Lectio Divina Reading
April 22, 2004
To Be Open
As we enter into the resurrection stories, let us hear God coaxing us to be open the way a welcome rainfall coaxes green out of a thirsty, dry garden. Let us hear God saying to us:
Open up your mind and your heart
Put aside your strong expectations
Lay down the arms of your inner violence
Give up your set ideas
Turn away from your winter worries
Let go of your oppressive fears
Be willing to be insecure for a while
Allow surprise to take over your heart
The Resurrection of Jesus
Luke 24:1-12
But at daybreak on the first day of the week they took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb; but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were puzzling over this behold, two men in dazzling garments appeared to them. They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. They said to them, "Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day. And they remembered his words. Then they returned from the tomb and announced all these things to the eleven and to all the others. The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James; the others who accompanied them also told this to the apostles, but their story seemed like nonsense and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb, bent down, and saw the burial cloths alone; then he went home amazed at what had happened.
APRIL POEM
"you will be like a watered garden, like a flowering spring whose waters never run dry." Isaiah 58:11
God of little buds just now wearing green sleeves,
God of lilac limbs all full with signs of flowering,
God of fields plowed and black with turned-over earth,
God of screeching baby bird mouths widely awaiting food,
God of openness, of life and of resurrection,
Come into this Easter season and bless me.
Look around the tight, dead spaces of my heart
That still refuse to give you an entrance.
Bring your gentle but firm love.
Begin to lift the layers of resistance
That hang on tightly deep inside of me.
Open, one by one, those places in my life
Where I refuse to be overcome by surprise,
Open, one by one, those parts of my heart
Where I fight the entrance of real growth.
Open one by one, those aspects of my spirit
Where my security struggles with the truth.
Keep me open to the different and the strange;
Help me to accept the unusual and also the ordinary;
Never allow me to tread on another’s dreams
by shutting them out, closing them up,
By turning them off or pushing them away.
God of the resurrection, God of the living,
Untomb and uncover all that needs to live in me.
Take me to people, events, and situations
And stretch me into much greater openness.
Open me. Open me. Open me.
For it is only then that I will grow and change.
For it is only then that I will be transformed.
For it is only then that I will know how it is
To be in the moment of rising from the dead.
May I Have This Dance, Joyce Rupp
Closing Prayer
Jesus, you are risen! You are with us. Keep us ever mindful of how you are a part of our lives in a deep and profound way. Surprises us with a touch of your love in places where we never thought that we would find you. Fill our hearts with hope. May the gift of your presence transform every ordinary moment of ours into a sacred place where you dwell. Help us to see this gift through the eyes of faith. Fill us with your peace. AMEN.
Joyce Rupp
Lectio Divina
for CP Groups
Contemplative Outreach of Dallas