Monday, March 31

Commemoration of John Donne

Reading: Ephesians 5:8-14

“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.”   Ephesians 5:14

Here is one of those lovely, unexpected hymn fragments that are woven into letters and other books in the New Testament. Just a little fragment, possibly of a baptismal hymn, already in existence and being sung by the early Christians by the time Paul wrote this letter to the church at Ephesus. Imagine the song in the night: river water may be rushing nearby, or waves splashing from the sea. The smell of chrism is in the air, and the smoke from fire. The renunciation toward the west, and then the turning toward the east, the direction of the rising sun, where Cyril of Jerusalem says, “God’s Paradise opens before you, that Eden … The place of light, that garden which God planted in the east.” And voices chanting in the dark, “Awake, O sleeper…”

Batter my heart, three-personed God, … to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.*  Amen

(* John Donne, from Holy Sonnet XII)

• Memorize a hymn.

Sunday, March 30

Fourth Sunday in Lent

Worship: 8 & 10:45 am

Food Shelf First Sunday

I Sam. 16:1-13; Ps.23; Eph. 58-14; John 9:1-41

How shall my days your grace proclaim;

How shall my deeds your healing prove?

An open heart will praise your name;

My grateful life will sing your love.

Saturday, March 29

Reading: Psalm 23

“You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.”  Psalm 23:5

If we have eyes to see it, all around us our cup is overflowing. To take that first deep breath in the morning is a blessing. To feel the softness of slippers. To smell coffee. Perhaps to hear a loving voice. Blessing. The Babylonian Talmud instructs the pious Jew to bless God one hundred times each day. Blessed are you, O God, for the light blue snow at sunset. Blessed are you, O God, for the crescent moon. Blessed are you, O God, for the eyes of that child.  Blessed are you, O God, for the song of the wind. For these amazing fingers. For lentils. For wool. Imagine a life lived, steeped in blessing. My cup overflows.

God the Good Shepherd, lead us beside still waters, that we may see your many blessings and bless you.  Amen

• Give thanks 100 times today.

Friday, March 28

Reading: I Samuel 16:1-13

“So Shemu’el (Samuel) took the horn of oil and anointed David amid his brothers. And the spirit of YHWH surged upon David from that day onward."   1 Samuel 16:13 (Everett Fox, tr.)

The books of  First and Second Samuel are books about power, about the corruption of power and about personal responsibility, and in this story beginning the longest continuous narrative in the Bible, we meet the shepherd-boy who will become king, David. Here, the prophet Samuel anoints David, the youngest son of Jesse, for kingship, after rejecting David’s seven older brothers. David was anointed for kingship. Prophets were anointed, high priests were anointed. Anointing was for healing, for hospitality, for burial. We anoint the ears and  eyes of catechumens. The Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Bible says, then, in John 9:6 that Jesus “anointed” the blind man’s eyes with mud. (The New Revised – NRSV – says “spread.” What a loss.) Christ means the Anointed One. How did David use his power as the anointed king? How did Jesus use his power as the Anointed One?

God of glory, fill us with your spirit and anoint us for your work in the world.  Amen

• Take bit of pure olive oil. Anoint your hands, your eyes, your lips, your ears, your heart.

Thursday, March 27

Reading: I Samuel 16:1-13

“… the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”     1 Samuel 16:7

“Create in me a clean heart, O God,” we sing as the season of Lent begins. “Create in me a clean heart, O God,” we sing in the liturgy at the Great Entrance of the Eucharist. A clean heart. The heart is where the whole person comes together – body, spirit, mind. What is intended by the mind takes up residence in the body and spirit. What is done with the body takes residence in the spirit and the mind. All are interwoven. In the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, heard through this Epiphany season, Jesus spoke over and over again about intention. How crucial are the intentions of the heart! Other people see our actions which may seem just, but God sees the motivations, the intentions, the energy behind our acts. In T.S. Eliot’s play, Murder in the Cathedral, Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket struggles with the possibility of martyrdom, and whether he might actually be desiring the glory that comes with it:

“Now is my way clear, now is the meaning plain:

Temptation shall not come in this kind again.

The last temptation is the greatest treason:

To do the right deed for the wrong reason.”

