Friday, March 21

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Luke 22:47-52

“Those who have true devotion to the passion of the Lord must so contemplate Jesus on the cross with the eyes of their heart that they identify themselves with his flesh…  Let the earth tremble when its Redeemer is put to death; let the rocks of faithless hearts be split open; and let those who are imprisoned in the sepulchers of their mortality push off the tombstones that imprison them and leap forth. May signs of our future resurrection appear today in the holy city, that is, the Church of God, and hearts experience that which our bodies will one day undergo.”  [A Reading from a sermon of Leo the Great] What prayer might you form today?    

Thursday, March 20

Read Luke 22:47-52

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Traditionally both foot washing and communion are celebrated today.  This night we will receive Communion in worship. Aelred of Rievaulx [A Rule of Life for a Recluse ] describes Jesus’ washing of the disciple’s feet. “But when he rises from the table, girds himself with the towel and pours water into a basin, consider what majesty it is that is washing and drying the feet of mere mortals, what graciousness it is that touches with his scared hands the feet of the traitor.  Look and wait and, last of all, give him your own feet to wash, because those whom he does not wash will have no part of him.”  Are you able to receive the foot-washing of Christ?

Wednesday, March 19

Luke 22:47-52

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Read Luke 22:47-48.  Jesus is betrayed with a common form of greeting, a kiss.  The gesture is hollow.  How does Jesus handle His betrayal? Where have you felt betrayed? How do we handle our own betrayals from others?  

Tuesday, March 18

Luke 22:47-52

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How might you have betrayed Christ? In Search of the Beyond Carlo Carretto writes:   “….when, through my tears, I began to tell him [Christ] something of the years during which I betrayed him, he lovingly placed his hand over my mouth in order to silence me.  His one concern was that I should muster courage enough to pick myself up again, to try and carry on walking in spite of my weakness, and to believe in his love in spite of my fears.”  Where has Christ offered forgiveness and love?

Monday, March 17

Luke 22:47-52

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Imagine the thoughts and feelings of Judas during Jesus’ final week in Jerusalem. What made him betray his Lord?   Is there something of Judas in all of us?   Where might you have pushed your ideas and desires ahead of God’s plan?

Friday, March 14

Read Luke 22:39-46

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Pray Hymn: 368
My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

When darkness veils his lovely face,
I rest on his unchanging grace.
In every high and stormy gale,
my anchor holds within in the veil.

His oath, his covenant, his blood
support me in the whelming flood.
When all around my soul gives way,
he then is all my hope and stay.

When he shall come with trumpet sound,
O may I then in him be found!
Dressed in his righteousness alone,
faultless to stand before the throne!

On Christ the solid rock I stand,
all other ground is sinking sand;
all other ground is sinking sand.

Wednesday, March 12

We may experience mystery as random or contingent, implacable, as silent as stone in the face of human sorrow.  We may question our way into a whirlwind of no answers, like Job or feel forsaken, like Jesus, but there may also come moments when the veil is thin and we know we are known. [A Time to Live: Robert Raines] When during a time of questioning have you known God’s presence and comfort?

Tuesday, March 11

Read Luke 22:39-46

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‘Taking on the mystery’ captures the essence of what it means to be human, to embrace beyond all that we can comprehend the abiding mystery at the heart of the universe.  To take on the mystery of things is to wear it like a shawl or cloak, to put on a cloud of unknowing, to live into luminous darkness.  [A Time to Live: Robert Raines] If you were to wrap yourself in a shawl or cloak, what color and fabric might you use?  What might luminous darkness be?

Monday, March 10

Read Luke 22:39-46

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Living life’s questions means a willingness to live with mystery and ambiguity.   “Taking on the mystery is yielding to grace, letting go of all explanations, analyses, ideologies, self-images, images of God, agendas, expectations.  [A Time to Live: Robert Raines]. Where do you need to ‘let go and let God’? 

Sunday, March 9

Read Luke 22:39-46

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What if we are not called to find the answers but to live the questions?  Of course, answers do give us a sense of control.  But life is often ‘out of our control’.  In fact, life is ‘beyond’ us. The only real decision we can make is to choose life in Christ.  When has this choice been difficult?  How have you been strengthened through prayer? Where have you been courageous?

Maybe our faith does not give us answers, but empowers us to live the questions of why, why me, how come, when, and so on.  If we don’t know all the answers or can’t know them, on what do we base hope, confidence and the desire to go on?  Hebrews 11:1  begins a series of ‘by faith’ examples of people following the will of God beyond the questions they may have had.  “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.  For this the ancients were commended.” Read Hebrews 1. Find one character with which to spend some time.  What was this character asked to do by faith? What ‘answers’ are you being asked to take on faith today?