+ In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen!
Opening Prayer
Lord Jesus: you have made your home in my heart through the indwelling of your Spirit. Reveal your glory to me – full of grace and truth – that I may become a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to the Father, through loving obedience to your word.
Reading: John 14:21-26 (NLT)
“Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.”
Judas (not Judas Iscariot, but the other disciple with that name) said to him, “Lord, why are you going to reveal yourself only to us and not to the world at large?”
Jesus replied, “All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them. Anyone who doesn’t love me will not obey me. And remember, my words are not my own. What I am telling you is from the Father who sent me. I am telling you these things now while I am still with you. But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.
__________
Reflection & Prayer:
Come Holy Spirit:
Teach me and remind me of everything Jesus said and did that I may become a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to the Father through loving obedience to his word.
+ Quiet my heart that I may hear your voice speaking to me; refresh in me your life-giving presence that I may faithfully love and serve you, without reservation, until my life’s end.
+ Give me eyes to see the greatness of your presence around me – in the beauty and wonder of creation, in all that is good and kind, and in friends and strangers alike.
Make me a doer of your word, and not simply a hearer. Infuse new life into my thoughts and actions that I may become a healing presence through my Lord Jesus Christ, who lives with you and the Father, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
__________
“Trust and Obey”
__________
Concluding Prayer – Psalm 145:2-3 (NLT)
I will praise you every day; yes, I will praise you forever. Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise! No one can measure his greatness.
__________
+ In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen!
O King of Kings, O King of the universe, King who will be, who is, may You forgive us each and every one. Accept my prayer, O King of grace.
Anyone who claims to be in the light, but hates his brother or sister, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother or sister lives in the light; and there is nothing to make that person stumble.
Morning reading
John 14:18-24 ESV:
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.”
Reflections:
new life
With Jesus’ return after the resurrection they will enter into the new kind of life he has been revealing throughout his ministry. The phrase before long comes from the Old Testament, where it is used “to express optimistically the shortness of time before God’s salvation would come” (Brown). When Jesus uses the expression it is indeed only a little while, a matter of a couple of days, until the salvation that is the beginning of the fulfillment of all the hopes will come. This salvation is a matter of life: Because I live, you also will live. They will live because they will be united to him by the Spirit and thus come to share in the life of him who is resurrection and life. All of this is made possible by Jesus’ own death and resurrection.
new intimacy
The intimacy that exists between the Father and the Son has been the subject of Jesus’ revelation. Jesus has called upon the disciples to accept this truth about him in faith, and now he promises that after the resurrection the disciples will come to realize it, they will know it. Like faith, this knowledge is not just an intellectual grasping of a truth. It comes from a participation in the divine reality itself, for it is said they will share in that relationship because they will be in the Son and he in them. Thus, what was just said of the Paraclete is now said of the Son. The Son and the Paraclete will both indwell the disciples.
shared life
This union is not simply a matter of shared ideas or feelings but of shared life. The love is reciprocal: He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him. Believers are those who “have entered into the same reciprocity of love that unites the Father and the Son” (Barrett).
love and obey
To obey Jesus’ teaching is to adopt God’s pattern of life. But the condition for such obedience is love for Jesus. The commands of Jesus are not a set of rules like a traffic code; they are a description of a pattern of life that reflects God’s own life trans-posed into human circumstances. Love for Jesus involves both an attachment to him and a oneness with him and his interests, which naturally leads one to obey him and walk as he walked. One obeys what one loves. Indeed, our patterns of obedience reveal what we really love.
Christ, as a light… illumine and guide me. Christ, as a shield… overshadow me. Christ under me; Christ over me; Christ beside me on my left and my right.
This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful. Be in the heart of each to whom I speak; in the mouth of each who speaks unto me. This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Christ as a light; Christ as a shield; Christ beside me on my left and my right.
Blessing
May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you, wherever He may send you. May He guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm. May He bring you home rejoicing at the wonders He has shown you. May He bring you home rejoicing once again into our doors.
+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
_____________________________________
Peanut Gallery: A brief word of explanation – the general format for Morning Prayer is adapted from the Northumbrian Community‘s Daily Office, as found in Celtic Daily Prayer (see online resources here.) The Scripture readings are primarily from the Gospel of John, with the intent to complete the reading by Easter. Other Scriptures which illuminate the Gospel of John will be included along the way.
Reflections from various saints will be included as their memorial days occur during the calendar year.
On Sundays, I’ll return to the USCCB readings (see online resources here) and various liturgical resources in order to reflect the Church’s worship and concerns throughout the world.
Photo illustrations and music videos, available online, are included as they illustrate or illuminate the readings. I will try to give credit and link to sources as best I can.
O King of Kings, O King of the universe, King who will be, who is, may You forgive us each and every one. Accept my prayer, O King of grace…. Lord, let our tongue be no accomplice in the judgement of a brother.
Morning reading
John 14:15-17 ESV:
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”
Reflections:
love and obey
This statement is a definition of love itself. Jesus is referring not only to his ethical instructions, which are very few in this Gospel, but to the whole of his teaching, including his way of life. Accordingly, John will instruct his disciples later, saying, “Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did” (1 Jn 2:6). Now the hallmark of Jesus’ “ways,” his “walk,” was complete dependence on and obedience to the Father, only doing and speaking what he received from the Father. Such a life is itself an expression of love, since love, for John, is the laying down of one’s life (1 Jn 3:16). Thus Jesus himself has modeled the life of love he describes here in terms of obedience. Love, like faith, is the engagement of the whole person, especially the person’s will.
another Helper
The Paraclete [another Helper], like the Son, comes from the Father as a gift of the Father, for Jesus says the Father will give them the Paraclete at the Son’s request. In contrast to Jesus, who is now departing, the Paraclete will be with them forever. It is only Jesus’ visible presence that will be absent from them; Jesus himself will remain in union with them. Thus both Jesus and the Paraclete will be with the believers. Further connection with Jesus is evident when he refers to the Paraclete as the Spirit of truth, since Jesus is the truth, as he has just affirmed. The Paraclete’s relation to the world is like Jesus’, since the world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him, as has been the case with Jesus.
new intimacy
Jesus contrasts the disciples to the world. Although Jesus says this Paraclete will be in you, he already remains among them. The Spirit is not absent before the glorification. Indeed, he is present “without limit” in Jesus (Burge) and must be at work in the disciples in order for them to have the faith and love that Jesus mentions (Augustine). But the Paraclete has not yet been sent to the disciples and received by them in the new way Jesus is opening up. Both Jesus and this Paraclete have been present to the disciples already, even though the coming level of intimacy with both will be so much deeper that it is the difference between death and life.
Christ, as a light… illumine and guide me. Christ, as a shield… overshadow me. Christ under me; Christ over me; Christ beside me on my left and my right.
This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful. Be in the heart of each to whom I speak; in the mouth of each who speaks unto me. This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Christ as a light; Christ as a shield; Christ beside me on my left and my right.
Blessing
May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you, wherever He may send you. May He guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm. May He bring you home rejoicing at the wonders He has shown you. May He bring you home rejoicing once again into our doors.
+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
_____________________________________
Peanut Gallery: A brief word of explanation – the general format for Morning Prayer is adapted from the Northumbrian Community‘s Daily Office, as found in Celtic Daily Prayer (see online resources here.) The Scripture readings are primarily from the Gospel of John, with the intent to complete the reading by Easter. Other Scriptures which illuminate the Gospel of John will be included along the way.
Reflections from various saints will be included as their memorial days occur during the calendar year.
On Sundays, I’ll return to the USCCB readings (see online resources here) and various liturgical resources in order to reflect the Church’s worship and concerns throughout the world.
Photo illustrations and music videos, available online, are included as they illustrate or illuminate the readings. I will try to give credit and link to sources as best I can.
The Peanut Gallery 