the journey prayer

 

"When the journey is long
and we hunger and thirst,
Bread of Life, you sustain us.
When the road is hard
and our bodies weak
Bread of Life, you heal us.
When our spirits are low
and we can’t carry on
Bread of Life, you revive us.
When we offer our hand
in love and in service
Bread of life, you bless us.
When the challenge is great
and the workers are few
Bread of Life, you empower us.
When the victory is won
and we see your face
Bread of Life, you will rejoice with us!"
- A prayer from 'Faith and Worship'

 

Image courtesy of Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Celtic morning prayer canticle

"Christ, as a light
illumine and guide me.
Christ, as a shield
overshadow me.
Christ under me;
Christ over me;
Christ beside me
on my left and my right.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Be in the heart of each to whom I speak;
in the mouth of each who speaks unto me.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Christ as a light;
Christ as a shield;
Christ beside me
on my left and my right."
- Celtic Morning Prayer Canticle

 

Image courtesy of dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net )

 

Seen on facebook

A friend put this as their facebook status today and I liked it....

Our faith may waiver. Our hope may stumble. But love, the DNA of God himself, will never fail us. It's God's love that renews our faith and our hope in our weakness and times of need. "Come - all who are weary - come into God's love and you will find rest for your soul."

  Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Christianity misrepresented

The passage below is a quotation from a blog written by Rev Sally Coleman

Only recently I heard someone say - "if we truly lived as Jesus wanted us to then we would be a strange buttoned up, straight laced group of people that would confuse and repel others....."

How could anyone who has read the Gospels believe that? When I hear things like this I want to weep with frustration and anguish and anger, yes anger that we have told ourselves such lies, that we have loaded one another with so many burdens of how to and what to that we stumble around under the weight of them, and in the midst of all this confusion and stumbling we wonder amongst ourselves why we are not attracting new members! Then we feel bad and so we plan and scheme and work and strive and frankly we wear ourselves out, we take on new initiatives and struggle to keep them afloat....

Good point Sally.

Blessing

May flowers always line your path and sunshine light your day.
May songbirds serenade you every step along the way.
May a rainbow run beside you in a sky that's always blue.
And may happiness fill your heart each day your whole life through.

- Irish blessing

A prayer from Sri Lanka

O God,

make me a human being who is

strong-minded

imaginative

level-headed

sympathetic

a human who knows his mind

and is not afraid to speak it.

Amen

New Zealand Lord's prayer

Father and mother of us all,

Loving God, in whom is heaven;

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!

The way of your justice be followed

by the peoples of the world!

Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!

Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth!

With the bread we need for today, feed us.

In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.

In the times of temptation and test strengthen us.

From trial too great to endure, spare us.

From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and for ever.

Amen

From a New Zealand prayer book

Wholeness in worship

I recently read a quote from the eighteenth-century revivalist, Jonathan Edwards, who said, 

‘Some bodily worship is necessary to give liberty to our own devotion; yea though in secret, so more when with others . . . ‘Tis necessary that there should be something bodily and visible in the worship of a congregation; otherwise, there can be no communion at all’.

I wonder what he meant by bodily and visible? How can we do that when all we seem to do on a Sunday is sit in rows and sing together and say a prayer together. Are we denying our bodies? I must work on this - how can we be more wholly ourselves when we worship God in the company of our fellow believers.

Affirmation

With the whole church

I affirm that I am made in God's image,

befriended by Christ, empowered by the Spirit.

With people everywhere

I affirm God's goodness at the heart of humanity,

planted more deeply than all that is wrong.

With all creation

I celebrate the miracle and wonder of life,

the unfolding purposes of God,

forever at work in ourselves and the world.

From a liturgy of the Iona community.

Insurrection: To believe is human, to doubt divine

"To believe is human, to doubt divine" is the subtitle of Peter Rollins' new book called Insurrection. In this book Peter Rollins argues that the Christian faith is not primarily concerned with questions regarding life after death but with the possibility of life before death.

I post two quotations from the book. It is high on my list of books that I want to read.

 

"The claim I believe in God is nothing but a lie if it is not manifest in our lives, because one only believes in God in so far as one loves. "


"In the crucifixion we lose the idea of God as the one who justifies our loving engagement with the world by approving of it, but in resurrection we continue to affirm God as we love the world regardless. This is the move that some of the Christain mystics spoke of, a move from the idolotry of doing good for some reason (to get to heaven, to please God, get approval from others), to the act of doing good for no external reward. The former can be described as works based, in that it involves some economic exchange. In the latter we lay down all desire for reward and in doing so experience how love is its own reward. In the very experience of being forsaken by God (crucifixion) we find God in the very affirmation of Life itself (resurrection).
In this new state, the world is affirmed in the deepest and most radical way, not because everything that happens in it is good (indeed, all too often the very opposite is true), but because, in love, we experience creation, in all its brokenness, as wonderful."