Sunday morning 5/8/05

The peaches have been small, ripe and tasty. 5/2/05

Sunflower 5/2/05

wild sunflowers at our monastery 5/2/05

May 8, 2005

The Ascension Jn 17:1-11a

Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you, just as you gave him authority over all people, so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him. Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ. I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do. Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began.

"I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.
I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them. And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you."

"I do not pray for the world but the ones you have given me" I have spent my faith returning daily to the Word of God, life by and in the Word. It is part of the dwelling in God and God dwelling in me. The times of lectio daily of sitting with the Word of God and living with and letting it seep into my being, turning it over, plying it with the present thoughts and circumstances to rethink and relisten daily. These are times spent with God in connection, conversation, in listening and renewal.

When I am in the world and at work, my life can be a prayer and a constant renewal of life in Christ, but it always needs the support of the time alone with God in prayer and the time in lectio open to the Word of God and folding it into the dough of my every fiber of being so that I may dwell in God and God dwell in me. Ora et labora. With God my work carries a constant prayer and my prayer is fulfilled in my work. "Oh God come to my assistance Lord make haste to help me" I pray today that God help me to truly serve and heal all those who encounter as a part of my work.