Matthew 6:1-4 (05-5-15)
Meeting God through acts of Mercy Matthew 6:1-4
Big Idea: When we give to the poor, without an ulterior motive, it leads us to a healthy spirituality because it connects us to God.
Two of weeks ago while in Boston, I was with Joe Viola, a physician trained at Harvard. He mentioned that in order to maintain a certain level of health you must eat certain kinds of food, the right quantities of that food, and then get regular exercise.
Of course, you don’t need to be a Harvard trained doctor to know that. Many of us could list the basic building blocks that foster good physical health.
But what are the basic building blocks of a healthy spiritual life?
Jesus, in Matthew 6 in the middle of his famous Sermon on the Mount speaks of 3 spiritual practices that serve as building blocks for a spiritual healthy life.
What are they? Almsgiving (which can be translated: showing charity, giving to the needy, social justice, doing something that serves people), prayer, and fasting.
All three of these are needed in developing a healthy spirituality.
In order to be spiritually whole we need to have a kind of outward oriented spirituality, where we are serving the needy and the poor.
We also need to have an upward spirituality where we are communion with God in prayer and the Word.
We also need an inward spirituality of fasting, where we say NO to certain things IN ORDER TO SAY YES.
If you were raised in a more conservative branch of Christianity, chances are what was emphasized was more of an upward and inward spirituality, where your personal relationship with Jesus was emphasized, where teaching on Biblical morality was stressed, but not social justice.
Ronald Rolheiser describes listening to a radio program, where a Catholic Bishop was being interviewed. In this bishop’s view churches should clearly be involved in pressuring governments and corporations and people to create a more just and humane society.
An irate woman called in and said, I can’t understand why people like you and churches would get involved in economic and political issues like health care issues, poverty, human rights which are not really the concern of religion. A few radical social-justice type of Christians, get all bothered and worked up about these things and try to impose these on everyone else!
The bishop said, I will answer your question, if you answer mine.
What would you do if you were bishop, and some very sincere woman called you and said, our priest refuses to preach about having faith in God, in prayer, and on issues related to private morality.
He just dismisses these things by saying there are a few radical-contemplative-types who are really into prayer and spirituality and they’re just trying to impose their monk-like hang-ups of the rest of us!
What if your priest were to say God is not interested in our personal spirituality and morality, he’s only interested in social justice for the world.
The woman snapped, I would suspend that priest person on the spot!
The bishop responds to the woman and asks, “What should I do when someone calls me about their priest and complains that he refuses to preach what the Gospel demands about social justice?” He says it’s just a hang up of a small group of liberation theologians, who are trying to foist their agenda on the rest of the church? This priest says what Jesus said about justice and the poor are not important, as long as you pray and keep the commandments.
What should I do then? I ask this because the Gospel demands us to help create justice for the poor is as clear and as nonnegotiable, as its call to pray and keep our private lives in order…
Both social justice and personal devotion to God are needed for a healthy spirituality.
The person who says, “All you need is your relationship with Jesus, you and Jesus in prayer… and social justice isn’t important is going missing something essential in their spirituality.
On the other hand the person who says, “God’s doesn’t give damn about, whether I pray, hold a grudge against someone, sleep with someone I’m not married to… What God cares about is the fact that half of the world went to bed hungry!” Will also be missing something essential in their spirituality.
The fact is that God cares for both, cares about our seeking him in prayer, he cares about our personal lifestyle, AND he cares about our giving to the poor and in social justice.
If we want to grow into spiritual wholeness, we will seek to have this combination of prayer, fasting, saying no to say yes, and giving to the poor and social justice.
This is by the way is the reason why in our statements we talk about how we want to be a community that worships the living God (upward spirituality), a community personal transformation (an inward spirituality), and a community of outreach, particularly to the poor (an outward spirituality).
Now in our text in Matthew 6 Jesus is assuming that his audience is involved in giving to the poor so he says, in Matthew 6:2 when you give to the needy…
Jesus is addressing an audience of primarily Jewish people here, and he would have known that it would have been part of spirituality would include showing mercy to the poor.
