Daily Thoughts: God's Word in our life is like nothing else. As our first reading from Isaiah remains us it cannot return to God without nurturing, correcting, healing and inspiring us. God's Word is just like the rain, it refreshes us, it softens us up and helps life to go within us and around us. God's Word is always going to grow our challenge is to allow it to grow within us.
The Our Father has always been one of my favorite prayers, perhaps because it probably was one of the first prayers I learned. It keeps me connected with the beginning of my life. It is also important to me because it is the last prayer I prayed with my father. It happened one night in the hospital not long before he died. I asked him if he wanted to pray and he said yes. We said the Our Father together and when we were finished a great feeling of loss came over me and I began to cry. My dad reached out and comforted me. I think the feeling of loss came from the fact that all that the Our Father speaks about my own father did for me in life and in praying it that night I recognized the loss that was about to take place in my life.
The hopefulness of the Our Father is that God will never leave us. That each and every day we pray that simple pray, its promises, its challenges will always be taken care of by Our Father, God. Our daily bread will always be there. Forgiveness will always be there. The care, compassion and presence of God will always be there. We just have to trust and give life to the Word of God planted within us!
As St. Augustine puts it, "If you run through the petitions of all holy prayers, I believe you will find nothing that is not contained in the Lord's Prayer."
Daily Prayer: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen! (Say it slowly, listen to the words!)
Runner's Thought: Running is an intensely physical activity, so the body is brought directly into play and cannot be ignored. Thus, if our run becomes a prayer, our bodies with their direct connection to the earth, the wind, the heat, the cold, the scents and the noises around us become the stimulus that brings us closer to God, reminds us of God's presence in our life and gives spirit and energy to our prayer!
Happy Tuesday everyone! If you are returning to work or school today after a day off yesterday may your day not feel like a Monday! In about an hour we will begin our second day of mission here at the Church of the Assumption in Peekskill, NY. We had a wonderful first day with a lot of energy and enthusiasm and today should be more of the same. Please continue to keep the faith community here and the preacher in your prayers! Blessings upon all this day, may the Word of God be planted and nourished within you and may we bring it to whom ever you meet! Peace in Christ's Passion...Fr. Paul
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