God of light, awaken us to see the glory of life in you.  Amen

• Place on your altar a picture of someone experiencing hardship. Pray for them.

Wednesday, March 26

Worship: Noon, soup meal follows; 7 pm, soup meal at 6 pm.

Reading: John 4:5-42

“Sir, give me this water so that I may never be thirsty.” John 4:15

If you look at Orthodox icons of Jesus and the woman at the well, you see that the woman is occasionally shown with a nimbus, the gold circle around the head which is a sign of holiness and divine energy. In the Eastern Orthodox church, the Samaritan woman at the well has been given a name, Saint Photini, the “enlightened one,” and is “equal to the apostles,” because she believed and went to tell others about the Christ she had encountered. Her story continues. It is said she was baptized along with her five sisters and two sons, traveled to Carthage to share the story of Jesus Christ, and eventually traveled to Rome, where she was martyred by the emperor Nero. Her feast day is February 26, and a church dedicated to her has stood for centuries at Nablus in the West Bank, traditional site of Jacob’s well.

“By the well of Jacob, O holy one,

Thou didst find the Water of eternal and blessed life;

And having partaken thereof, O wise Photini,

Thou wentest forth proclaiming Christ, the Anointed One.”

(Megalynarion for St. Photini)

Living God, give us the Living Water that we may never thirst.  Amen

• Skip a cup of coffee today. Set aside the money saved for an act of love.

Tuesday, March 25

Reading: John 4:5-42

“Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well.”    John 4:6

Sitting by the well, Jesus speaks to the woman of Samaria about “living water” or “running water” according to the writer of John, who frequently uses double or triple meanings. In one icon of this story the well is shaped like a Greek cross: the living water flows from faith. In an early Christian mosaic, it is shaped like an eight-sided baptismal font: the well of living water is baptism. In one catacomb painting, Jesus himself stands in the well: Christ is the living water. German theologian Oscar Cullman argues that this story was intended to continue Nicodemus’ discussion with Jesus about being born anew (or “from above,” – another double meaning!). Which is it? Perhaps the answer is, “yes.” The power of story is that we can enter it from many different directions, many different levels. Each person can enter and find meaning at different points in life.

So - another story: The disciples asked the master, “Why do you tell us stories and stories and do not tell us what they mean?” The master replied, “How would you like it if I offered you a piece of fruit and chewed it first?”

God of life, lead us always to the flowing water where we will find life. Amen

• Place an icon on your altar and meditate on it.*

* To purchase an icon, see www.light-n-life.com (search under “icons.”) or visit their store (Light and Life Publishing, 5251 W. 73rd St., Suite 1, Edina, MN  55439).  You might also do a Google image search online for icons (you can be specific if you have a favorite saint) – and print it if you have a color printer.

Monday, March 24

Commemoration of Archbishop Oscar Romero

Reading: Psalm 95

“Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, when your ancestors tested me.”    Psalm 95:8

Above the Great West Door at Westminster Abbey, in the gallery of 20^th Century Martyrs, amid tracery stonework, a sculpted figure of a small man stands between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He holds a small child. The statue is of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, assassinated while lifting the chalice at Mass on this day in 1980. Romero consistently preached that the Christian community should work for the poor and oppressed, and not only in the care and giving of alms, but in the changing of the world systems and structures that create poverty and oppression. This he continued to do, in spite of hate mail and death threats and increasing murders and disappearances around him. He felt deeply that salvation is for this world, that God desires the good of all people in this time. He preached, “We must not seek the child Jesus in the pretty figures of our Christmas cribs, we must seek him among the undernourished children who have gone to bed at night with nothing to eat, among the poor news boys, who will sleep covered with newspapers in doorways.”  (Christmas Eve, 1977)

Compassionate God, give us courage to transform the suffering that comes to us and to work to alleviate the suffering that comes to others. Amen

• Learn about a country with immigrants in the area around Mount Olive: Mexico, Somalia, Laos (Hmong), Tibet…

Sunday, March 23

Third Sunday in Lent

Ex. 17:1-7; Ps.95; Rom. 5:1-11; John 4:5-42

Worship: 8 & 10:45 am

O break the rock, let water flow

And wash the dust and drought from me;

I taste your peace, your presence know,

And drinking deep, am healed and free.

Saturday, March 22

Reading: Exodus 17:1-7

“YHWH said to Moshe: Here I stand before you there on the Rock at Horev, you are to strike the rock and water shall come out of it, and the people shall drink. Moshe did thus, before the eyes of the elders of Israel.”  Exodus 17:6

Lent as a period of preparation for Easter was already common in the church by the year 330 CE. During these days catechumens (candidates for baptism) were being instructed for their baptism at the Vigil of Easter, and the community as a whole used the time as a reminder and renewal of their baptism. The woman at the well, the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus were all scripture lessons used in this instruction, pointing toward new life, the new sight given by the waters of baptism. Water flows in the desert, thirst is quenched in the wilderness. Hope is offered to those in despair. Water flows from the rock. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.

Blessed are you, O God, for you bring water flowing from the rock. Amen

• Light a candle at your altar to give thanks for your baptism.

Friday, March 21

Reading: Exodus 17:1-7

“The people thirsted for water there, and the people grumbled against Moshe and said: ‘For what reason then did you bring us up from Egypt, to bring death … by thirst?”     Exodus 17:3

In April 2010, National Geographic devoted an entire issue to the theme of “Water,” and included in the issue one of those grand National Geographic maps, this one a mapping of every river system of the world.* One need only a quick glance to see that between the Nile in Egypt and the Tigris and Euphrates in Iraq there is Not Much. Not even taking into account the Jordan and its few tributaries. Not much at all. It is brown on the map. No perennial rivers or lakes. And it is through this land that Moses and the Israelites are traveling. Water is life. Water is the life-blood of the green earth, like capillaries and arteries in our own bodies. The Israelites looked around and as far as they could see – only desert. Only wilderness. Only dry rock. But underneath their feet, out of sight, unknown, was blessing – the fossil water of the
Nubian Sandstone Aquifer. They saw only despair, hopelessness. But they were surrounded by blessing: water, life. Unseen, under their very feet, was blessing.

God of life, so dwell in us that our trust in you may never be shaken. Amen

*(http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/04/water/water-animation).

• Become aware today of all the ways water comes into our lives. Place a small bowl of water on your altar. Make the sign of the cross with it.

Thursday, March 20

Reading: Romans 5:1-11

Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.   Romans 5:4-5

When hardship comes to us, as it always will, we often want to flee, and quickly. But quite often, as years pass, we discover that hardship has taught us important lessons: trust in God, trust in our own mysterious inner strength, compassion toward others, release of fear and anxiety, gratitude, wonder. Help does not always come in the form we momentarily desire. What may come may simply be an increased capacity for endurance. But God pleads with us not to harden our hearts - to remain hopeful, God-trusting, open, and loving. God wills for us abundant life.

Hear our voices when we call, O God, and strengthen us to release all that keeps us from abundant life in you. Amen

• Eat only cooked rice for one meal; set aside the money saved for an act of love.

Wednesday, March 19

Commemoration of Joseph, Guardian of Jesus

Worship: Noon, soup meal follows; 7 pm, soup meal at 6 pm.

Reading: John 3:1-17

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.   John 3:16

The Ignatian examination of conscience instructs us, after giving thanks, to examine and name our brokenness. What is the old garment we need to remove before we can be renewed in the waters? What attitude, what despair is blocking us off from living a resurrected life? Perhaps we are so angry that we have become hard like stone. Perhaps we are so afraid of being hurt that we have let ourselves become numb. Perhaps we have felt so unloved that we have put ourselves first above everything. Naming our brokenness is not easy. It takes silence, it takes honesty, it takes vulnerability. But Christ already has become vulnerable before us. And God has already loved us, in spite our waywardness. “God so loved the world…”  When we open ourselves up to God, it will not be to storm and wrath, but to loving embrace.

All-loving God, we place in your care our hearts, our wills, our lives. Amen

• Take something on – daily prayer, a new attitude, helping a neighbor…

Tuesday, March 18

Reading: John 3:1-17

 “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.”  John 3:6

Life in Christ is a journey into transformation, into newness. It asks for the giving up of things of the flesh, that is, self-centered, self-absorbed, worldly gain, the incurvatus in se, being turned in toward self, that Luther calls sin. We would often rather, like Jonah, sell our donkey, so we don’t have to take this journey, but Christ is whispering in our ear “I am yours” awaiting our “I am yours.” And when the two come together – fire! wind!

