27 JULY 08

THE TENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

27 JULY 08

LECTIONARY READINGS

Morning Prayer: Psalm 145; Ecclesiasticus 1:1-10; John 8:25-36

Mass: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11; Luke 19:41-47a

Evening Prayer: Psalm 15, 46; Isaiah 44:1-8, 21-23; Romans 12:1-9

REFLECTION

Take a moment to look at the image at the top of this post. Imagine you are actually standing nearby, watching Jesus as he weeps over Jerusalem. What is it you feel? Do you sense and share His sadness, His anguish for the hopes he has for His people.

Consider for a moment that your heart represents Jerusalem and the holy Temple. Does your heart resemble that so-called city of peace, that place wherein God's presence was profoundly to be experienced, that place where sacrifice took place? Or, rather, is your heart more like what Jesus found in Jerusalem and the Temple...full of doubt, fear, cynicism, lust for power and prestige, full of oppression and depression, full of cheating, abounding with the shell of true religion...but empty and dead on the inside? Do we find Jesus weeping over the Jerusalem and Temple of our hearts?

Our hearts do not have to experience the same end that Jerusalem experienced in A.D. 70. We have the opportunity to change, to be transformed by repentance. We have the chance to clean our the cobwebs of our minds and hearts so that they may be renewed with the cleansing of the presence of the Holy Spirit, so that we may truly seek out Christ in true religion, in true sacrifice of ourselves for the will of Christ in our lives. Take time today to find a good place, alongside Jesus, to view the Jerusalem and Temple of your heart. What do you see, and what do you need to transform? Take time to truly listen to the Lord as He tell you His desires...His will...His dreams for your life.

Fr. Greg

THE COLLECT FOR THE TENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

Let thy merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of thy humble servants; and, that they may obtain their petitions, make them to ask such things as shall please thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

THE SAINT OF THE DAY

None for today