If Jesus had been addressing a primarily Roman or Greek audience, I don’t think he would have started with the words when you give to the poor, he would have called the people to give to the poor.
In fact there are many places in the Gospels where Jesus teaches on how we are to bless the poor. In fact, someone has pointed out that in the Gospel of Luke, which is written with a Gentile audience in mind, 1 in every 6 lines deals directly or indirectly with the poor.
And from earliest part of Christianity, followers of Christ have been committed to the poor.
An author in the 2nd century penned an Epistle to Diognetus in which he said, Christians live in cities like everyone else, they’re not eccentric in their lifestyle, they marry like everyone else, but don’t cast off their children and they share their bread, but not their marriage bed. What the soul is to the body… Christians are to the world.
As the Gospel spread through the Roman Empire in those first centuries A.D. what happened was people who had a habit of being generous with their marriage bed and stingy with their money became the exact opposite because as they became people who were sexually exclusive (that is sexually involved only with their marriage partner), but generous in their giving.
In words of the epistle to Diognetus, they didn’t share their marriage bed, but they shared their bread.
Throughout the ages, who people have heard the call of God to follow Jesus, but have responding by been seeking God in prayer, by fasting, saying “no something to say yes,” and also being involved in ministries of mercy.
Amy Carmichael was born into a well to do family in North Ireland in 1867. She was beautiful and intelligent and a gifted writer.
When she was 24 felt called by God to become a missionary. Her “adoptive father” Robert Wilson was against he going, saying that would be a waste of your life and gifs. She ended up going to India to serve as missionary and stayed there for 55 years.
The work for which is she most well was rescuing children from temple prostitution (parents in India had a habit of selling their infants into life-long temple prostitution to make money); Amy Carmichael ended up rescuing over 1000 of the across the years. With help of Indian Christian women she rescued them, clothing and feeding them, and shared the Gospel with them, and educated them.
She was criticized by conservative Christian missionary colleagues, who said, “You should just stick with the word sister,” and she said, “One cannot just save souls and pitchfork them to heaven they are more or less fastened to bodies.”
Amy knew that our call from God was to read and pray, but also to serve the practical needs of people.
Christianity has a had blemished history, but Christians have had a proud history of serving the poor by starting orphanages, schools for the poor, shelters for the poor, hospitals and hospices.
This is not a liberal practice, there a Christian practices.
When we volunteer in ministry through a ministry like Out of the Cold or Oasis, when we sponsor a child with an organization like World Vision, help build a house with Habitat for Humanity or when we sign off on the ONE Campaign also called Make Poverty History campaign with supporters like U2’s Bono (the idea of campaign is to get governments to give 1% of their budgets to eliminating world poverty you sign a petition online), when we give financially or in some other way to the poor, we are expressing the heart of Jesus who said in his manifesto, “I have come to proclaim good news to the poor.”
Jesus in Matthew 6 assumes his listeners are or will be involved in giving to the poor and teaches us the spirit in which we are to give:
T.S. Eliot said the last temptation is to do the right thing for the wrong reason, and Jesus here helps us avoid that peril.
When we give to the needy, Jesus says:
1"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men and women to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do (hypocrites literally means “an actor who wears a mask”) in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Eugene Peterson’s says in his paraphrase The Message: “Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding. When you do something for someone else, don’t call attention to yourself.”
That’s hard to do because we all want be noticed, we all want to live in someone else’s opinion, especially when we’re doing something good.
John Ortberg says, “I know I’m supposed to be humble, but what if no one notices?”
A person gave give the needy not because of genuine love and care, but they want to be noticed, they want to elevate and improve their image.
When I was trying to win over Sakiko, “I knew she loved animals.” So I was, like uh, like animals. My siblings, were like what are you talking about you’re not an animal love, I am NOW!”
Our loving something else, can really be about loving ourselves.
