Tag Archives: Jesus

Advent with the Prophet Jonah: Day 16

But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. Jonah 4:1 It’s all too easy to judge Jonah. Easy also to declare that, because all anger is at its heart a desire to be in the place of God, it should simply respond to a biblical rebuke and go away. Seeing anger thisContinue reading “Advent with the Prophet Jonah: Day 16”

Advent with the Prophet Jonah: Day 12

The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. Jonah 3:5 Advent may not seem to be a time for sackcloth. For those who know the church calendar, it might seem more logical to think about repentance in Lent. But historically Advent andContinue reading “Advent with the Prophet Jonah: Day 12”

Advent with the Prophet Jonah: Day 11

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. Jonah began by going a day’s journey intoContinue reading “Advent with the Prophet Jonah: Day 11”

Advent with the Prophet Jonah: Day 8

From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. He said: “In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me.From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry. You hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas,Continue reading “Advent with the Prophet Jonah: Day 8”

The Gospel Reading

The day had gone on long enough.First the Pharisees and their questions,then the intruding children,then the camel and the needle’s eye,so that, when they cried out,”Who then can be saved?” it wasas much from the weariness of the day’s debates as the thought that riches could keep an earnest man from heaven.And so, right whenallContinue reading “The Gospel Reading”

Acedia

“… how we perform these often dispiriting duties, from the changing of a baby’s diaper to the bathing of an aged parent, reveals what kind of God we worship.” Kathleen Norris, Acedia & Me Weary, yet itching for greater things,Longing to change the world whilemy own heart lies stony and stagnant,I turnfrom the trifles ofContinue reading “Acedia”

God in all this: For St Ignatius of Loyola

“Our one desire and choice should be what is more conducive to the end for which we are created.”St Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises Even this, Ignatius?When all are in retreat in their homes,when consoling and desolating spiritsvy for the attention of every moment,when truth is in short supplyand what truth we have isContinue reading “God in all this: For St Ignatius of Loyola”

As yet untitled

As the changing but constant expectationsof a year that no-one chose keep knockingand the day of the Lord lingers and tarries from my watch-post,I longto take this one quietly, on the bench,with Saul and the others who couldn’t run the race.No shame in being worn out whenthe swift themselves are flaggingand the flagsare all atContinue reading “As yet untitled”