acceptance

Prayer of Discernment

/ Bill Schulz / 1 Comment

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(Photo: Crescent Beach, ME. – December 2016)

A Prayer of Discernment
–by Thomas Merton

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I actually am doing so. For I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you, and I hope that I have the desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadows of death. I will not fear, for you will not leave me to face the perils alone. Amen

today and every day we have a need for…

/ Bill Schulz / Leave a comment

a need for permanence in a civilization of transience;
a need for the absolute when all else has become relative;
a need for silence in the midst of noise;
a need for gratuitousness in the face of unbelievable greed;
a need for poverty amid the flaunting of wealth;
a need for contemplation in a century of action, for without
contemplation, action risks become mere agitation;
a need for communication in a universe content with
entertainment and sensationalism;
a need for peace amid today’s universal outbursts of violence;
a need for quality to counterbalance the increasingly prevalent
response to quantity;
a need for humility to counteract the arrogance of power and
science;
a need for human warmth when everything is being rationalized
or computerized;
a need to belong to a small group rather than to be part of a crowd;
a need for slowness to compensate the present eagerness for
speed;
a need for truth when the real meaning of words is distorted in
political speeches and sometimes even in religious
discourses;
a need for transparency when everything seems opaque.

  • J.P. Dumbois-Dumee

surviving the great hours of our life

/ Bill Schulz / Leave a comment

We cannot assert that someone who is well behaved, devout, and virtuous in ordinary life, is also already certain of surviving the great situations where it is a question of life or death. The grace of such endurance is a grace that no one can merit by good behavior in ordinary life. But ordinary life is indeed the way in which we must remain ready for the decisive situations; it can be the way in which God wants to give us the very grace—which we cannot demand—of surviving the great hours of our life. We must be faithful in little things in order to be permitted to hope that God in his grace will also send us faithfulness in great things. – Karl Rahner, Words of Faith