Checking the Wake

Friday of the 27^th Week in Ordinary Time
Joel 1:13-15, 2:1-2

Psalm 9 The Lord will judge the world with justice

Luke 11:15-26

Joel is delivering fire and brimstone!  And I hear it!

The house of your God is deprived!

I am called to notice the ‘emptiness’ and ‘ruin’.  In my house of worship, my parish, my diocese, and in my home and around my table…what is empty and in ruins?

Luke gives me a clue to how to see clearly.  ‘Whoever does not gather with me, scatters.’

Does the work of my hands; do the thoughts of my heart, serve to gather?  If so, what is at the center of my ‘gathering’?  Is it love and mercy and justice?

Or do I divide?  What is in the wake of my comings and goings?  I can get so focused on the ‘busyness’ of my life that I forget to turn around and check my wake.

This kind of reflection is the work of Compline/Night Prayer.  I lie down before sleep and wonder:  Looking at the evidence…the concrete words and deeds of my day, what have I loved?  What does the evidence suggest about what I truly long for?

God grant me the honest reflection

to notice what I leave in my wake

And grant me a heart open to your mercy

For your mercy alone

has the power to change my scattering into gathering

For this I pray