KILLING TIME

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How do I kill time?
Let me count the ways.

By worrying about things
over which I have no control
Like the past.
Like the future.

By harboring resentment
and anger
over hurts
real or imagined.

By disdaining the ordinary
or, rather, what I
so mindlessly
call ordinary.

By concern over what’s in it for me,
rather than what’s in me
for it.

By failing to appreciate what is
because of might-have-beens,
should-have-beens,
could-have-beens.

These are some of the ways
I kill time.

Jesus didn’t kill time.
He gave life to it.
His own.

Leo Rock, SJ
Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits

PRAYER OF EXAMEN

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1.     Acknowledge God’s presence.
Ask for grace to review your day. 

2.     Review your day with a posture of gratitude. 
Ask for God's view on the events of your day. 

3.     Recognize the moments of consolation or desolation. 
Ask for help to see either a moment or an overall tone to my day. 

A consolation may be an experience in which you feel close God. 
A desolation may be an experience in which you feel far away from God.

4.     Reflect deeper on the consolation or desolation. 
Ask for insight, understanding, forgiveness, or gratitude.

5.     Look forward to tomorrow with hope.
Ask for grace to live fully into the present and an awareness to be present to your life. 

OPPONENT

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Every breath now
holds a different weight
heavy and holding back

Schedules and plans
parties and possibilities
all on indefinite pause

Breathing is
more sacred
more scared
even scarred
because of an unknown
and uncertain opponent

But this opponent
that takes away breath
closes doors and disrupts dreams
may be an instructor
an uninvited guide

To realign
reassess
reimagine
what every breath is for

Jared Ray Mackey

PRAYER OF ST. PATRICK

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May you arise today,
God's strength to pilot you,
God's might to uphold you,
God's wisdom to guide you,
God's eye to look before you,
God's ear to hear you,
God's word to speak for you,
God's hand to guard you,
God's shield to protect you,

Christ before you,
Christ behind you,
Christ beneath you,
Christ above you,

Christ within you,
Christ on your right,
Christ on your left,
Christ when you lie down,
Christ when you sit down,
Christ when you rise up,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of you,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of you,
Christ in every eye that sees you,
Christ in every ear that hears you.

Amen.

ON THE ARRIVAL OF AN ILLNESS

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When the reverberations of shock subside in you,
May grace come to restore you to balance.
May it shape a new space in your heart
To embrace this illness as a teacher
Who has come to open your life to new worlds.

May you find in yourself
A courageous hospitality
Toward what is difficult,
Painful, and unknown.

May you learn to use this illness
As a lantern to illuminate
The new qualities that will emerge in you.

May you be granted the courage and vision
To work through passivity and self-pity,
To see the beauty you can harvest
From the riches of this dark invitation.

May you learn to receive it graciously,
And promise to learn swiftly
That it may leave you newborn,
Willing to dedicate your time to birth.

John O’Donohue
excerpts from “On the Arrival of Illness”

PANDEMIC

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What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now, 
on trying to make the world
different than it is. 
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
 
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.
 
Promise this world your love–
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.
 
Lynn Ungar
March 11, 2020
lynnungar.com

LENT PRAYERS

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DAILY

You alone bring order to the unruly wills and affections of sinners: may we love what You command, and desire what You promise, so that, among the swift and varied changes of this world, our hearts may be fixed where true joy is to be found.

MORNING

Drive far from us all wrong desires, incline our hearts to keep Your ways: grant that having cheerfully done Your will this day, we may, when night comes, rejoice and give You thanks; through the One Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and forever. Amen.

EVENING

You made this day for the works of the light, and this night for the refreshment of our minds and bodies: keep us now in Christ; grant us a peaceful evening, and a night free from sin, and bring us at last to eternal life; through the One Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and for ever. Amen.

COURAGE IS HEARTBREAK

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Human beings are constantly trying to take courageous paths in their lives: in their marriages, in their relationships, in their work and with themselves. But the human way is to hope that there's a way to take that courageous step—without having one's heart broken. And it's my contention that there is no sincere path a human being can take without breaking his or her heart. 

There is no marriage, no matter how happy, that won't at times find you wanting and break your heart. In raising a family, there is no way to be a good mother or father without a child breaking that parental heart. In a good job, a good vocation, if we are sincere about our contribution, our work will always find us wanting at times. In an individual life, if we are sincere about examining our own integrity, we should, if we are really serious, at times, be existentially disappointed with ourselves. 

So it can be a lovely, merciful thing to think, "Actually, there is no path I can take without having my heart broken, so why not get on with it and stop wanting these extra-special circumstances which stop me from doing something courageous?" 

David Whyte