When I was living in California, I remember someone saying, “Volunteering with the Peace Corp is great way to bolster your chances of getting into medical school. If a person is volunteering in some good cause only because it will look good on their resume, that’s not act of loving service freely given, its exercise of prudent, enlightened self-interest!
We can give because we will look better to others.
Or we can give because we look better to ourselves.
When I high school, I remember listening to girl who was in the popular set telling me how wonderful felt about herself because she was talking to a girl in the hallway who was clearly lower on the “coolness” scale… she was giddily impressed with herself about the fact that she such was such a noble person for be willing to talk to someone who was below her in social status….
We can give to impress others and we can give to impress ourselves.
Jesus says if we give in this kind of way, we’ll have a kind of temporal reward, but that’s ALL the reward we will get… the expression that Jesus uses here in text that is translated “rewarded in full” is word means “paid in full.” If we give to impress others, we may well be rewarded with what we desire: the esteem, approval, respect, etc. but Jesus says that will be All the reward we get. We will have been paid if full.
If a company, gives money away to some “good cause” to as part of their PR strategy they may well be rewarded with greater respect which translates into more business. I eat a breakfast cereal mostly because I really like the cereal, but on the box they write 10% goes of profits goes to world peace. I don’t think the company is Christian—no fish sign on the box. I am impressed! That makes me more inclined to buy to it. If you have as part of your strategy gain better business reputation you give money away to worthy causes and le that be know, you’ll be rewarded through respect and more business. But that’s all the reward you’ll get. “Paid in full.”
If you give away your income or volunteer in some good cause in order to impress someone, you may well impress that person because generosity is an attractive quality but that’s all the reward you’ll get “Paid in full.”
Jesus is saying when we give to the poor or the needy, when we serve, do in a way that is as self-forgetful as possible, as if your right hand does not know what your left hand is doing… then your father in heaven will reward you…
I don’t think that we ever do anything with a completely pure motive.
But, Jesus is calling us to resist calculating. To in so far as possible be self-forgetful when we give… and if are Jesus says God will reward us.
What is the reward?
Vs. 1 says "Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men and women to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
The preposition as Darrell Johnson brought to my attention is the preposition para in the Greek whose most common translation is “with.” The New American Standard which tends to be a more literal translation renders the preposition with your Father in heaven.
And the Bible speaks of rewards from God in this life and in the life to come for the things we’ve done. So we do get rewards from God, but in this text the most literal reading is reward “with God.” And greatest reward we can get through our giving to the needy and the poor is that we can get is a richer, fuller, deeper encounter with God.
In Matthew 25, Jesus gives a kind of sneak preview of our final exam, come judgment day.
In Matthew 25 Jesus says to the righteous I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
36I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.'
37"Then those "sheep' are going to say, "Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? 38 -39And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' 40Then the King will say, "I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me--you did it to me.'
And the righteous when did we see you hungry and gave you something to eat, thirsty and you gave me something to drink, a stranger and invited you in… needing clothes and clothed me…
Jesus will say when you did to the least of my brethren you did it for me…
The great gift of giving to the needy, the poor, the oppressed… when done without the motive of being honored or advanced, is that it is as though giving directly to God.
Tolstoy said to love another person is the see the face of God.
Someone has said, we Christians imagine that the poor and the stranger around the world are waiting for us to bring them Jesus when in fact--it is in the poor and the stranger where we are most likely to see Jesus face to face, disguised in the face of the poor.
A friend of mine had the great privilege of meeting Mother Teresa in India. He asked, Mother what enables you to keep giving and giving?
Mother Teresa responded, we do our work for Jesus, with Jesus, and to Jesus.
We understand that that prayer and fasting enable us to commune with Jesus, but so does giving to poor and working for justice and this why almsgiving central part of healthy spirituality--because brings us to the face to face with the living God. Benediction:
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;where there is hatred, let me sow love;where there is injury, pardon;where there is doubt, faith;where there is despair, hope;where there is darkness, light;and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;to be understood, as to understand;to be loved, as to love;for it is in giving that we receive,it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Big Idea: When we give to the poor, without an ulterior motive, it leads us to a healthy spirituality because it connects us to God.
