Sunday, November 30, 2014

Online Bible Meditation




Suggested daily Lectio divina - Week of November 30, 2014

November 30:Philippians 2: 1-11
December 1: 1 Corinthians 1: 3-9
December 2: Matthew 7: 15 - end
December 3: Psalm 80: 17-19
December 4: 1 Thessalonians 4: 1-12
December 5: Psalm 34: 1-10
December 6: Isaiah 40: 1-11

Friday, November 28, 2014

Help Wanted!




Shepherds and Angels are needed for the Nativity Scene during the reading of the Gospel at the Family Candlelight Service on Christmas Eve...7:00 p.m.  
Birthday cake for Baby Jesus will be served after the service, in the Parish Hall.



Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Poetry for Ordinary Time

A last bit of poetry for Ordinary Time, 2014.  This time, selections from Rainer Maria Rilke:

Du dunkelnder Grund...Dear darkening ground

Dear darkening ground,
you've endured so patiently the walls we've built,
perhaps you'll give the cities one more hour

and grant the churches and cloisters two.
And those that labour -- maybe you'll let their work
grip them another five hours, or seven,

before you become forest again, and water, and
       widening wilderness
in that hour of inconceivable terror
when you take back your name
from all things.

Just give me a little more time!
I want to love the things
as no one has thought to love them,
until they're real and ripe and worthy of you.

I want only seven days, seven
on which no one has ever written himself --
seven pages of solitude.

There will be a book that includes those pages,
and she who takes it in her hands
will sit staring at it a long time,

until she feels that she is being held
and you are writing.

                                                                              I, 61*

To listen to commentary on this poem by the translator, Joanna Macy: click HERE.

                                            *****************     *****************

Ich lebe mein Leben in wachsenden Ringen...I live my life in widening circles
I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.
I have been circling around God, that primordial tower.
I've been circling for thousands of years
and still I don't know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?
                                                                            I,2*

Gott spricht zu jedem nur, eh er ihn macht...God speaks to each of us as he makes us
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going.  No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

                                                                       I, 59*



Rainer Maria Rilke
1875-1926

*Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God,  "The Book of a Monastic Life" - translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, Riverhead Books, New York, 1996.

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Online Bible Meditation



Suggested daily Lectio divina - Week of November 23, 2014

November 23: Ecclesiastes 3: 16-22
November 24: Ezekiel 34: 11-16
November 25: Psalm 100
November 26: Luke 21: 1-4
November 27: Psalm 101
November 28: Galatians 6: 1-10
November 29:  Ephesians 1: 3-14

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Poetry for Ordinary Time

This week, two selections from contemporary American poet, farmer and environmental activist, Wendell Berry:

To the Holy Spirit*
O Thou, far off and here, whole and broken,
Who in necessity and in bounty wait,
Whose truth is light and dark, mute though spoken,
By Thy wide grace show me Thy narrow gate.   

Thirty More Years**
When I was a young man,
grown up at last, how large
I seemed to myself!  I was a tree,
tall already, and what I had not
yet reached, I would yet grow
to reach.  Now, thirty more years
added on, I have reached much
I did not expect, in a direction
unexpected.  I am growing downward,
smaller, one among the grasses. 
*From "A Part (1980)" included in the anthology New Collected Poems,  Wendell Berry, Counterpoint Press, Berkeley, 2012.

**From "Entries (1994)", ibid.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Online Bible Meditation



Suggested daily Lectio divina - Week of November 16, 2014

November 16: Psalm 90: 1-8
November 17: Matthew 25: 14-30
November 18: Luke 18: 35-43
November 19: Psalm 148
November 20: Ephesians 4: 1-7
November 21: James 2: 14-26
November 22:  1 Peter 5

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Poetry for Ordinary Time

This week, offering you a Remembrance Day meditation -- Prayer Before Sleep by Canadian composer, Sid Robinovitch, sung by the Elmer Eisler Singers,



At the going down of the sun
And in the morning,
We shall remember them.


Prayer Before Sleep



Exalted art Thou, my Lord
Who art God and King of the World,
Who weighs down my eyes
With gentle bonds of sleep,
And refreshes my tired spirit with slumber.

May it ever be Thy will,
Lord, my God, and God of all my fathers,
To lay me down in untroubled peace
And raise me up in peace once more.

Do not let dark imaginings disturb me
With thoughts of sin and despair.
O heal my fear and my suffering – 
May my bed be enclosed in Thy care.

Give light unto my eyes
Lest the sleep of death o’ertake me.
For ‘tis Thou who breathes life
Into man’s slumb’ring soul.

Exalted art Thou, O Lord,
Who illuminates all the world
With His glory.





Saturday, November 8, 2014

Online Bible Meditation



Suggested daily Lectio divina - Week of November 9, 2014

November 9: Philippians 2: 12-18
November 10: Matthew 5: 13-16
November 11: Psalm 16: 5-11
November 12: Isaiah 58: 6-9
November 13: Matthew 25: 34-40
November 14: Psalm 119: 1-8
November 15:  Luke 18: 1-8

For detailed instructions on the practice of lectio divina, please refer to the introductory post HERE.

Saturday, November 1, 2014

Poetry for Ordinary Time




A sonnet from Malcolm Guite for All Saints Day:

All Saints

Though Satan breaks our dark glass into shards
Each shard still shines with Christ’s reflected light
It glances from the eyes, kindles the words
Of all his unknown saints. The dark is bright
With quiet lives and steady lights undimmed,
The witness of the ones we shunned and shamed.
Plain in our sight and far beyond our seeing
He weaves them with us in the web of being
They stand beside us even as we grieve,
The lone and left behind whom no one claimed,
Unnumbered multitudes, he lifts above
The shadow of the gibbet and the grave,
To triumph where all saints are known and named;
The gathered glories of His wounded love.

Click HERE to listen to the poet reading this poem.

Online Bible Meditation




Suggested daily Lectio divina - Week of November 2, 2014

November 2: Matthew 5: 1-12
November 3: Psalm 107: 1-9
November 4: Psalm 34: 1-10
November 5: John 6: 37-40
November 6: 1 Peter 1: 3-9
November 7: Philippians 2: 1-4
November 8:  Hebrews 11: 1-3