Day 34

Today's Scripture is suitable to use with Lectio Divina .

Stilling: Come into the presence of God and use a stilling exercise to quieten yourself.

Grace: Pray that in these unprecedented times we share with joy God's mission of loving the world.

Micah 4:1-6 HCSB

The Lord’s Rule from Restored Zion

In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s house will be established at the top of the mountains and will be raised above the hills.

Peoples will stream to it, and many nations will come and say,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

to the house of the God of Jacob.

He will teach us about His ways so we may walk in His paths.”

For instruction will go out of Zion

and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

He will settle disputes among many peoples

and provide arbitration for strong nations that are far away.

They will beat their swords into ploughs,

and their spears into pruning knives.

Nation will not take up the sword against nation,

and they will never again train for war.

But each man will sit under his grapevine

and under his fig tree with no one to frighten him.

For the mouth of the Lord of Hosts has promised this.

Though all the peoples each walk in the name of their gods,

we will walk in the name of Yahweh our God forever and ever.

On that day— this is the Lord’s declaration—

I will assemble the lame and gather the scattered, those I have injured.

Conversation: Have a talk with Jesus about what has struck you during this meditation, does it have implications for your life and the mission you are called to fulfill?

Finish with a final prayer such as the Lord's Prayer/Our Father

A Thought for Today

Refugees

Stealthily, we moved from the edges,

Drawn by dreams of plenitude,

Leaving our homes at the margins

Of the deserted flatlands,

Where nothing grows

And what we had of wheels and cogs

Rusts and harbours cobwebs.

It was fear that urged us on,

Hacking at our hearts,

Fear of a demented power,

That fed upon its own illusions,

And cut the navel string

Which bound us to our Tribal Story.

We were Stripped at gunpoint

At the precise point of intersection

Between what passed as the frontier of nations.

We carry nothing with us,

But the golden memories

Of a love that had once bound us together as a people,

The incense of a gifted race

Which had tilled a fruitful land for a thousand years,

And we carry, like a sacrament,

The myrrh of our Nation's woundedness,

In which is mixed the wisdom of our ancestors.

This is who we are.

These are our gifts as we stand before your walls,

And if this be not enough to gain entry to your land,

Let the sun come down upon our dry bones,

And the moon carve us a grave.

Patrick Purnell SJ

Poetry of Patrick Purnell SJ on Amazon

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