The Words Spoken to Catherine of Siena

Here's a daily word recalled by Catherine of Siena:

These words were spoken to Catherine of Siena, a fourteenth-century mystic: "Beloved daughter, everything I give to you comes from the love and care I have for them. I desire to show my mercy to the whole world and my protective love to those who want it. My care is constant. I did all of this so that they will know me and rejoice to see me forever."

Claiborne, S., Okoro, E., Wilson-Hartgrove, J. (2010). Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

A Quote From Francis de Sales

This morning, a few of us met on Zoom to do morning prayers together, using a modern prayer book called Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals (not to be confused with the Anglican Book of Common Prayer). I highly recommend using it as a way to provide a set prayer time that will guide you to a more grounded well-being and a development for concern of others. You can download it on Apple (I think) and Android (that, I'm certain of).

Each morning prayer will have a wonderful, thought-provoking quote from Christians of different traditions, in different times to push you towards a more Sermon-on-the-Mount-way of life. Here's today's quote:

Francis de Sales, a sixteenth-century bishop in France, wrote, "Love the poor and love poverty, for it is by such love that we become truly poor. As the Scripture says, we become like things we love. If you love the poor you will share their poverty and be poor like them. If you love the poor be often with them. Be glad to see them in your own home and to visit them in theirs. Be glad to talk to them and be pleased to have them near you in church, on the street, and elsewhere. Be poor in conversing with them and speak to them as their companions do, but be rich in assisting them by sharing some of your more abundant goods with them.

Amen.

Claiborne, S., Okoro, E., Wilson-Hartgrove, J. (2010). Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

The Magnificat (The Song of Mary)

In honor of Mother's Day, I share with you Mary's prayer in the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, rejoicing at her pregnancy and her child to be. Not only is it a beautiful and fierce prayer, but it has also become a liturgy, a hymn for many churches, especially within the Lutheran, Anglican, Roman Catholic and Eastern/Oriental Orthodox traditions. I'll be using David Bentley Hart's New Testament translation; the prayer of Theotokos (lit. "God-bearer," more commonly translated in English as "Mother of God"):

And Mary said,

"My soul proclaims the Lord's greatness,

And my spirit rejoices in God my savior,

Because he looked upon the low estate of his slave.

For see: Henceforth all generations will bless me;

Because the Mighty One has done great things to me.

And holy is his name,

And his mercy is for generations and generations to those who fear him.

He has worked power with his arm,

he has scattered those who are arrogant in the thoughts of their hearts;

He has pulled dynasts down from thrones

and exalted the humble,

He has filled the hungry with good things

and sent the rich away empty.

He has given aid to Israel his servant,

remembering his mercy,

Just as he promised to our fathers,

to Abraham and to his seed,

throughout the age."

Amen, amen.

Hart, D. B. (2017). The New Testament: A Translation. New Haven & London: Yale University Press: 105-6.