08 February 2022

Praying with the Saints in Ordinary Time:
8 February 2022

Two Carmelite churches in Porto … Igreja dos Carmelitas on the left and Igreja do Carmo on the right, separated by a narrow, hidden house (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the countdown to Lent since Sunday last, which was the Fourth Sunday before Lent.

I have a meeting later this morning of the joint chapters of the cathedrals in Limerick and KIllaloe. But before this busy day begins, I am taking some time early this morning for prayer, reflection and reading.

The Church Calendar is now in Ordinary Time until Ash Wednesday, 2 March 2022. During this month in Ordinary Time, I hope to continue this Prayer Diary on my blog each morning, reflecting in these ways:

1, Short reflections drawing on the writings of a great saint or spiritual writer;

2, the day’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

At present, I am exploring the writings of the great Carmelite mystic, Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), so my quotations over these few days are from her writings:

‘To reach something good it is very useful to have gone astray, and thus acquire experience.’

Mark 7: 1-13 (NRSVA):

1 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) 5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ 6 He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

“This people honours me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.”

8 You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’

9 Then he said to them, ‘You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! 10 For Moses said, “Honour your father and your mother”; and, “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.” 11 But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, “Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban” (that is, an offering to God) – 12then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.’

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (8 February 2022) invites us to pray:

We pray for the Japanese Anglican Church (UK), based at St Martin’s in West Acton, London.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

No comments: