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Lenten Devotionals 2009 - Palm/Passion Sunday
Welcome to OneLife Ministries. This site is designed to lead you prayerfully into a heart experience of Divine Presence, Who is Love. While it focuses on Christian teaching, the writer hopes persons of other faiths find inspiration here. Indeed, "God" can be whatever image helps you trust in the Sacred, by whatever means Grace touches you. Please share this ministry with others, and I hope you return soon. There is a new offering daily.
Blessings,
Rev Dr Brian K Wilcox
Pastor-Teacher, Author, Workshop Leader,
Spiritual Counselor, Chaplain
LISTENING TO THE SCRIPTURES
8But God shows his great love for us in this way: Christ died for us while we were still sinners.
*Romans 5.8 (CEV)
12Now I tell you to love each other, as I have loved you. 13The greatest way to show love for friends is to die for them. 14And you are my friends, if you obey me.
*John 15.12-14 (CEV)
38I am sure that nothing can separate us from God's love--not life or death, not angels or spirits, not the present or the future, 39and not powers above or powers below. Nothing in all creation can separate us from God's love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord!
*Romans 8.38-39 (CEV)
PRAYERFUL ENTERING
O Living Christ, I come to you, relying only on you, requesting your grace on this special Sunday remembering your Passion. May my heart feel your Love, a Love freely given, and may my heart, thereby, feel itself reach out to the world you still give yourself to, that you may do so through me. May I not only adore your Loving self-offering, but so love you that I, too, will give all I am and hope to share such Love with those I meet. Amen.
RECEIVING SACRED TEACHING
Historians are not sure to whom to attribute the writing of "O Sacred Head Now Wounded." Most persons believe Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), of France, wrote it. It was first found in the Latin, and the words appear in a medieval poem with seven parts. Each part addresses a part of the body of Christ Jesus: feet, knees, hands, side, breast, heart, and face.
Words of the present hymn are from the 7th part and were first entitled "To the Suffering Face of Jesus Christ." Years later James Alexander translated it into English, and a German composer provided the music during the Renaissance.
This is a slow, sad song. The song is one of the better for remembering the Passion of Christ Jesus, our Savior.
O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded with thorns Thy only crown,
How art Thou pale with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn!
How does that visage languish which once was bright as morn!
What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered was all for sinner's gain:
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! 'Tis I deserve Thy place;
Lord on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.
What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest Friend,
For this Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever! And, should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee!
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Today is the start of Holy Week. I offer words for prayerful reflection, of Evelyn Underhill, in Light of Christ.
There is a type of ancient picture which shows all the Sacraments centred in and dependent from the Cross: the love self-given there giving itself forever to [everyone], the undying source of grace and purification and truth. It is a wonderful image of what the Christian Church and Christian life really are, a continuation of the Incarnation.
It reminds us that the Spirit of Christ is now living and truly present with and in His Church, His Family, His Mystic Body, and, because of His one eternal sacrifice ever giving His life, and that we are utterly and entirely dependent on that life as branches on the Vine, His touch still cleansing us, His hand still feeding us.
Either secretly or sacramentally all living Christians are perpetual penitents and perpetual communicants, there is no other way of carrying on. The Eucharist represents a perpetual pouring out of His very life to feed and enhance our small feeble lives. Think only of that as we kneel before the window of His Passion and a wonderful joy and gratitude tempers our shame.
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The Eucharist becomes an eternal-process of inner communion with the Resurrected Jesus Christ. Yet, this inner communion is not merely an individual reality. Inner communion, the spiritual participation in a timeless self-offering of Love, binds all persons, across time and space, who are one with Christ. He is ever pouring Himself out for us, as we are ever eating and drinking of His self-giving.
The self-oblation of the Passion, being a timeless event within time, or an event in time though timeless, is an offering for all to share in as the Mystical Church. We, then, are offered an ongoing communication with Christ, Eucharistic sharing, making us spiritual communicants in the act of spiritually consuming the Love of Christ.
This spiritual communication is not offered by a church, though God can offer it through any church, as well as in other way in which the end corresponds to the intent. This offering arises directly from Spirit.
Spiritual communication may be experienced through a church. Yet, the higher order of Spirit is not subject to any lower order, thereby, the church provides communication only as a lower order to the Spirit - Who alone spiritualizes all signs that become truly, purely spiritual graces.
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We will gather this week, to gather at the Cross, and to move through the Cross to the Resurrection. These realities, now beyond time, are as real as they were in time. These events are re-infused into time.
We will use the earthly rituals and Sacraments as portals into a sharing that is opened by and to Spirit, and for Spirit. If this occurs, we shall have met as One in the Cross and Resurrection; thereby, all acts within the church shall find their validation within the spiritualization of all in Love and by Love.
The Cross and the Eucharist are not trapped in time. Rather, the Christ event in time opens from and to an Eternal sharing in all the Passion of Christ Jesus signifies, lifting hearts to heavenly realities and bathing minds in celestial mysteries.
This means that each true, spiritual Person is an extension of the mystery of the Incarnation. Each person in Christ is a continuation of the Eternal Logos in the particularities of his or her being in the whole of the Life of Christ, and in the Mystical Body of Christ. Such being is formed and re-formed by the Christ, to bring blessing into the world.
Christian baptism, indeed, signifies this immersion in the Life of God. When baptized, one is saying, "I am taken into the whole Life of Divinity. I am continuing the Life of Christ. I am being Christ, for Christ. Christ ascended, but I am now His hands, feet, mouth, heart, and Grace."
QUIETLY RESPONDING
Prepare yourself for this Holy Week by considering the meaning of the Cross for you? Reconsecrate yourself daily this week to live the Cross, to be Christ for Christ to others. Participate in preparing yourself by sharing mystically in Christ by prayer and meditation, acts of charity, and other means of Grace. Make it a priority to attend Holy Week services.
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*OneLife Ministries is a ministry of Brian K. Wilcox, of SW Florida. Brian lives a vowed life and with his two dogs, Bandit Ty and St. Francis. Brian is an ecumenical spiritual leader, open to how Christ manifests in the diversity of Christian denominations and varied religious-spiritual traditions. He is Senior Chaplain for the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office, Punta Gorda, FL.
*Brian welcomes responses to his writings or submission of prayer requests at barukhattah@embarqmail.com .
*Contact the above email to book Brian for Spiritual Direction, retreats, or workshops. You can order his book An Ache for Union at major book dealers.
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