- Isaiah 50: 4-7
- Psalm 22: 8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24
- Philippians 2: 6-11
- Mark 14:1-15:47
- Rousing the weary
- No one likes a mindless cheerleader - the one who wants those around them to show enthusiasm despite the dire situation, who encourages others to look on the bight side when there is no bright side, who is out of touch with reality. Giving others hope can be hard.
- When you or a loved one suffers a loss, what is your first response?
- Have you ever seen yourself as someone sent by God to restore hope?
- What sort of relationship must exist between you and the mourning loved one before you have the right to speak of hope to them?
- Who in your life would receive such a grace from you?
- What can/should you be doing to strengthen those relationships?
- Two boats and a helicopter
- When we see someone in need, it's often hard to know what to do, how to reach out to them. A great parable along these lines is here. I wonder sometimes how we know to get into the boat and be God's deliverance for another.
- Have you ever tried to rescue someone from a dire circumstance in their lives?
- How did you know that you were the one called to step in?
- How did you know what it was that they needed most at that time?
- How did you know that they needed that most from you?
- How did you know that you were not just being an enabler?
- Where was God in that experience?
- Pleasing God
- One tenet of Ignatian spirituality is disordered attachments, those things in our life that get in the way of our devotion to God, diminish our freedom, draw us away from our true destiny, diminish us. But such attachments rarely emerge in our lives fully formed all at once. They have a way of "creeping up on us" a little at a time.
- How do you tell if someone, something, some habit in your life draws you toward God or draws you away from God?
- If you found that there was something in your life that consistently robbed you of your freedom, what would you likely do about that?
- How long would that process generally take?
- How might you become more sensitive to such shackles in your life?
- Jesus wept
- Luke 20: 60-61 tells us that Jesus knew the moment when Peter denied Jesus the third time, and Peter knew that Jesus knew. I'm sure that Jesus wept for Peter just as Peter wept, that Jesus wanted to very much to reach out to His friend Peter, but they were both busy: Jesus in giving His life away, and Peter in desperately trying to save his.
- How do you find the courage to go on when you have failed in one way or another in your Christian walk?
- How did you come to believe that God had honestly forgiven you?
- What did it take before you were able to forgive yourself?
- How did you manage to truly appropriate that forgiveness in your life?
- Preparation for Reconciliation
- Where can I be a source of hope for another?
- Where is God calling me to be His Presence in someone's life?
- What matters most to me, deep down inside?
- Where is God calling me to trust in His forgiveness?
Blind Alley
I conjure the shore of the Sea of Galilee in my mind's eye.
I feel the caress of a gentle breeze across my face,
The warm touch of the sun upon my upraised face.
I breath in the peace wafting in from the warming waters.
And I ask myself why I ever left all of that for Jesus.
I can't go back there.
Sure, the water is as it has always been.
The fish still teem the waters.
The sun still shines and the breezes still play across the water's surface.
But I, I am eternally different. I no longer see, smell, touch, taste that shore the same.
My friend Jesus has transformed my life, bit by bit.
Breathing has purpose now.
I inhale, I eat, I drink, I rest, all that I might be strong enough to serve.
Serve Him to transform the lives of others,
Give them back their birthright as our Father's children.
And yet, the very community that we seek to serve -
They have all turned against Him,
Soon, they will come after me.
And then I can only see more death, as one after another of us are hunted down and silenced.
I cannot flee, I cannot move forward, except in death.
Alone, alone I stand, head bowed in defeat.
Brought face to face with my own fear and lack of faith.
With no one to comfort me,
No one to absolve me.
Only those who would mock my love of Jesus.
I can easily imagine myself swinging from one of the lower branches of a tree that I see.
Relieved of all anxiety, hurt, guilt, and fear.
It would be a quick and silent ending.
My broken body a mute testimony of the ashes of my faith.
And I turn my gaze from there, knowing that I cannot desecrate His memory that way.
Pray for me.
Pray that I find the courage to pray for Jesus.
Pray that I might somehow make it through just one more night.
Pray that I may somehow greet the morning -
And mourn His death and the death of my hope with His followers.
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