Use the schema explained above: Tell God about the situation, listen to God and scripture, dialogue with God as you reflect.
Step 1
Lord, after your resurrection, you appeared to your disciples and started off with Peace Be with You. Your presence and Your peace are such a gift. Your resurrected body is not constrained by time or place and so you are present when two or three are gathered in Your Name inside and outside liturgy. You are present when Your Word is proclaimed. We know you are present then not in memory alone but in actuality. Your parables proclaimed are a new event of your presence every time and we know you are with us. You are present because of the Eucharistic Prayer: The invocation of the Holy Spirit, The Words of Institution and the memorial altogether bring your presence to us. All these presences are designed to bring us unity around You and because of You. Forgive us when we miss your presence because we are concerned with petty things. Help us when we are concerned because we don’t like the music, we don’t like the priest who is too conservative or liberal – who just does not tell us what we want to hear.
We are never worthy of your presence or your coming under our roof like the Centurion. We are distracted when some receive you on the tongue and others in their hand, when some are kneeling and some are standing, but each thinks theirs is the only way to be reverent. There is nothing that makes us worthy to receive you whether with sit, stand or kneel, whether we extend our hands or our tongue. Jesus related to him because of his faith. The Centurion was a no-nonsense leader. “I say go and they go…” and so forth. Only Your Holy Spirit can make us “worthy,” that is as sisters and brothers initiated into salvation by Baptism and further initiated into your life by receiving You in the Sacrament of Unity. Forgive us for our disunity, for it makes us unworthy. Lord may everything we do in Liturgy, every attitude we bring, enhance our unity around Your Word and Sacrament.
Lord, help us see rubrics as a guide and not as an end in themselves. May doing things together in your presence bring us the unity and peace that you promised and that your presence enables.
Thank you Lord for entering under our roof as unworthy as we are. May we respect the worthiness and unworthiness of each other and build each other up rather than tearing each other down. May our Liturgies not lead to contention but to Love, the indwelling of the Spirit, the support of God our Creator and the abiding presence of God the Son. Amen
Step 2: Listen to God in Scripture
| Hebrew Scripture | New Testament |
| Elijah feels unworthy 1 kings19:3 ff
Elijah was afraid and fled for his life, going to Beer-sheba of Judah. He left his servant there 4a and went a day’s journey into the wilderness, until he came to a solitary broom tree and sat beneath it. He prayed for death: “Enough, LORD! Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” 5He lay down and fell asleep under the solitary broom tree, but suddenly a messenger* touched him and said, “Get up and eat!” 6He looked and there at his head was a hearth cake and a jug of water. After he ate and drank, he lay down again, 7but the angel of the LORD came back a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat or the journey will be too much for you!” 8b He got up, ate, and drank; then strengthened by that food, he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb. 9There he came to a cave, where he took shelter. But the word of the LORD came to him: Why are you here, Elijah? 10He answered: “I have been most zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts, but the Israelites have forsaken your covenant. They have destroyed your altars and murdered your prophets by the sword. I alone remain, and they seek to take my life.” 11c Then the LORD said: Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD;* the LORD will pass by. There was a strong and violent wind rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the LORD—but the LORD was not in the wind; after the wind, an earthquake—but the LORD was not in the earthquake; 12after the earthquake, fire—but the LORD was not in the fire; after the fire, a light silent sound.* 13When he heard this, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. A voice said to him, Why are you here, Elijah? 14d He replied, “I have been most zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts, but the Israelites have forsaken your covenant. They have destroyed your altars and murdered your prophets by the sword. I alone remain, and they seek to take my life.” 15* e The LORD said to him: Go back! Take the desert road to Damascus.
Footnote:
Moses was unworthy, Jeremiah unworthy, Peter, Paul etc., Unworthy. Faith made them acceptable. |
The Healing of a Centurion’s Servant.* MT 8:5-13
5c When he entered Capernaum,* a centurion approached him and appealed to him, 6saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully.” 7He said to him, “I will come and cure him.” 8The centurion said in reply,* “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed. 9For I too am a person subject to authority, with soldiers subject to me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come here,’ and he comes; and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” 10When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel* have I found such faith. 11d I say to you,* many will come from the east and the west, and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in the kingdom of heaven, 12but the children of the kingdom will be driven out into the outer darkness, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.” 13And Jesus said to the centurion, “You may go; as you have believed, let it be done for you.” And at that very hour [his] servant was healed.
Luke 19:1-19 Zacchaeus not worthy either and people grumbled: 1(Jesus) came to Jericho and intended to pass through the town. 2Now a man there named Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, 3was seeking to see who Jesus was; but he could not see him because of the crowd, for he was short in stature. 4So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus, who was about to pass that way. 5When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” 6And he came down quickly and received him with joy. 7When they all saw this, they began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner.” 8But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over. 9* And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. 10* d For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.”
|
Put together what you said to God and what God said to you in scripture. Dialogue.