Daily Office - Monday, April 6
Silence and Stillness before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading: Song of Songs 1:2, 3:1-3
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth - for your love is more delightful than wine...
All night long on my bed I looked for the one my heart loves; I looked for him but did not find him.
I will get up now and go about the city, through its streets and squares;
I will search for the one my heart loves. So I looked for him but did not find him.
The watchmen found me as they made their rounds in the city. "Have you seen the one my heart loves?"
Devotional
Christians primarily read the Songs of Songs on two levels: as the marital love of a man and woman, and as a description of our love relationship with the Lord Jesus - our bridegroom. Song of Songs 3:1-3 describes, in particular, the experience of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Regarding her painful struggle with God's absence throughout her fifty-year service among the poor, she wrote:
When I try to raise my thoughts to heaven - there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul. Love - the word - it brings nothing. I am told God loves me - and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul...
In spite of all - this darkness and emptiness is not as painful as the longing for God...
Before I could spend hours before our Lord - loving Him - talking to Him - and now - not even meditation goes properly... Yet deep down somewhere in my heart that longing for God keeps breaking through the darkness...
My soul is just like an ice block - I have nothing to say.
Mother Teresa came to realize that her darkness was the spiritual side of her work, a sharing in Christ's suffering, a treasure
Question to Consider
What treasures might there be in the darkness or difficulties in your own life today?
Prayer
Father, teach me to trust you even when I feel like I am alone and that you are asleep in the boat with storms raging all around me. Awaken me to the treasures that can only be found in darkness. Grant me the grace to follow you into the next place you have for me in this journey called life. In Jesus' name, amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading: Song of Songs 1:2, 3:1-3
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth - for your love is more delightful than wine...
All night long on my bed I looked for the one my heart loves; I looked for him but did not find him.
I will get up now and go about the city, through its streets and squares;
I will search for the one my heart loves. So I looked for him but did not find him.
The watchmen found me as they made their rounds in the city. "Have you seen the one my heart loves?"
Devotional
Christians primarily read the Songs of Songs on two levels: as the marital love of a man and woman, and as a description of our love relationship with the Lord Jesus - our bridegroom. Song of Songs 3:1-3 describes, in particular, the experience of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Regarding her painful struggle with God's absence throughout her fifty-year service among the poor, she wrote:
When I try to raise my thoughts to heaven - there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul. Love - the word - it brings nothing. I am told God loves me - and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul...
In spite of all - this darkness and emptiness is not as painful as the longing for God...
Before I could spend hours before our Lord - loving Him - talking to Him - and now - not even meditation goes properly... Yet deep down somewhere in my heart that longing for God keeps breaking through the darkness...
My soul is just like an ice block - I have nothing to say.
Mother Teresa came to realize that her darkness was the spiritual side of her work, a sharing in Christ's suffering, a treasure
Question to Consider
What treasures might there be in the darkness or difficulties in your own life today?
Prayer
Father, teach me to trust you even when I feel like I am alone and that you are asleep in the boat with storms raging all around me. Awaken me to the treasures that can only be found in darkness. Grant me the grace to follow you into the next place you have for me in this journey called life. In Jesus' name, amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
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