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Today's Scripture is suitable to use with Lectio Divina
Stilling: Come into the presence of God and still yourself
Grace: Pray that we shall be filled with the utter fullness of the Holy Spirit.
Prayer Suggestion: To use with imaginative contemplation with “God in the City”
Joel 2:28-29 HCSB
Joel 2:28-29 HCSB
God’s Promise of His Spirit
God’s Promise of His Spirit
After this
I will pour out My Spirit on all humanity;
then your sons and your daughters will prophesy,
your old men will have dreams,
and your young men will see visions.
I will even pour out My Spirit
on the male and female slaves in those days.
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 fulfil?
Finish with a final prayer such as the Lord's Prayer/Our Father
God in the City
Praying With The Imagination :
Imagine that you are sitting on the side of a hill, overlooking a large city. It is night. It might be a city you know, somewhere you’ve once lived, or where you’ve had a holiday. Or it might be a place that exists wholly in your imagination. Wherever it is you have in your mind’s eye, take a few moments to get in touch with what it is like being there, in the darkness, looking out over the city and its lights.
As you sit there someone comes up to you and says, with absolute conviction: ‘If you go down into the city tonight, you will find God.’ They say it in a way that you know that it’s true. What do you feel like when you hear these words? What passes through your heart and mind as you listen to them?
And so you get up and begin to go down the hill into the city. You enter its outskirts, and then move further in towards the centre. You are moving through streets and open areas, past buildings and across roads. How do you go about looking for God? Where do you search for him? Do you involve anyone else in your seeking, ask anyone for help? Or do you search alone?
Take all the time you need to look into all the places where you think and feel that God might be. What are the kinds of places you look at? Who are the kinds of people you are searching among? Are there any places or people you find yourself avoiding?
Eventually you find God, and again, you cannot doubt that it is God whom you have found. Where did you make your discovery? What is this God you have found like? Where, and with whom, does he choose to be found?
Spend a little time there in the presence of the God who is to be found in your city, speaking to him ‘as one friend speaks to another’ about what your search was like. Take time to listen out for anything that God particularly wishes to communicate to you through this prayer exercise.
When you are ready, let your attention return to the room you are in, but be aware that you can return to that place in the city at any time, and meet God there again.
Adapted from Sadhana – A Way to God by Anthony de Mello
A Thought for Today
A Thought for Today
“Is there anything I can do to make myself enlightened”
“As little as you can do to make the sun rise in the morning”
“Then what is the use of spiritual exercises”
“To make sure you are not asleep when the sun begins to rise”
Zen Master
From One Minute Wisdom by Anthony de Mello SJ buy in Amazon
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