Sunday September 14: God’s Healing Love

To Practice

• Breath and Body Prayer: Begin by sitting comfortably, letting your breath slow and deepen. On each inhalation, pray inwardly: God so loved the world …  On each exhalation: … that I may live in love. After a few minutes, let your prayer move into gesture:
  –    Bow your head, recalling Christ’s humility.
  –    Open your hands, palms up, as though receiving love.
  –    Lift your arms gently outward and upward, embodying resurrection life.
  Hold each posture for a moment, then return to stillness. Close with a simple prayer: Here I am, Lord, open to your love.
  
• Love in Action: Take a few quiet breaths and rest in God’s presence. Then reflect or journal with these questions:
  –    Where am I being called to lift up love today?
  –    Who in my life could be touched by a gesture of kindness?
  –    What small act might bring healing, peace, or encouragement?
  After reflection, choose one simple, concrete act of love you can carry into your day. This could be a phone call, a note of gratitude, a listening ear, or a prayer spoken for someone’s well-being. As you move into action, remember Julian’s words: “Love was his meaning … you will never know anything but love, without end.”

If you wish, you may re-read the full email reflection here: https://mailchi.mp/coutreach/2025_word-of-the-week-sept14

I have to say, the Julian reading utterly shuts me down, precisely because of “love.” That word has been so cheapened by decades of overuse and Hallmark-card saccharine, “I’m OK, You’re OK” spirituality that it communicate nothing but a vague, meaningless, valueless sense of squishy warm fuzziness and sentimentality drained of any meaning. As soon as we start pining about “love,” my spiritual ears retract into my head. Which is a shame because in its century and culture of origin, it aimed for something quite specific, powerful, uncomfortable, and shicking. Now, we’ve made it a security blanket.

I need to reclaim some other shades meaning before “love” touches my heart as religious language. Something fiery and protective, or passionate and generative. God “loving” the world means so little to me that I can safely ignore it as a thought-ending cliché. God “desiring” the world, “craving” the world, “yearning” or even “lusting” for the world comes so much closer and actually wakes me up.

In the story of Adam and Eve, the snake symbolized the sin of pride that led to them to hide from God (Genesis 1-10). Even after God had given them victory over the Canaanites, the Jews became impatient and ungrateful. This story is a warning of the danger of the sins of greed and lust that will draw us away from God:

‘Nor should we put Christ to the test, as some of them did and then died from snakebites. And don’t grumble as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the angel of death. These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age.’ 1 Corinthians 10:9-11, NLT

The death of Jesus Christ on the cross changed the symbol of the snake into an icon of God’s grace. The bronze snake was an icon of healing G.R.A.C.E. (God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense). It was a foretaste of our salvation through the cross of Christ:

‘And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.’ John 3:14-15

We are set free from anger, shame, and fear by the cross of Jesus Christ. Jesus has given us victory over the snakes of temptations to sin. We can come before God’s presence with sincere hearts for our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with the Christ’s blood and our bodies washed with the pure water of the Holy Spirit (Hebrews 10:21-22). Our relationship with our Heavenly Father has been restored:

‘So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.’ Romans 8:15-16, NLT

Symbol of the snake
The thoughts that draw us from God
Sins of lust and greed

Icon of the snake
See the healing grace of God
Foretaste of the cross

From snake to the cross
To see God as our Father
Calling us back home

Lord, thank You for the victory over the snakes of temptation.

Breath and body praying through a difficult week; spending time with Hildegard of Bingen, { Sept.17 her feast day  this week}, breathing in God’s love….. “ceaseless grace”.

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