My brothers, when you have fallen into various trials, consider everything a joy, knowing that the proving of your faith exercises patience, and patience brings a work to perfection, so that you may be perfect and whole, deficient in nothing. James 1:2-4
Prayer
Prayer for the Cleansing of our Soul
Father,
do not let me find consolation
in sensible devotion
to the person of Jesus Christ
while Jesus Christ passes me by
unrecognized,
unknown,
unsought,
uncomforted
on the Via Crucis
we travel together.
Do not let my heart
be moved by pity
for the painted Christ on the wall
while it remains a stone,
hard, insensitive
to Christ suffering alone
in the ugliness of shame and disgrace
in the outcast,
the shunned,
the forgotten:
in mental sufferers hidden away in hospitals,
in prisons serving life sentences,
in people wrestling with bitterness and despair
behind the Iron Curtain;
in those fighting a losing fight
with human weakness and degradation —
in the unhelped,
the uncomforted,
the unloved.
Do not give me tears
to shed at the feet of the crucifix
while they blind me to Christ crucified
unwept for in the souls of sinners
and in my own sinful soul.
Carlyle Houselander - a British mystic, poet and spiritual teacher
Words to Consider
Anger and fear are a lack of faith. Mother Angelica
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