How baffling you are, oh Church, and yet how I love you!
How you have made me suffer, and yet how much I owe you!
I would like to see you destroyed, and yet I need your presence.
You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand what sanctity is.
I have seen nothing in the world more devoted to obscurity, more compromised, more false, and yet I have touched nothing more pure, more generous, more beautiful.
How often I have wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your face, and how often I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms.
No, I cannot free myself from you, because I am you, though not completely.
And besides, where would I go? Would I establish another?
I would not be able to establish it without the same faults,
for they are the same faults I carry in me.
And if I did establish another, it would be my Church, not the Church of Christ.
I am old enough to know that I am no better than anyone else.
From Carlo Carretto, The God Who Comes
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Faith
May our faith be a little more wild,
and a little less guarded.
May we wonder a little more,
and fear a little less.
May we dip more than a toe
in the great sea of faith.
When we reach out to hold something,
may we find you already holding us.
When we stray into questions and doubt,
may we find you waiting with a new adventure.
When we find answers,
may we go back and look for the question.
May we have a faith that lifts stones,
rather than rakes the sand;
a faith that fidgets,
rather than behaves;
a faith that keeps stretching,
rather than becomes moribund.
a faith that stays up late,
rather than wanting early nights.
Help us discover the doing of faith
rather than its management;
exploring the outer edges,
rather than retreating to the centre;
making new words,
rather than wasting play-time defining the old ones.
May we live through faith,
for the Faith,
and God,
may we find you doing the same.
So be it
Amen
and a little less guarded.
May we wonder a little more,
and fear a little less.
May we dip more than a toe
in the great sea of faith.
When we reach out to hold something,
may we find you already holding us.
When we stray into questions and doubt,
may we find you waiting with a new adventure.
When we find answers,
may we go back and look for the question.
May we have a faith that lifts stones,
rather than rakes the sand;
a faith that fidgets,
rather than behaves;
a faith that keeps stretching,
rather than becomes moribund.
a faith that stays up late,
rather than wanting early nights.
Help us discover the doing of faith
rather than its management;
exploring the outer edges,
rather than retreating to the centre;
making new words,
rather than wasting play-time defining the old ones.
May we live through faith,
for the Faith,
and God,
may we find you doing the same.
So be it
Amen
Sunday, August 01, 2010
as a mother loves her child
Hosea 11: 1-11 shows God's unconditional love for Israel and should remind us that God will always love us no matter what we've done. God is always waiting to receive us into God's arms of love - just as a mother loves her child (Isaiah 49: 15; Luke 13: 34).
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