Week Three

Become aware of your breathing for a few moments...

Become aware of any sounds ‘outside’ your room...

Become aware of any sounds ‘inside’ your room…

Return to becoming aware of your breathing...

The mystery of hope…… In the midst of all that is not well in our world or ourselves we hold onto what is well.

We hold onto HOPE….. not a superficial, wishful thinking…but a ‘rooted in the mess of life, sure hope.’ 

So let us ask our God to lead us through the Spirit to receive the gift of hope, however wavering.

Music by Gurrumul…. An Aboriginal singer and guitarist who is blind...  This piece of music comes from his album, ‘Child of the Rainbow’. He sings in the language of his island; we have no translation of the words and yet somewhere, we connect, we understand. (words from Sr. Maryrose)  This can be a symbol of hope! 

• Angel Gabriel appears to Mary, a young, ordinary woman from a backwater village. He blesses her with good yet puzzling news.
• Have we been ‘blessed by ‘angels in disguise?...A kind word was said to us at a difficult time?

The birth of Jesus:

The baby was born of a young woman and of God; He was born homeless, in a stable: God became ‘one of us’ – Immanuel’ - a human being just like you and me; born into our messy world.

Music: ’One of Us' - Garth Hewitt

Do we sometimes feel homeless within ourselves; as if we

don’t belong?

Scripture tells us that each one of us is chosen and special!

Each one of us is unique…

Hear the words of Psalm: 139: 13-14...

For you created my inmost being;

You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and

wonderfully made; your works are wonderful….

Reflect on the words from the psalm

Reflect on the uniqueness of your thumbprint…no one else in the world has the exact same ridges and lines that you have on your fingers (not even identical twins have the same fingerprints!).

Take a few moments allow yourself to be in touch with your breathing once again…

Breathing in…

Breathing out…

Letting go of any tensions….

Breathing in life…

Music: ‘You Raise me Up’

’He came down to raise me up!’… 

Paul describes Jesus Christ as ‘our hope’ (1 Timothy 1:1)

and ‘the blessed hope’ (Titus 2:13). Jesus came not only

to bring hope, He became, He is our Hope. 

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite

all of the darkness.” Desmond Tutu

And so we take the ragged fragments,

the patches of darkness

that give shape to the light;

the scraps of desires

unslaked or realized;

the memories of spaces

of blessing, of pain.

And so we gather the scattered pieces

the hopes we carry

fractured or whole;

the struggles of birthing

exhausted, elated;

the places of welcome

that bring healing and life.

And so we lay them at the threshold, God;

bid you hold them, bless them, use them;

ask you to tend them, mend them,

transform them

to keep us warm,

make us whole.

and send us forth. (Jan Richardson)

A Gift of Peace

May the Love that breathes life into all people…

Be born in us today….

May the love that brings us healing…

Be born in us today…

May the love which overcomes hatred…

Be born in us today….

May the love that forgives and renews…

Be born in us today….

May the love that brings the blessing of peace….

Be born in us today.