Holy week can be an amazingly productive time in which to dig deep and consider some of your most demanding chapters. In this series on writing and living by our Rule of Life, we have come to Holy Week and will be considering chapters this week in the drafting of our Rule of Life that include hard subjects
The Spiritual and the Material needn’t compete for our attention or jockey for superiority, but, as St. Teresa goes on to say, reliance on the spiritual is cavalier (and unlikely to bear) without experience in the material: “This withdrawal from the corporeal must doubtless be good, since it is advised by [many of the saints], but it is my belief that it must be practiced only when the soul is very proficient: until then, it is clear, the Creator must be sought through the creatures.”
Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Whether we live in the kingdom of violence or God’s kingdom of Love depends on who we listen to: The mob, or the dreamer.