Morning Prayer

Wow, two in a row from Near to the Heart of God; July 7. This one is kind of on the practical side. -- drs

Look for chances to serve God today. Are there possible temptations lying in wait? Do you think something might make you angry or vain?  Resolve to make the best of every opportunity to serve God and increase devotion that comes your way. Prepare carefully to avoid, resist, and overcome harmful things. It is not enough simply to resolve to do this. Make a plan of action. For instance, if I know I will have a conference with an emotional, angry person today, I will resolve to avoid offending him. But then I will try to think of gentle words to speak to him, or try to find someone who can help me by keeping him in good humor...

Then, be humble before God. Admit that you can't do any of this on your own. Offer all your good intentions to God, as though you were holding out your heart in your hands. Ask him to be involved in your plans for the day.

These prayerful thoughts should be taken care of quickly in the morning, before you leave your bedroom. God will bless your day.
-- Francis  de Sales: The Devout Life  

A personal response
Lord, here is my wretched heart. With your inspiration it has made some good plans. It is too weak to accomplish what it wants. Give your blessing through Christ, in whose honor I dedicate today and all the remaining days of my life.

God is Far and Near

Today's devotion talks about two concepts: of God's transcendence and His immanence. I've always found the distinction helpful. -- drs

Even though God is glorious, he is still intimate. God is high and yet low, enormous and yet within us, awesome and yet loveable. Will we ever cease being ignorant of God? When we advise people to look for God in their own hearts, they are as mystified as if we had told them to look in some unexplored territory in a distant land.
A personal response
Command me, Forbid me. What do you want me to do? What do you want me to refrain from doing? Whether I am lifted up or cast down, comforted or suffering, working for you or doing nothing worthwhile, I continue to love you. I yield my will to you. With Mary I say, "May it be to me as you have said." (Luke 1:38)
Francois de Fenelon: Meditations and Devotions

Near to the Heart of God: July 6

Crux of the Matter

Back from the Cornerstone Festival. No rain and hot but very worthwhile as always.  The following meditations (through July 12) are drawn from a 200th anniversary sermon at the Congregational church in Rupert, Vermont.

[What all the people who have attended this church over the years] had in common was that, like us, they believed (or sometimes believed and sometimes didn't believe; or wanted to believe; or liked to think they believed) that the universe, that everything there is, didn't come about by chance but was created by God. Like us they believed, on their best days anyway, that all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, this God was a God like Jesus, which is to say a God of love. That, I think, is the crux of the matter... In the beginning it was not some vast cosmic explosion that made the heavens and the earth.  It was a loving God who did. That is our faith and the faith of all the ones who came before us.

The Heschel Series - A Universal Perception

The sense of the ineffable is not an esoteric faculty but an ability with which all men are endowed; it is potentially as common as sight or as the ability to form syllogisms. For just as man is endowed with the ability to know certain aspects of reality, he is endowed with the ability to know that there is more than what he knows.

Man is Not Alone; pp. 19-20

The Heschel Series - Experience Without Expression

Always we are chasing words, and always words recede. But the greatest experiences are those for which we have no expression. To live only on that which we can say is to wallow in the dust, instead of digging up the soil.

Man is Not Alone; p. 15-16

The Heschel Series - Philosophy begins in Wonder 2

What fills us with radical amazement is not the relations in which everything is embedded but the fact that even the minimum of perception is a maximum of enigma. The most incomprehensible fact is the fact that we comprehend at all.

Man is Not Alone; p. 14

The Heschel Series - Philosophy begins in Wonder

We may doubt anything, except that we are struck with amazement. When in doubt, we raise questions; when in wonder, we do not even know the question. Doubts may be resolved, radical amazement can never be erased. There is no answer in the world to man's radical wonder. Under the running sea of our theories and scientific explanations lies the aboriginal abyss of radical amazement.

Man is Not Alone; p. 13