FOR THE INTERIM TIME

When near the end of day, life has drained
Out of light, and it is too soon
For the mind of night to have darkened things,

No place looks like itself, loss of outline
Makes everything look strangely ion-between,
Unsure of what has been, or what might come.

In this wan light, even trees seem groundless.
In a while it will be night, but nothing
Here seems TO believe the relief of dark.

You are in this time of the interim
Where everything seems withheld.

The path you took to get here has washed out;
The way forward is still concealed from you.

“The old is not old enough to have died away;
The new is still too young to be born.”

You cannot lay claim to anything;
In this place of dusk,
Your eyes are blurred;
And there is no mirror.

Everyone else has lost sight of your heart
And you can see nowhere to put your trust;
You know you have to make your own way through.

As far as you can, hold your confidence.
Do not allow your confusion to squander
This call which is loosening
Your roots in false ground,
That you might become free
From all you have outgrown.

What is being transformed here is your mind,
And it is difficult and slow to become new.
The more faithfully you can endure here,
The more refined your heart will become
For your arrival in the new dawn.

John O’Donohue
To Bless The Space Between Us

NO MAN IS AN ISLAND - JOHN DONNE

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine 
own were; any man's death diminishes me, 
because I am involved in mankind. 
And therefore never send to know for whom 
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. 

John Donne
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

NO MAN IS AN ISLAND - MERTON

Every other man is a piece of myself, for I am a part and a member of mankind. Every Christian is a part of my own body, because we are members of Christ. What I do is also done for them and with them and by them. What they do is done in me and by me and for me.

Nothing at all makes sense, unless we admit, with John Donne, that: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”

Thomas Merton
No Man Is An Island

KILLING TIME

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

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

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

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

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”