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Visit of Mary to Elizabeth feast day – scriptures from app: Lectionary – Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England, Church House Publishing, Aimer

Zephaniah 3:17b…he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love;

Psalm113:5 Who is like the Lord our God, that has his throne so high, yet humbles himself to behold the things of heaven and earth? 6 He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ashes,

Romans 12: 9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour. 11 Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. 15b…do not claim to be wiser than you are.

Luke 1:45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’ 46 And Mary said,‘My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, 48 for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.

Lectio – scriptures in bold are the ones that initially “spoke” to me.

Meditatio – personal application – seems like Love is on our side…grateful for that. Rejoicing, Renewing, Raising, Relating, Regarding with favor – re-writing it helps it to “stick”…will trust Spirit to help that too.

Oratio – Thanks Lord for the above. May I have the grace to be aware of how you are Rejoicing, Renewing, Raising, Relating, Regarding me today and always. Forgive me when I miss the mark and get distracted by stuff. Thanks for your chesed…Love you.

– love you too…keep keeping on; any suggestions?; good to remember that my ways / thoughts aren’t your ways and thoughts, to anthropomorphize myself…and my pace is usually slower than yours; thanks I will try and “trust in the slow work of God” thanks Teilhard; yeah, good guy that Teilhard, blessings my beloved; amen

Contemplatio – took this and my life into Centering Prayer.

Reflections on this post: The tattoo of the Hebrew word ‘chesed’ is mine, a permanent reminder of the steadfast love of the LORD. The link to Teilhard de Charden’s prayer is to the Ignatian Spirituality webpage.  I can’t endorse everything about Jesuits but I just finished their Spiritual Exercises – 19 annotation as step one in my noviciate in OCL  and my relationship with Jesus was definartely deepened through that 32 week prayer retreat. FYI – the next step in the noviciate is a course of study which I’m pretty sure will be some training with Brother Brian so I can be a spiritual director for those wanting to do the Spiritual Exercises. Here’s that link if you’re interested in learning more about that training.

It is with some trepidation I’ve included some of my personal communique with the Holy One as part of the Oratio movement. I put in italics what I imagine the Holy One saying to me – I want to listen as much as talk so… I hesitate to include this deeply personal content because I don’t want to even hint that I’m somehow special – hearing the voice of the Creator AND part of my “showing up” on this blog is letting you all know how Love and I relate…it’s not traditional – it’s deeply personal, not everyone’s experience. AND my prayer and hope for everyone, to have some kind of personal experience of chesed – “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases / His mercies never come to an end / They are new every morning / New every morning, great is thy faithfulness O LORD / Great is Thy faithfulness”… to quote a few lines from a song by Edith McNeil we’ve sung at GoWC-C forever. Peace and love to you all, now and always, as we walk this pilgrimage of faith and life together.