Ordinary Time

Pause

All of us live full lives. And yet in spite of all the things we have accomplished thus far or plan to accomplish in the future, there is nothing more valuable in life than the knowledge of God’s presence.

Knowing that God is with you and for you, feel free to let go of everything that is holding you down or holding you back. Settle into the silence of this moment and recognize what a gift it is. Because of God’s love, you are free.

So receive God with gladness, and open both your heart and mind, that God might move in you and through you, even now.

Listen

Jesus sat across from the collection box for the temple treasury and observed how the crowd gave their money. Many rich people were throwing in lots of money. One poor widow came forward and put in two small copper coins worth a penny. Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I assure you that this poor widow has put in more than everyone who’s been putting money in the treasury. All of them are giving out of their spare change. But she from her hopeless poverty has given everything she had, even what she needed to live on.”

Mark 12:41-44

Think

We spend most of our lives doing very routine things like sleeping, eating, and playing on Instagram. And yet none of us wants to admit that our lives are sometimes “boring,” because that’s like saying, “My life is average.” And who wants to be “average”?

So in the quiet of our bedroom, we watch Netflix and wonder when the next exciting thing is going to happen. Conditioned to like things that are new and novel, we always want bigger and better. We want more. And like the rich people who made a show out of throwing large sums of money into the collection box, we want people to see us and be impressed.

But all it took to get Jesus’ attention was “two small copper coins.” By calling attention to such a meager offering Jesus acknowledges that everything matters — the exciting and the boring, the new and the old, the big and the small, the average and the extraordinary.

Nothing is routine for those who choose to give everything they have and everything they are to God.

Chris Robertson

Pray

God, please open my eyes that I might see you at work in my life and in the world around me. Help me to remain available and to give you everything I have and everything I am, both in this moment and in every moment to come. Amen.

Go

“The purpose of prayer and religious seeking is to see the truth about reality, is to see what is. And at the bottom of what is is always goodness. The foundation is always love.”

Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs, 2003

God renews our vision and invites us to look deeper — all the way to what is. God wants us to see the love and goodness of what is. Are you paying attention?