Dear Lord, I pray that Your peace will come upon me. I repent for the times when I have looked to different things in this world to find peace. You are the Prince of Peace. You are aware of all my stressful situations and how I have been desperately looking for peace. Even now, I come to You, believing that You are able to fill me with Your perfect peace that is secure and permanent. Let Your presence surround me, and let Your peace that passes all understanding engulf my heart. Make me lie down in still waters and let me be at peace in all situations. Thank You, Lord, for Your caring and protecting presence. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.
Good morning! I wanted to forward this to all of you because I think it’s timely and very helpful. This is a daily devotion I get from Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation. I pray this blesses you!
•Praying in Crisis•
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
Brian McLaren is an author and contemplative activist. He spent over twenty years as the pastor of a church where he lived, worked, and prayed with people in good times and bad. Responding to crises is not theoretical for him, but a deeply felt and lived experience which comes through so clearly in these words. I hope you will feel encouraged to take this practice to your own time of prayer in the days, weeks, and months ahead.
When we call out for help, we are bound more powerfully to God through our needs and weakness, our unfulfilled hopes and dreams, and our anxieties and problems than we ever could have been through our joys, successes, and strengths alone. . . . [1]
Anxieties can gray the whole sky like cloud cover or descend on our whole horizon like fog. When we rename our anxieties, in a sense we distill them into requests. What covered the whole sky can now be contained in a couple of buckets. So when we’re suffering from anxiety, we can begin by simply holding the word help before God, letting that one word bring focus to the chaos of our racing thoughts. Once we feel that our mind has dropped out of the frantic zone and into a spirit of connection with God, we can let the general word help go and in its place hold more specific words that name what we need, thereby condensing the cloud of vague anxiety into a bucket of substantial request. So we might hold the word guidance before God. Or patience. Or courage. Or resilience. Or boundaries, mercy, compassion, determination, healing, calm, freedom, wisdom, or peace. . . . [2]
Along with our anxieties and hurts, we also bring our disappointments to God. If anxieties focus on what might happen, and hurts focus on what has happened, disappointments focus on what has not happened. Again, as the saying goes, revealing your feeling is the beginning of healing, so simply acknowledging or naming our disappointment to God is an important move. This is especially important because many of us, if we don’t bring our disappointment to God, will blame our disappointment on God, thus alienating ourselves from our best hope of comfort and strength. . . .
Whether we’re dealing with anxieties, wounds, disappointments, or other needs or struggles, there is enormous power in simple, strong words—the words by which we name our pain and then translate it into a request to God. Help is the door into this vital practice of petition, through which we expand beyond our own capacities and resources to God’s. . . .
Through this practice of expansion and petition, we discover something priceless: the sacred connection can grow stronger through, not in spite of, our anxieties, wounds, disappointments, struggles, and needs. The Compassionate One is our gracious friend, and we don’t have to earn anything, deserve anything, achieve anything, or merit anything to bring our needs to God. We can just come as we are. [3]
If you found this effective for you in your life during this time I highly recommend you subscribe to it. Click the link below to receive daily meditations like this one.
Ai
Richard Rohr suggests finding peace amidst chaos through
"deep time" contemplation, recognizing God's presence in the world, letting go of perfectionism, and creating inner sanctuary by embracing stillness, presence, and acceptance rather than escaping or fighting external chaos. True peace isn't the absence of trouble but finding spiritual grounding within challenging circumstances, often by shifting from frantic clock-watching to deeper, divine awareness and inner calm, creating a resilient space for the soul.
Key Rohr Concepts for Inner Peace:
Deep Time: Instead of being ruled by the ticking clock and constant demands, live in "deep time," listening for God's presence in the "now," recognizing the inherent sacredness in everyday moments.
Contemplation: View the physical world as both a hiding place and a revelation of God, allowing for a calm, deep seeing that makes the world feel like home, even with its chaos.
Inner Sanctuary: Create an internal space of calm, like a hedgehog curling up, through practices like deep breathing, quiet rituals, and nature walks, establishing self-preservation.
Acceptance, Not Escape: Peace isn't found by escaping chaos but by accepting its presence and finding stillness within it, acknowledging that external factors are fleeting, notes this Facebook post.
Love & Kindness: Cultivate love and kindness within your own "bubble," spreading it outwards as a ripple effect, creating the world you wish to see, as suggested in this Facebook post.
Practical Applications:
Pause & Breathe: Make space for stillness and deep breathing to reset your nervous system.
Shift Perspective: See your challenging situation as a place where God meets you, not as something to be fixed before peace can begin, says this YouTube video.
** Embrace Imperfection:** Let go of the need for perfect circumstances or people, as this is the real obstacle to peace, according to this YouTube video.
Find the Divine in the Mundane: Look for moments of grace and beauty even amidst difficulty, transforming the ordinary into something sacred, suggests this Facebook post.
5. MEDITATION
https://youtu.be/mFGW0EYnRYg?si=evGLWCRJuh0Lx8yL
6. SHARING
7. INTENTIONS AND PRAYER
Prayer for times of fear:
Lord Jesus, You see the storm all around me. You know the anxiety I am feeling as I journey through these difficult circumstances. I ask You to calm the pain in my body, soul, and spirit as I cling to You. When I feel discouraged, bring me small bits of encouragement. I praise You that although I feel like I’m drowning, You are with me. Your rod and staff comfort me in this valley of darkness. Thank You that no matter how chaotic things get, You will not let go of me. Your right arm holds me up and I cling to You. I praise You that You are more powerful than the storm I am facing (Psalm 23:4, Psalm 139:7, Psalm 63:8).
