A Trysting Place – 40 Days in Brede Abbey – Day 12
Living Lent, and our faith fully, is not solely about saying ‘no’ to the things that hold us back but also saying ‘yes’ to the love of God that calls us forward.
Living Lent, and our faith fully, is not solely about saying ‘no’ to the things that hold us back but also saying ‘yes’ to the love of God that calls us forward.
The journey of faith is always a journey of making our ‘confession’. Wherever we are whenever we turn Godward we cannot but reveal who we are and humbly ask for our faith to be deepened.
When faced with disaster we are tempted to break the rhythm of prayer. The Religious Life teaches us that when things fall apart the answer is to pray more not less regulalrly.
To hold on to the One who holds us may mean we need to let go of other loves. However this is only so that once we have learnt to ‘love one another as Christ loves’ we may be able to love everyone better.
In the life of faith there is no room for spiritual one-upmanship which presumes that our work is more important than another’s prayer or our worship more precious than another’s washing-up
Of all the tools the Church has to bring healing to a broken world the most powerful is the willingness of the individual Christian to confess their sins.
‘All work and no play’ is as true an aphorism in the enclosure of an Abbey as in our churhces as in our Lenten Journey
Penance, along with our lenten devotions, is not a punishments for past peccadilloes but an instrument to help us give ourselves away more fully.
When we join a fellowship we tell everyone else more about ourselves than we think. To be a ‘pleasing aroma’ self disclosure is a key part of forging peace.
We only truly learn to answer the call of God on our lives when we can move from a faith based on works to one full of grace and generosity.