Abba Joseph, a desert father, was approached by Abba Lot, who informed him that he had kept his rule of prayer, fasted, purified his thoughts, and lived peaceably – what more could he do? Abba Joseph held out his hands toward heaven, fingers extended, and said, “You can become fire.” Each fingertip blazed like a candle.

May we become fire, O God, and live as your light in the world. Amen

• Give something up – a bad habit, a grudge, despair …

Monday, March 17

Commemoration of Patrick, bishop and missionary to Ireland

Reading: Romans 4:1-5, 13-17

"For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.”  Romans 4:13

On his last night as a slave to Miliucc, a chieftain “king” near present-day Ballymena, Northern Ireland, Patrick received a message. A voice said to him: “ Your hungers are rewarded: you are going home. Look, your ship is ready.” The hills where Patrick tended sheep and pigs as a slave were nowhere near any port, but Patrick reports that he left and walked two hundred miles to a port, where a ship was indeed loading. He eventually made his way to a monastery in France for his theological education, and returned to Ireland after a second vision.. God said to Abram, not “Poof!,” but “Go-you-forth!” and Abram went. God said to Patrick, not “Whoosh!,” but “Your ship is ready.” And Patrick went. How many summons have we received from God? And when the next one comes, will we take that first step?

I arise today

Through God’s strength to pilot me:

God’s might to uphold me,

God’s wisdom to guide me,

God’s eye to look before me,

God’s ear to hear me,

God’s word to speak for me,

God’s hand to guard me … Amen.  (St. Patrick’s Breastplate)

• Take the first step in doing an act of love you have put off for a long time.

Sunday, March 16

Second Sunday in Lent

Full Moon

Worship: 8 & 10:45 am

Gen. 12:1-4a; Ps.121; Rom. 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17

But far from Sinai have I roamed

And bear the hidden wounds of strife;

Away and worn, I yearn for home;

Athirst, desire the spring of life.

Saturday, March 15

Purim, festival of Lots, begins at sundown

Reading: Psalm 121

“The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade at your right hand”   Psalm 121:5

The Ignatian examination of conscience that was described in the Ash Wednesday reflection begins and ends with gratitude. Our days begin with “O Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall proclaim your praise,” (Matins) and end with “Let us bless the Lord; thanks be to God.” (Compline)

When life leads us into the wilderness, gratitude helps us recall that we have a shelter from the sun and wind, a refuge from predators. Meister Eckhart, 14^th century Rhineland mystic, wrote “The one most needful prayer is: thank you.” Gratitude cultivates an approach to life that is life-giving and healing. Gratitude provides a deep well to sustain us in dry desert times, days of wandering and uncertainty, days of wilderness.

O Lord, thou hast given so much to me;

Grant one thing more: a grateful heart.”  (George Herbert)

Amen

• Go to www.gratefulness.org and click on the video “A Good Day.”

Friday, March 14

Reading: Genesis 12:1-4a

“Be a blessing!”  Genesis 12:2b

Each person is a unique, never-to-be-repeated event in the universe. No person has the same fingerprint, voice print, or retinal pattern as another. No one’s DNA, cell memory, and life experience are exactly the same as another’s. All of us have different songs, different wounds, different joys vibrating in our bones. God has given each person talents and abilities that are unique, and the universe needs us to develop and use these gifts. God said, “I will give you blessing … be a blessing!” Rabbi Zusya said, “In the world to come, I shall not be asked, “Why were you not Moses?” I shall be asked, “Why were you not Zusya?”

God, rich in blessing, may we be complete, as you are complete. Amen

• Fast secretly for one meal. Set aside the money saved for an act of love.

Thursday, March 13

Reading: Genesis 12:1-4a

“YHWH said to Avram: Go-you-forth from your land, from your kindred … to the land that I will let you see.”       Genesis 12:1( Schocken Bible, Everett Fox, tr.)

Righteousness.