Two of weeks ago while in Boston, I was with Joe Viola, a physician trained at Harvard. He mentioned that in order to maintain a certain level of health you must eat certain kinds of food, the right quantities of that food, and then get regular exercise.
Of course, you don’t need to be a Harvard trained doctor to know that. Many of us could list the basic building blocks that foster good physical health.
But what are the basic building blocks of a healthy spiritual life?
Jesus, in Matthew 6 in the middle of his famous Sermon on the Mount speaks of 3 spiritual practices that serve as building blocks for a spiritual healthy life.
What are they? Almsgiving (which can be translated: showing charity, giving to the needy, social justice, doing something that serves people), prayer, and fasting.
All three of these are needed in developing a healthy spirituality.
In order to be spiritually whole we need to have a kind of outward oriented spirituality, where we are serving the needy and the poor.
We also need to have an upward spirituality where we are communion with God in prayer and the Word.
We also need an inward spirituality of fasting, where we say NO to certain things IN ORDER TO SAY YES.
If you were raised in a more conservative branch of Christianity, chances are what was emphasized was more of an upward and inward spirituality, where your personal relationship with Jesus was emphasized, where teaching on Biblical morality was stressed, but not social justice.
Ronald Rolheiser describes listening to a radio program, where a Catholic Bishop was being interviewed. In this bishop’s view churches should clearly be involved in pressuring governments and corporations and people to create a more just and humane society.
An irate woman called in and said, I can’t understand why people like you and churches would get involved in economic and political issues like health care issues, poverty, human rights which are not really the concern of religion. A few radical social-justice type of Christians, get all bothered and worked up about these things and try to impose these on everyone else!
The bishop said, I will answer your question, if you answer mine.
What would you do if you were bishop, and some very sincere woman called you and said, our priest refuses to preach about having faith in God, in prayer, and on issues related to private morality.
He just dismisses these things by saying there are a few radical-contemplative-types who are really into prayer and spirituality and they’re just trying to impose their monk-like hang-ups of the rest of us!
What if your priest were to say God is not interested in our personal spirituality and morality, he’s only interested in social justice for the world.
The woman snapped, I would suspend that priest person on the spot!
The bishop responds to the woman and asks, “What should I do when someone calls me about their priest and complains that he refuses to preach what the Gospel demands about social justice?” He says it’s just a hang up of a small group of liberation theologians, who are trying to foist their agenda on the rest of the church? This priest says what Jesus said about justice and the poor are not important, as long as you pray and keep the commandments.
What should I do then? I ask this because the Gospel demands us to help create justice for the poor is as clear and as nonnegotiable, as its call to pray and keep our private lives in order…
Both social justice and personal devotion to God are needed for a healthy spirituality.
The person who says, “All you need is your relationship with Jesus, you and Jesus in prayer… and social justice isn’t important is going missing something essential in their spirituality.
On the other hand the person who says, “God’s doesn’t give damn about, whether I pray, hold a grudge against someone, sleep with someone I’m not married to… What God cares about is the fact that half of the world went to bed hungry!” Will also be missing something essential in their spirituality.
The fact is that God cares for both, cares about our seeking him in prayer, he cares about our personal lifestyle, AND he cares about our giving to the poor and in social justice.
If we want to grow into spiritual wholeness, we will seek to have this combination of prayer, fasting, saying no to say yes, and giving to the poor and social justice.
This is by the way is the reason why in our statements we talk about how we want to be a community that worships the living God (upward spirituality), a community personal transformation (an inward spirituality), and a community of outreach, particularly to the poor (an outward spirituality).
Now in our text in Matthew 6 Jesus is assuming that his audience is involved in giving to the poor so he says, in Matthew 6:2 when you give to the needy…
Jesus is addressing an audience of primarily Jewish people here, and he would have known that it would have been part of spirituality would include showing mercy to the poor.
