Wednesday, April 3, 2019

New Nouwen Meditation: God is a God of the Living

DAILY MEDITATION | APRIL 3, 2019
God is a God of the Living
The mystery of God’s love is not that our pain is taken away, but that God first wants to share that pain with us. Out of this divine solidarity comes new life. Jesus’ being moved in the center of his being by human pain is indeed a movement toward new life. God is our God, the God of the living. In the divine womb of God, life is always born again. . . . The truly good news is that God is not a distant God, a God to be feared and avoided, a God of revenge, but a God who is moved by our pains and participates in the fullness of the human struggle.
“When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. Jesus wept.”

JOHN 11:33,35 (NIV)
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Tuesday, April 2, 2019

New Nouwen Meditation: God’s Faithfulness

DAILY MEDITATION | APRIL 2, 2019
God’s Faithfulness
The resurrection does not solve our problems about dying and death. It is not the happy ending to our life’s struggle, nor is it the big surprise that God has kept in store for us. No, the resurrection is the expression of God’s faithfulness to Jesus and to all God’s children. Through the resurrection, God has said to Jesus, “You are indeed my beloved Son, and my love is everlasting,” and to us God has said, “You indeed are my beloved children, and my love is everlasting.” The resurrection is God’s way of revealing to us that nothing that belongs to God will ever go to waste. What belongs to God will never get lost — not even our mortal bodies. The resurrection doesn’t answer any of our curious questions about life after death, such as: How will it be? How will it look? But it does reveal to us that, indeed, love is stronger than death. After that revelation, we must remain silent, leave the whys, wheres, hows, and whens behind, and simply trust.
“The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.”

1 CORINTHIANS 15:42-44 (NIV)
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Monday, April 1, 2019

New Nouwen Meditation: God’s Non-Violent Love

DAILY MEDITATION | APRIL 1, 2019
God's Non-Violent Love
On the cross, Jesus has shown us how far God’s love goes. It’s a love that embraces even those who crucified him. When Jesus is hanging nailed to the cross, totally broken and stripped of everything, he still prays for his executioners: “Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing.” Jesus’ love for his enemies knows no bounds. He prays even for those who are putting him to death. It is this, the enemy-loving God, that is offered to us in the Eucharist. To forgive our enemies doesn’t lie within our power. That is a divine gift. That’s why it’s so important to make the Eucharist the heart and center of your life. It’s there that you receive the love that empowers you to take the way that Jesus has taken before you: a narrow way, a painful way, but the way that gives you true joy and peace and enables you to make the non-violent love of God visible in this world.
“I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

GALATIANS 2:21 (NIV)
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