Meditation Moment in Lent, Day 27: Give Up, Take On, Pray '24

March 15, 2024 ~ 5^th Friday in Lent

― Anthony de Mello* 

    If you knew that this would be the very last time we would speak to each other, would our conversation be different?  We have those moments every day with store clerks, shoppers, people on elevators, those we sit next to in church, at a concert, or sporting event. And then there are our families and friends. What feelings, thoughts, awareness arise if you realize we all are dying. A shocking thought! But it’s true. Some sooner, some later. Some at length and painfully, and some quite suddenly. Some will have a comfortably long life and quietly and peacefully just go. Most of us take daily living for granted and yet none of us know the time or the hour [Matthew 25:13]. So let us all LIVE while we can with all that life brings and, yes, even all it takes away. Let us turn our eyes to the Creation that our Creator surrounds us with and look for joy in all the life within it, accepting those moments when joy must await our return, as return to it we will and we must. Let us live for those we’ve loved and who have loved us and who can no longer be in this life, yet from the next they want and will us to go on as they walk with us in heart and memory. Embrace LIFE!

Dear Lord of Life:
     You have given each of us this precious gift of the breath of life; what are we doing with it? Is it wasted on the young, regretted by the old, dismissed by those in-between who are too busy to recognize it for what it is?  For today, I will give up taking breathing and life for granted and take on the understanding and compassion that even if the next breath isn't my last it will be for someone. I'll pray for the fullness of breath that inhales Your love, patience, and understanding and with each exhale to disperse anger, frustration, and bitterness. Today may be the last chance we'll have in this life and any days beyond it will truly be a blessing to be used well. Help us to not waste it by being oblivious to all that we have been given and being thoughtless about the needs of others. Help to make each conscious breath a way to inhale calm and exhale any chronic crankiness. Most especially, may each time we awaken to a new day we simply think or murmur Thank You, Lord, so we are not forgetting to remember You.  amen.   

*Anthony de Mello [1931-1987], was a Jesuit priest from India and a psychotherapist who wrote a number of books and made videos on spirituality with an eastern flavor. His first published book Sadhana: A Way to God contained spiritual exercises influenced by Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Long after his sudden death, then Cardinal-Prefect Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, convened a commission to study de Mello's work and seemed to find some of his writings and lectures theologically problematic. There was a temporary ban on them for Roman Catholics which has since been lifted. Millions of Catholics and non-Catholics alike, however, have found great wisdom and transformational thought in de Mello's writings, many more of which were published posthumously. 

 

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