If Jesus had been addressing a primarily Roman or Greek audience, I don’t think he would have started with the words when you give to the poor, he would have called the people to give to the poor.
In fact there are many places in the Gospels where Jesus teaches on how we are to bless the poor. In fact, someone has pointed out that in the Gospel of Luke, which is written with a Gentile audience in mind, 1 in every 6 lines deals directly or indirectly with the poor.
And from earliest part of Christianity, followers of Christ have been committed to the poor.
An author in the 2nd century penned an Epistle to Diognetus in which he said, Christians live in cities like everyone else, they’re not eccentric in their lifestyle, they marry like everyone else, but don’t cast off their children and they share their bread, but not their marriage bed. What the soul is to the body… Christians are to the world.
As the Gospel spread through the Roman Empire in those first centuries A.D. what happened was people who had a habit of being generous with their marriage bed and stingy with their money became the exact opposite because as they became people who were sexually exclusive (that is sexually involved only with their marriage partner), but generous in their giving.
In words of the epistle to Diognetus, they didn’t share their marriage bed, but they shared their bread.
Throughout the ages, who people have heard the call of God to follow Jesus, but have responding by been seeking God in prayer, by fasting, saying “no something to say yes,” and also being involved in ministries of mercy.
Amy Carmichael was born into a well to do family in North Ireland in 1867. She was beautiful and intelligent and a gifted writer.
When she was 24 felt called by God to become a missionary. Her “adoptive father” Robert Wilson was against he going, saying that would be a waste of your life and gifs. She ended up going to India to serve as missionary and stayed there for 55 years.
The work for which is she most well was rescuing children from temple prostitution (parents in India had a habit of selling their infants into life-long temple prostitution to make money); Amy Carmichael ended up rescuing over 1000 of the across the years. With help of Indian Christian women she rescued them, clothing and feeding them, and shared the Gospel with them, and educated them.
She was criticized by conservative Christian missionary colleagues, who said, “You should just stick with the word sister,” and she said, “One cannot just save souls and pitchfork them to heaven they are more or less fastened to bodies.”
Amy knew that our call from God was to read and pray, but also to serve the practical needs of people.
Christianity has a had blemished history, but Christians have had a proud history of serving the poor by starting orphanages, schools for the poor, shelters for the poor, hospitals and hospices.
This is not a liberal practice, there a Christian practices.
When we volunteer in ministry through a ministry like Out of the Cold or Oasis, when we sponsor a child with an organization like World Vision, help build a house with Habitat for Humanity or when we sign off on the ONE Campaign also called Make Poverty History campaign with supporters like U2’s Bono (the idea of campaign is to get governments to give 1% of their budgets to eliminating world poverty you sign a petition online), when we give financially or in some other way to the poor, we are expressing the heart of Jesus who said in his manifesto, “I have come to proclaim good news to the poor.”
Jesus in Matthew 6 assumes his listeners are or will be involved in giving to the poor and teaches us the spirit in which we are to give:
T.S. Eliot said the last temptation is to do the right thing for the wrong reason, and Jesus here helps us avoid that peril.
When we give to the needy, Jesus says:
1"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men and women to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do (hypocrites literally means “an actor who wears a mask”) in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Eugene Peterson’s says in his paraphrase The Message: “Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding. When you do something for someone else, don’t call attention to yourself.”
That’s hard to do because we all want be noticed, we all want to live in someone else’s opinion, especially when we’re doing something good.
John Ortberg says, “I know I’m supposed to be humble, but what if no one notices?”
A person gave give the needy not because of genuine love and care, but they want to be noticed, they want to elevate and improve their image.
When I was trying to win over Sakiko, “I knew she loved animals.” So I was, like uh, like animals. My siblings, were like what are you talking about you’re not an animal love, I am NOW!”
Our loving something else, can really be about loving ourselves.
