From the Moravian Tile Works, Doylestown PA
Grunewald's Isenheim Altarpiece
Your way of acting should be different from the world's way; the love of Chrsit must come before all else
~Rule of St. Benedict, 4.20
Let them prefer nothing whatsoever to Christ, and may he bring us all together to everlasting life.
~Rule of St. Benedict, 72.11
The contemplative’s “mission is to be a complete and whole [person], with an instinctive and generous need to further the same wholeness in others and in all [people].”
~Thomas Merton, The Inner Experience, 148.
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that my desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
~Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
Your way of acting should be different from the world's way; the love of Chrsit must come before all else
~Rule of St. Benedict, 4.20
Let them prefer nothing whatsoever to Christ, and may he bring us all together to everlasting life.
~Rule of St. Benedict, 72.11
The contemplative’s “mission is to be a complete and whole [person], with an instinctive and generous need to further the same wholeness in others and in all [people].”
~Thomas Merton, The Inner Experience, 148.
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that my desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
~Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Annunciation
St Romuald’s Brief Rule
Sit in your cell as in paradise; put the whole world behind you and forget it;
like a skilled angler on the lookout for a catch, keep a careful eye on your thoughts.
The path you must follow is in the psalms – don’t leave it.
If you’ve come with a novice’s enthusiasm and can’t accomplish everything you want,
take every chance you can find to sing the psalms in your heart
and to understand them in your head;
if your mind wanders as you read, don’t give up but hurry back and try again. Above all realize that you are in God’s presence, like a little chick
tasting and eating nothing but what its mother brings.
St Romuald’s Brief Rule
Sit in your cell as in paradise; put the whole world behind you and forget it;
like a skilled angler on the lookout for a catch, keep a careful eye on your thoughts.
The path you must follow is in the psalms – don’t leave it.
If you’ve come with a novice’s enthusiasm and can’t accomplish everything you want,
take every chance you can find to sing the psalms in your heart
and to understand them in your head;
if your mind wanders as you read, don’t give up but hurry back and try again. Above all realize that you are in God’s presence, like a little chick
tasting and eating nothing but what its mother brings.
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Take, Lord, and Receive, Ignatius of Loyola
(as paraphrased by David L. Fleming, S.J.) Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my entire will. All I have and call my own, You have given to me; to you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace. That is enough for me. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, “The Making of a Mind” (p. 57-58) Above all, Trust in the slow work of God/ We are, quite naturally, impatient In everything to reach the end, without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown – something new./ And yet, it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability…/ And that it may take a very long time. And so, I think it is with you. Your ideas mature gradually…/ Let them grow./ Let them shape themselves without undo haste./ Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time will make you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete. 
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“Prophets of a Future Not Our Own” prayed by Archbishop Oscar Romero
It helps, now and then to step back and take the long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is in God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection, and no pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the church's mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything. That is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own. Amen. Holy Ghost Rain, Artist Unknown, The Cenacle in Chicago 
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Lalibela Monastery, Ethiopia
