Posts Tagged ‘John 17:1-11a’
Caught in the Gaze of Prayer – Br. Jim Woodrum
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After the death of my parents, I had to settle their estate and then prepare the house that I grew up in to sell. Among the almost five decades of memories were photo albums assembled through the years. In one of these albums is a picture of my Mom and me when I was an infant. She was in her nightgown, her hair in curlers, sitting in a rocking chair holding me. She was lovingly looking down at me and I was gazing up at her, our eyes locked while I sucked on my pacifier. I imagine my Dad seeing the opportunity for the iconic shot and carefully reaching for his camera. It is a picture we have all seen in the many photo albums of our lives or even while walking in the park, eating in a restaurant, or visiting family. The mother gazes at the infant with a gentle outpouring of love, comfort, and safety. The infant returns the gaze, looking up into the eyes of its mother, taking in information, studying her face, expressions, and eyes. This gaze of love is so compelling, you cannot help but to get drawn in. Even though you were too young to remember this interchange, somehow you hold it sacramentally in embodied remembrance.
It was this kind of gaze that came to mind when reading these words in a small book published by our Society called A Cowley Calendar which has a quote of our founder Fr. Benson for each day of the year. On the page marked “Tuesday in the Octave of Ascension” there is this quote: “We must realize that His eye is really upon us. We must therefore rest in the knowledge that He is looking on us. He gazes into our hearts, He knows all the thoughts that are there. He watches when perhaps Satan assaults us with manifold evil thoughts. He encourages us to be strong, to keep ourselves continually gazing upon Him; and if we will only live in His love, then no power of the enemy can tear us away.”[i] In our lection this evening from the Gospel of John we hear Jesus pray to his Father for his disciples in loving intercession. As he begins to pray, the author of John says that Jesus looks up toward heaven. Its almost as if Jesus returns the gaze of his father as he prays about his coming glorification on the cross and then for protection for his disciples. Read More
God’s Glorification: Our Praying Presence – Br. Keith Nelson
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John 17:1-11a
Driving from Boston to any location on the North Shore of Massachusetts via Route One is a unique experience with which we Brothers, and many of you, will be quite familiar. Route One is the most direct way to get back and forth between our monastery here in Cambridge and Emery House in West Newbury. Most of us – especially those living at Emery House for any length of time – have driven this route dozens, if not hundreds of times. Though I do have a soft-spot for some of Route One’s distinctively kitschy landmarks – a fiberglass orange dinosaur, a replica of the leaning tower of Pisa, a steakhouse sign in the shape of a gigantic cactus – I confess that on many days I find the barrage of retail chains and languishing motels tedious and vaguely depressing. A New England tourism website describes the Route One experience with appropriately mixed emotion: “Years have passed and Route One is still one of America’s hideous, tacky gems –with its odd charm still shining at us in its neon, kitschy glory.” Read More