We pray for a compassionate heart. Help us to be more understanding and empathetic towards others. Let us see the world through the eyes of those who are suffering and be moved to action. May our compassion lead us to help and support those in need.
Thank you for your compassion towards us. Help us to reflect that same compassion in our interactions with others. May we learn to listen deeply and to respond with kindness and care to those who are hurting. Guide us to be patient and non-judgmental, recognizing the struggles and challenges that others face. Help us to extend compassion to ourselves, understanding that we too are deserving of care and kindness.
We pray for a world where compassion is the norm, where people look out for one another and support each other in times of need. Thank you for the opportunities to practice compassion. Help us to seize those moments and to make a positive difference in the lives of others.
Amen.
"Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble."
Richard Rohr sees compassion and justice as deeply intertwined, not opposing forces, arguing that true divine justice
is compassion, mercy, and restoration, not mere punishment or rule-following; he emphasizes that justice involves addressing systemic brokenness by moving beyond retribution to see shared humanity and heal the marginalized, often rooted in embracing our own brokenness. For Rohr, love without justice is sentimental, while justice without love is cold, but both are necessary, flowing from a contemplative understanding of God's all-inclusive love that restores all people.
Key aspects of Rohr's view:
Justice as Compassion: God's justice isn't a balancing of scales but an overflowing love and mercy that fills gaps, restoring everyone, even the unworthy, to wholeness.
Beyond Retribution: He contrasts this with the world's common retributive justice (punishment for wrongdoing), which fails to heal or change people, leading only to more brokenness.
Acknowledging Brokenness: True justice requires recognizing our shared brokenness and vulnerability, which fosters empathy, rather than punishing the visible brokenness of others.
Systemic Change: Rohr critiques institutions that focus on charity (patching holes) while maintaining the structures that create the holes in the first place, advocating for a justice that transforms systems.
Contemplative Root: Compassionate action for justice arises from deep contemplative awareness of God's presence, leading to a "belly-level understanding" that motivates service, as seen in events like the "Contemplative Sit for Justice" with Rohr and Rev. angel Kyodo williams Sensei.
“We need to make the kind of society where it is easier for people to be good,” said Peter Maurin (1877–1949). [1] That is our difficulty today. We are surrounded by good, well-meaning folks who are swept along in a stream of shallow options. Not only is the good made increasingly difficult to do, it is even difficult to recognize. It seems that affluence takes away the clear awareness of what is life and what is death. I don’t think the rich are any more or less sinful than the poor; they just have many more ways to call their sin virtue. There is a definite deadening of the awareness of true good and true evil.
I have found one fuzzy area that often needs clarification: We have confused justice and charity. Charity was traditionally considered the highest virtue, popularly thought of as a kind of magnanimous, voluntary giving of ourselves, preferably for selfless motives. As long as we rose to this level occasionally by donating food, gifts, or money at the holidays or in times of crisis, we could think of ourselves as charitable people operating at the highest level of virtue.
What has been lacking is the virtue of justice. Justice and charity are complementary but clearly inseparable in teachings of Doctors of the Church, as well as the social encyclical letters of almost all popes over the last century. The giving and caring spirit of charity both motivates and completes our sense of justice, but the virtue of charity cannot legitimately substitute for justice. Persons capable of doing justice are not justified in preferring to “do charity.” Although this has clearly been taught on paper, I would say it is the great missing link in the practical preaching and lifestyle of the church. We have ignored the foundational obligation of justice in our works of charity! For centuries we have been content to patch up holes temporarily (making ourselves feel benevolent) while in fact maintaining the institutional structures that created the holes (disempowering people on the margins). Now it has caught up with us in unremitting poverty, massive income disparity, cultural alienation, and human and environmental abuse.
Jesus preaches a social order in which true charity is possible, a way of relating by which cooperation and community make sense. Jesus offers a world where all share the Spirit’s power “each according to their gift.” And that “Spirit is given to each person for the sake of the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7). That is the key to Christian community and Christian social justice. It is not a vision of totalitarian equality, nor is it capitalist competition (“domination of the fittest”). It is a world in which cooperation, community, compassion, and the charity of Christ are paramount—and to which all other things are subservient. The “common good” is the first principle of Catholic social doctrine—although few Catholics know it.
References: [1] Peter Maurin, quoted in The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of Dorothy Day(Harper and Brothers: 1952), 280.
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. We are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's road side, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. Compassion sees that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.
Let us pray: Ever present God, you called us to be in relationship with one another and promised to dwell wherever two or three are gathered. In our community, we are many different people; we come from many different places, have many different cultures. Open our hearts that we may be bold in finding the riches of inclusion and the treasures of diversity among us. We pray in faith.
I prepared this cake for my husband’s birthday two days ago. He had liked this before the first time I made it. He actually liked it again this time. That speaks a lot since he is not vegan Yes this recipe has no eggs , dairy or oil. Yet it is ultra moist I did use a chocolate cake mix but if you want to not use a mix, you can use the recipe in this link
