Yours Are the Hands
What movies we watch, what books we read, what poems we share, what spiritual communities we hold as valuable, these are all choices we make through the lens of our own personal spirituality. We are free to choose however we wish. But if it is a life of freedom, a joyous life, a life of service to others we wish to have, then hopefully, we will choose always with the divine spirit as our guide and in a community of friends who support our wise choices.
When we choose to serve others, we are then part of the mystical body of Christ, anointed for the purpose at hand, gifted with courage and inspiration for the work that needs to be done.
Yours are the hands which either welcome and encourage the kingdom of heaven - or block its flow. The kingdom of heaven is already in existence. Will you bring your hands to help or to hinder? The choice is yours.
Call to Worship
Simone Weil, Waiting for God
In the legend of the Grail, the keeper of this miraculous vessel is a king paralyzed by a most painful wound.
And there it is said that the Grail shall belong to the first who asks this king the question,
"What are you going through?"
The love of our neighbour, in all its fullness, simply means being able to say to him, "What are you going through?"
It is a recognition that the sufferer exists, not only as a unit in a collection or a specimen from the social category labeled "unfortunate" but also, as a person, exactly like us, who was one day stamped with a special mark of affliction.
For this recognition to occur, it is enough, but it is indispensable, to know how but it is indispensable, to know how to look at them in a certain way.
This way of looking is, first of all, attentive. The soul empties itself of all its own contents in order to receive into itself the being it is looking at, just as they are, in all their truth.
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
Taizé
The Taizé way of singing/prayer is a modern interpretation of an ancient form of chanting. It comes to us from the wonderful Taizé community in France. Here over a hundred thousand young people gather every year to refresh their spirits. The community was founded by Brother Rodger, a Swiss Protestant monastic brother who wanted to offer a welcome to the stranger, the traveller, and also to offer refreshment and hope to the many people who had been devastated by the second world war. Taizé is an ecumenical community rooted in contemplation, prayer and manual labour. This way of singing and praying reflects the simplicity of the spirituality they have embodied, on focuses on love.
“Since my youth, I think that I have never lost the intuition that community life could be a sign that God is love, and love alone. Gradually the conviction took shape in me that it was essential to create a community with men determined to give their whole life and who would always try to understand one another and be reconciled, a community where kindness of heart and simplicity would be at the centre of everything.”