Daily Reading for April 18
The open gate is the choice that God is always placing before us. It is a sign of the opportunity that is ours. It is to do with our basic freedom; we can choose to go that way or to ignore it and go along another path. We should look upon the open gate as a way to extend ourselves and our vision. Here we can see further and reach beyond where we have been before. It may take a great deal of discipline to get off the old familiar track and to break with old habits, but in return it offers the excitement of new ground and new vistas. What we have to learn is to recognize when an open gate is presented to us. There are many gates, physical, mental and spiritual, through which we can travel to the ‘other world’, or, as I would prefer, ‘to a greater vision of this world of ours.’ There are always deeper levels of reality to explore. To accept open gates is to accept the role of a frontiersperson, an adventurer going where no one has gone before. Yet there are those who have made like journeys, taken similar adventures, so we are not without guides and fellow travelers. Just as when you go to a new country you can buy a guidebook to help you to get around, so in the venture of life, you can get advice and direction from those who have traveled before and direction from those who have traveled before you. When you make this venture, you will discover riches that you never dreamed of. St. Brendan of Birr says, ‘If you become Christ’s you will stumble upon wonder upon wonder and every one of them true.’ We need to discover that Christ has opened up for us the gate of glory.
From The Open Gate: Celtic Prayers for Growing Spiritually by David Adam. Copyright © 1995. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com