1. PRAYER
Dear Heavenly Father,
You are my shepherd, and in your presence, I lack nothing.
Your guidance and care have led me through green pastures and beside still waters.
I am so thankful for your constant provision and protection in my life.
As I stand before you, Lord, I am reminded of the very real love you have for me.
Your love is like a seal over my heart and arm, a seal that binds me to you.
It burns with the intensity of a mighty flame, unyielding as the grave itself. Just as many waters cannot quench love, I am reminded that your love for me is unwavering and unending.
It is a love that has no limits, no bounds, and nothing in this world can separate me from it.
Help me, Father, to embody the love that you have shown me in my relationships with others.
Your Word instructs me to love deeply, for love covers over a multitude of sins.
Grant me the grace to be patient, gentle, and humble, to bear with one another in love.
I long to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace, knowing that it is your love that binds us all together in perfect unity.
Lord, may your love shine through me, allowing me to be a vessel of your grace and compassion.
I pray for the ability to love as you love, unconditionally and without reservation.
Thank you for being my Shepherd, for your unfailing love, and for the wisdom and grace to love others deeply.
In Jesus’ name, I pray.
Amen.
Originally published at http://4foldlove.wordpress.com on October 30, 2023.
2. MEDITATION
3. SONG
4. NARRATIVE
https://cac.org/themes/loving-neighbor-loving-self/
Love Upwelling
Father Richard offers this contemplative practice of receiving God’s love so it can flow through us to others.
Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” (Matthew 22:39). We are to love our neighbor in the same way we love ourselves. “We love because God has first loved us” (1 John 4:19). When we accept the unconditional love and undeserved mercy that God offers us—knowing we are not worthy of it—then we can allow God to love others through us in the same way. It’s God in you loving you, warts and all, and God in you loving others as they are. This is why the love we have available to give away is limitless.
The following exercise is based on a teaching from Friar Francisco de Osuna, OFM (died c. 1540), whose spiritual writings deeply inspired Teresa of Ávila. Here, in my words, is what he taught his students:
- Dam up the fountain of your soul, where love is always springing forth.
- It will be forced to rise.
- Yet it will remain quiet and at rest within you; wait for that quiet.
- You will see the image of God reflected in your own clear waters, more resplendent than in any other thing—provided the disturbing turmoil of thoughts dies down. [1]
Try to stay beneath your thoughts, neither fighting them nor thinking them. Hold yourself at a deeper level than your mind, perhaps in your chest, solar plexus, or breath; stay in your body self. Resist any desire to repress or express, just allow animal contentment. It will feel like nothing or darkness. Stay “crouched” there at the cellular level without shame, long enough for Another Source to begin to flow and well up as light or joy. From this place the love flows through you from the Source as an energy more than as an idea. God in you and through you recognizes and loves God—in yourself and in others, too.
References:
[1] See Francisco de Osuna, The Third Spiritual Alphabet, trans. Mary E. Giles (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1981), 566.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, A Spring Within Us: A Book of Daily Meditations (Albuquerque, NM: CAC Publishing, 2016), 367–368.
5. MEDITATION
6. SHARING
A Prayer for Resting in God's Love
God of Goodness, I come into your presence so aware of my human frailty and yet overwhelmed by your love for me.
I thank you that there is no human experience that I might walk through where your love cannot reach me.
If I climb the highest mountain you are there and yet if I find myself in the darkest valley of my life, you are there.
Teach me today to love you more.
Help me to rest in that love that asks nothing more than the simple trusting heart of a child.
- Author Unknown
8. Song
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