What was the personal benefit to Abram that he left his land, the land of his father, the land of his ancestors to step out on the journey God offered him? What would Abram get out of the journey he was about to undertake at God’s bidding at the age of 75? Abram was leaving all that he knew, giving up rights to the land of his birth. All we are told is that Abram was given a promise by God. Abram trusted and accepted the summons and left for Canaan.

Martin Luther wrote in Two Kinds of Righteousness, that the first righteousness is a gift of God “instilled in us without our works by grace alone,”  from which develops our “proper” righteousness, a life lived “soberly with self, justly with neighbor, devoutly toward God.… Therefore, through the first righteousness arises the voice of the bridegroom who says to the soul, ‘I am yours,’ but through the second comes the voice of the bride who answers, ‘I am yours.”

So Abram went.

O God of love and promise, may we always answer, “I am yours.”. Amen

 

• Plant a bulb in a pot. Begin to water it; place it in a sunny window.

Wednesday, March 12

Commemoration of St. Gregory the Great (540-604)

Worship: Noon, soup meal follows; 7 pm, soup meal at 6 pm.

Reading: Matthew 4:1-11

“Then the devil took [Jesus] to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, 'If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down…'" Matt.4:5-6a

Jesus fasted for forty days, and the tempter tried to entice him to turn stones into bread.  Then the tempter tried to entice Jesus to throw himself down from a height of fourteen stories and defy gravity and death. Jesus wandered humbly without possessions, and the tempter tried to entice him with great wealth and power. All of these temptations were attempts to lure Jesus away from his true identity: that of embodied compassion. For compassion suffers with (“cum” – “patior”). If Jesus were truly to live as humans live, he would at some time suffer hunger, thirst, alienation, disappointment, pain, loneliness, death. To opt out of any of these experiences would lessen his capacity to be the Compassionate One. Compassion suffers with. It is experienced from a state of equality, not from a superior position of pity, but from a position of equals. Christ suffered, died, and rose anew, his brokenness left behind, and with compassion in his eyes, he reaches to us and bids us rise to the compassionate life he lived.

As you sent the Christ, O God, to show your compassion for all creation, may our lives be transformed into his image. Amen

• Identify something that lures you away from your true identity as a baptized person. Pray about it.

Tuesday, March 11

Reading: Romans 5:12-19

“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned…”  Romans 5:12

A look at the fossils embedded in limestone quarries shows that thousands of species of animals lived, died, and became extinct before humans ever developed in the Great Rift Valley of east Africa. Stars that are 10 million light-years from earth need 10 million years for their light to reach us, in which time they may have died, far before humans ever walked the savannahs. Everything in creation comes into being, lives, and dies – mountains, deserts, brachiosaurs, galaxies, humans. It is a part of the great becoming of the universe. So what do we do with a statement like Paul’s, who alone among Biblical writers seems to regard death as the result of human sin? Better, perhaps, to focus in on what Thomas Long calls “big ‘D’ Death,” rather than “little ‘d’ death”: that is, death as spiritual separation from all that gives us life and wholeness and joy.

Surround us with your steadfast love, O God, that we may be glad and rejoice. Amen

• Create a small Lenten group to study together: perhaps one book of the Bible, a novel, a devotional …
  
  

Monday, March 10

Commemoration of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth

Reading: Psalm 32

“While I kept silence, my body wasted away.” Psalm 32:3

Three traditional aspects of the discipline of Lent have been prayer, fasting, and acts of compassion. In the reading from Matthew’s gospel that we heard on Ash Wednesday, Jesus emphasizes that spiritual practice should not be used to feel holier, more spiritual, superior to other people, but rather to connect to God and to our “secret heart” (Ps. 51:6) in such a way that we also connect to other people. “Is this not the fast I choose?” Today’s date in the church’s calendar is given to the commemoration of Harriet Tubman, an Ashanti (Ghana) American slave who escaped to freedom and returned to the slave states 13 times to lead out other slaves, and Sojourner Truth, a slave of Guinean heritage, who escaped and worked for abolition of slavery. Perhaps today is a good day to recall this African proverb: Umuntu ngamuntu ngabantu – a person is a person because of other people.

May our fasting and prayer this season, O God,  lead us into acts of compassion and justice. Amen

• Choose one societal problem that needs your advocacy, your letters, your prayers, your action.

