We are invited to simply be ourselves,
not needing an exciting lifestyle, busy schedules,
comfort foods, or approving relationships
in order to know and live out
our belovedness,
our true identity, our worth, our life tasks.
Call to prayer
Jesus said: Come to me…
Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it.
Learn the unforced rhythms of grace …
Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.
Matthew 11.28-30 (The Message)
Silence and stillness
As I rest in God’s presence, I choose a sacred word or phrase
(e.g. Abba, trust, here I am, mercy, Maranatha, Jesus …)
and breathe with it for 5 – 10 minutes
Taizé chant: Bless the Lord my soul (Click here to listen to the chant)
Psalm 31 (Click on the link to listen, or click here to read the Psalm)
(this might be the prayer of a person caught up in a complex lifestyle)
Taizé chant: Bless the Lord my soul
For reflection (Click on the link below to access each day’s meditation):
Day 1: Mary Magdalene, healed of addicting demons
Day 2: A reading from Henri Nouwen
Day 3: Mary facing loss of relationship & meaning
Day 4: Mary named, trusted, and confident – free of attachments
Day 5: Mary’s journey, my journey
Response
Using your journal, modelling clay or dough, or a series of sketches, record your sense of what Love Divine is whispering to you. Make these a response to each meditation.
And pray this prayer each day if it resonates with where you are.
A Prayer from the Cross of my Addictions
Jesus, for so long I have carried the cross of my addictions.
I have been nailed to things that keep me from surrendering my life totally to you.
These things that I am so attached to are the iron bars that keep me imprisoned
in the narrow space of my will.
It is a lonely space and far from freedom
Yet grace keeps a soft hand on my heart, squeezing it on occasion
Until I am brimming over with desire for a saviour.
Jesus, you are that saviour. You are the One who will anoint me
With the holy oil of detachment.
You are the One bringing good news to my heart.
You glance at my heart with all its broken promises
And your glance is like soothing ointment for all the nail marks in my life.
Jesus, you are the only one who can free what is captive in me
You lead me out of my self-made prison and bring me to the good news
of a year of jubilee. May this be that promised year.
May this be the year when I let you all the way into my life.
May this be the year when everything that is ruined, lying fallow, and unrooted in my life
be raised up, renewed and discovered.
May this be the year when I give my energy to my heart’s desire.
Dress me again in my baptismal robes for the seed is finally taking root.
I am being transformed into another Christ.
All praise to you Jesus, saviour and prophet, sent from Yahweh to bind up my wounds.
So be it. Amen, my God, amen.
(Wiederkehr, p 153)
Closing prayer
In you we live and move
In you we have our being.
We are in your love
Enfolded in your peace
Surrounded by your might.
Open our eyes, Lord,
Enlarge our vision.
Open our hearts, lord,
Increase our faith.
Open our minds, Lord,
Deepen our knowing.
We are in your love
Enfolded in your peace
Surrounded by your might.
In you we live and move
In you we have our being.
AMEN