When I was living in California, I remember someone saying, “Volunteering with the Peace Corp is great way to bolster your chances of getting into medical school. If a person is volunteering in some good cause only because it will look good on their resume, that’s not act of loving service freely given, its exercise of prudent, enlightened self-interest!
We can give because we will look better to others.
Or we can give because we look better to ourselves.
When I high school, I remember listening to girl who was in the popular set telling me how wonderful felt about herself because she was talking to a girl in the hallway who was clearly lower on the “coolness” scale… she was giddily impressed with herself about the fact that she such was such a noble person for be willing to talk to someone who was below her in social status….
We can give to impress others and we can give to impress ourselves.
Jesus says if we give in this kind of way, we’ll have a kind of temporal reward, but that’s ALL the reward we will get… the expression that Jesus uses here in text that is translated “rewarded in full” is word means “paid in full.” If we give to impress others, we may well be rewarded with what we desire: the esteem, approval, respect, etc. but Jesus says that will be All the reward we get. We will have been paid if full.
If a company, gives money away to some “good cause” to as part of their PR strategy they may well be rewarded with greater respect which translates into more business. I eat a breakfast cereal mostly because I really like the cereal, but on the box they write 10% goes of profits goes to world peace. I don’t think the company is Christian—no fish sign on the box. I am impressed! That makes me more inclined to buy to it. If you have as part of your strategy gain better business reputation you give money away to worthy causes and le that be know, you’ll be rewarded through respect and more business. But that’s all the reward you’ll get. “Paid in full.”
If you give away your income or volunteer in some good cause in order to impress someone, you may well impress that person because generosity is an attractive quality but that’s all the reward you’ll get “Paid in full.”
Jesus is saying when we give to the poor or the needy, when we serve, do in a way that is as self-forgetful as possible, as if your right hand does not know what your left hand is doing… then your father in heaven will reward you…
I don’t think that we ever do anything with a completely pure motive.
But, Jesus is calling us to resist calculating. To in so far as possible be self-forgetful when we give… and if are Jesus says God will reward us.
What is the reward?
Vs. 1 says "Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men and women to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
The preposition as Darrell Johnson brought to my attention is the preposition para in the Greek whose most common translation is “with.” The New American Standard which tends to be a more literal translation renders the preposition with your Father in heaven.
And the Bible speaks of rewards from God in this life and in the life to come for the things we’ve done. So we do get rewards from God, but in this text the most literal reading is reward “with God.” And greatest reward we can get through our giving to the needy and the poor is that we can get is a richer, fuller, deeper encounter with God.
In Matthew 25, Jesus gives a kind of sneak preview of our final exam, come judgment day.
In Matthew 25 Jesus says to the righteous I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
36I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.'
37"Then those "sheep' are going to say, "Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? 38 -39And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' 40Then the King will say, "I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me--you did it to me.'
And the righteous when did we see you hungry and gave you something to eat, thirsty and you gave me something to drink, a stranger and invited you in… needing clothes and clothed me…
Jesus will say when you did to the least of my brethren you did it for me…
The great gift of giving to the needy, the poor, the oppressed… when done without the motive of being honored or advanced, is that it is as though giving directly to God.
Tolstoy said to love another person is the see the face of God.
Someone has said, we Christians imagine that the poor and the stranger around the world are waiting for us to bring them Jesus when in fact--it is in the poor and the stranger where we are most likely to see Jesus face to face, disguised in the face of the poor.
A friend of mine had the great privilege of meeting Mother Teresa in India. He asked, Mother what enables you to keep giving and giving?
Mother Teresa responded, we do our work for Jesus, with Jesus, and to Jesus.
We understand that that prayer and fasting enable us to commune with Jesus, but so does giving to poor and working for justice and this why almsgiving central part of healthy spirituality--because brings us to the face to face with the living God. Benediction:
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;where there is hatred, let me sow love;where there is injury, pardon;where there is doubt, faith;where there is despair, hope;where there is darkness, light;and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;to be understood, as to understand;to be loved, as to love;for it is in giving that we receive,it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
posted by Shigematsu at 1:36 PM
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