Sunday, March 9

FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT

WORSHIP: 8 & 10:45 AM

LENT PROCESSION SERVICE 4:00 PM

Gen. 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Ps. 32, 9-16; Rom.5:12-19; Matt. 4:1-11

O God, with hope I enter in
And call to mind your desert grace:
To wayworn people you have been
A presence in the wilderness.

Saturday, March 8

Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made … then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.” Genesis 3:1, 7a
The Hebrew scriptures are full of wordplay, ambiguity, and multiple meanings, and here in the garden story of Genesis we see an interesting example: the serpent was arum – clever, sly or crafty, and Adam and Eve saw that they were arum – naked. Or did they indeed discover that they, like the serpent, were crafty? Or, crafty and naked? The Berakhot Sanhedrin says every word of Torah splits into 70 languages – as many interpretations as there are people. Imagine the challenge to the translator, especially considering that written biblical Hebrew has no vowels! So - what do you think? Are we naked or crafty?

Open our hearts to your word, O God, and give us understanding. Amen

• INVITE FRIENDS OR FAMILY TO BAKE PRETZELS (SEE RECIPE).

Friday, March 7

Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:20b—6:10

“See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Cor. 6:2b)
Procrastination takes a toll on our spirits and on our bodies. All the “should do" ‘s, all the “wish I could” ‘s pile up inside us like a cluttered room, hemming us in, hampering our movement, sapping our will. In the Chinese system of healing, procrastination actually causes illness, by barricading the free flow of energy to the organs. Now, Paul writes. Now. “Now is the acceptable time.” Now is the time for repentance. Now is the time for forgiveness. Now is the time for transformation. Now is the time for newness. Lent offers us an opportunity to stop procrastinating, both as individuals and as a community. Lent’s forty days bid us step onto the path to newness in Christ, reading scripture – now, connecting to God through prayer – now, doing acts of love – now. Now is the acceptable time.

Teach us, O God, in the way you would have us go. Amen.

• START A LENTEN JOURNAL; WRITE EVEN JUST A SENTENCE, A THOUGHT, OR A PARAGRAPH EACH DAY.

Thursday, March 6

Reading: Isaiah 58:1-12

“Is this not the fast I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke? … Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the homeless poor into your house?” 
(Isaiah 58:6a, 7a)

This week, we took the palms from the previous Palm Sunday, burned them, mixed them with olive oil, and anointed ourselves with the humility and compassion of Christ. As Lent begins, we mark ourselves with a cross as people moving toward Easter. And, so that we can create an empty space where newness can take root, we begin with confession and forgiveness, emptying ourselves of life-draining guilt, bitterness and regret. God wants to do a new thing, but a full cup does not have room for newness. And so we speak aloud to God our failures and wrongs, we let go of those things that in silence are causing us to waste away. And, open and emptied, we step into the wilderness path with Christ at our side.

Plant in our hearts, O God, the sure trust in your forgiveness and mercy.

Amen

• MAKE AN ALTAR, A PLACE FOR PRAYER.

Wednesday, March 5: Ash Wednesday

WORSHIP: NOON & 7 PM

Isaiah 58:1-12; Psalm 51:1-17; 2 Corinthians 5:20B-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

"You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart." Psalm 51:6

In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius of Loyola directs those preparing for confession of sin to

1. acknowledge a grace in your life and give thanks to God;
2. examine and name your brokenness;
3. ask God to heal your brokenness;
4. imagine what form a sign of that healing might take; imagine living that way;
5. give thanks to God for the present grace.

We are entering into forty days of preparation toward renewed life, the Easter promise of a new dawn, the spring promise of new growth, of truth in our inward being. "Truth happens to the prepared mind,” wrote Bernard Lonergan. Germination of seed is more likely to happen in prepared soil.

And so we make the sign of the cross – with ash – to prepare ourselves to enter the land God has promised, flowing with milk and honey: a right spirit. A land where truth and wisdom reside in the secret heart.

Create in us clean hearts, O God, and renew right spirits within us. Amen.

• VEIL CROSSES WITH DEEP PURPLE CLOTH OR UNBLEACHED MUSLIN, A FAST FOR THE EYES.