Ilia Delio’s sentence resonates deeply: “By nurturing our inner life through prayer and reflection, we become vessels of God’s boundless compassion, capable of bringing hope and healing to a fractured world.” St. Francis’ prayer came to mind as well: make me a channel of your peace. Vessels carry, channels flow, to those who need hope and healing. I don’t have to go far to encounter a fractured world. I pray peace and compassion be my offering daily. <3 linda

“Centering Prayer is a training school for accepting failure, unknowing and even more so, overflowing Divine Love.”

We are chosen and destined to live in Christ, as Christ, in and through our ordinary lives.”

These two quotes speak deeply to being fully present in each moment. Our daily life is our training school. A loved one’s embrace amidst acceptance of failure means so much, lets us know we tried our best and Christ still lives in us. I am holding tight to “the light of love, until you know the fire you were made of and your invitation to burn!” <3 linda

After reading Father Keating’s complete writings on “Powerlessness”, I am drawn to two passages. “Finally, powerlessness is the greatest power there is because it enables one to simply be more an more a channel of God’s power and love, because the project is not our aggrandizement or perfection.” …and… “With time you become content with your weakness and happy to be utterly dependent on God.”

The only way I can become a channel of God’s hope to the world is to become as powerless as a water conduit – just open, no role except to stay open, allowing God’s hope to flow through me to the world. Am I always content with my weakness? No, yet progress is faithfully made, twenty minutes, twice a day. <3 linda

For my journey now, a prayer: Lord, make me an alchemist of Your hope. May I breathe in suffering, breathe out peace, serve as a transformer of energy and transmitter of Divine life, light and love. By Your Spirit, Your will be done through me. Amen. <3 linda

Trusting someone allows us to relax into that relationship. The need to impress has faded, we grow past acquaintance and friendship to being able to just “be” with one another.

Centering prayer opens us to “be” so that we can “…come to know God through the realization that our very being is penetrated with God’s knowledge and love for us.” (Merton’s quote)

Learning how to trust this knowledge and love on deepening levels calls me to my daily prayer sits. <3 linda

“In the mundane, the divine we greet…” Pray, then do the next practical thing. Changing attitudes around daily tasks and household chores nurtures the growth of my inner mustard seed. It becomes a modest shrub when fertilized with chores performed without resentment, perhaps with joy. Dishes, laundry, commode swishing…and all else done with an attitude of “as unto the Lord”. Kudos to our anonymous poet! <3 linda

I hear two profound questions appropriate for my journey: where are you and who are you? God asks the first. Father Keating posed the second. When, through centering prayer I am able to put aside myself and come naked into God’s Presence, I can honestly answer “here I am, Lord, your loving daughter. Speak, for your servant is listening.” I can hear God’s loving reply in the silence, and it brings me to tears. <3 linda

I watched the video clip of Father Keating commenting about the Eucharist. Jesus issued a two-way invitation: I will dine with you, identifying with you, and ask the same from you. This clip took me back to a snowy January in Snowmass, CO, participating in a 10-day retreat and taking Eucharist twice daily alongside Father Keating and the rest of the monks. I couldn’t grasp the full reality at the time, so overwhelmingly welcoming as it was, yet I was truly beholding what I am, becoming what I receive.

I had to leave the Snowmass table and move back into my world, equipped to see Christ in the people, tasks and events that awaited me. Seeing Christ in those closest to me and in daily tasks allows joy and deep contentment to well up from my Christ center into them. Contemplative practices keep that wellspring open and flowing. <3 linda

What I hear for my journey now is “learn how to act in accord with the Holy Spirit that ‘does not act according to human prudence.’” It has been quite some time since Spirit has “suggested a course that contradicts what has been a great source of support in one’s spiritual journey.” Sensing a new liminal space opening, I too want to open to what Spirit has in mind. <3 linda

Moving into Ordinary Time, my call is to move between “under these trees, in this place, at this time” living and the marketplace busyness of everyday being. My challenge is to do so as full of grace, love and perhaps a sprinkling of humor as I am able. Smile, as Mother Theresa would counsel, and let God do the rest. <3 linda

“This faith finds Christ not only in the beauty of nature…but also in the malice and injustice of people or institutions, and in the inexplicable suffering of the innocent. Even there it finds the same infinite love expressing the hunger of God for humanity, a hunger that God intends to satisfy.”

I asked, “what are today’s ‘even there’ scenes?” I open my eyes of my heart and open the news. So many “even theres”. I pray God strengthen my faith and use me as only God is able to bring love to the “even theres” of my world and make daily attempts to satisfy God’s hunger for humanity. <3 linda

My attention was caught by the question “What opened their [the disciples’] hearts to his [Jesus’] friendship?” I found my answer in Keating’s quote from “Open Mind, Open Heart”. “This Presence is healing, strengthening, refreshing…non-judgmental, self-giving, seeking no reward, boundless in compassion.” For me to be this type of agape friend means I have to stay connected to Presence daily and practice these disciplines to the best of my ability. <3 linda

Reflecting on when it is hard to trust the Gardener to prune, shape, and nurture me, one question arose: when is it not hard? It is hard when I think I am on top of my game spiritually; it is not hard when I am broken, afraid, disillusioned, hurt. Easier to allow the Gardener to prune what is dead, bind what is hurt and nurture me when I am least able to do for myself. <3 linda

I am resonating with Nan C. Merrill’s interpretation of the word “enemy” as “all my fears”. To prepare a table follows on fellowship and meal sharing with those around it. Conversations, laughter, tears occasionally…with my fears. Getting to know my fears better means, perhaps, being able to discern what it takes to calm my fears before they get agitated. What a powerful image; I will spend the week at table, making friends with my fears. <3 linda

“After Jesus, the greatest sacrament is another human being” are words written by Father Keating to remind me of the sacrament of my husband; my day in and day out person to love as best I can and see God in him. Over these past six months, as he battles newly diagnosed major health concerns, we recall our marriage vows, and find ourselves asking “does this count as worse?” Better or worse, we are together in God’s love, in caring for our home and health, and celebrating every miracle of life. <3 linda

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