OPreach
Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
Wednesday of Hope – Dates or Milkweed?
Let us plant dates even though those who plant them will never see them. We must live by the love of what we will never see. This is the secret discipline. It is a refusal to let the creative act be dissolved away in immediate sense experience, and a stubborn commitment to the future of our grandchildren. Such disciplined love is what has given prophets, revolutionaries, and saints the courage to die for the future they envisaged. They make their own bodies the seed of their own highest hope.
– Rubem Alves, Tomorrow’s Child, quoted by Don Goergen, OP
These may not be date seeds, but let us be grateful for the milkweed, so that we may enjoy the Monarch Butterfly.
Gratefulness for the Entire World
Whenever feeling downcast, each person should vitally remember, “For my sake, the entire world was created.
– Baal Shem Tov
Wednesday of Hope – Where the Light Gets In
Ring the bell that still can ring. Forget the perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.
– Leonard Cohen, Anthem
The Fruits of Gratitude
Gratitude to gratitude always gives birth.
– attributed to Sophocles
Wednesday of Hope – One Day at a Time
Today is only a small manageable segment of time in which our difficulties need not overwhelm us. This lifts from our hearts and minds the heavy weight of both past and future.
– Anonymous, One Day at a Time in Al-Anon
Gratefulness Is a Bridge
I wonder if gratefulness is the bridge from sorrow to joy, spanning the chasm of our anxious striving. Freed from the burden of unbridled desires, we can enjoy what we have, celebrate what we’ve attained, and appreciate the familiar. For if we can’t be happy now, we’ll likely not be happy when.
– Philip Gulley, Porch Talk
Wednesday of Hope – For What Do We Hope?
The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what to hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope.
– Barbara Kingsolver
The Mystery of Gratitude
Ironically, gratitude’s most powerful mysteries are often revealed when we are struggling in the midst of personal turmoil.
– Sarah Ban Breathnach
Wednesday of Hope – Never Give Up
There are moments when I feel like giving up or giving in, but I soon rally again and do my duty as I see it: to keep the spark of life inside me ablaze.
– Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life
Don’t Take the Easy Way
We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.
– Maya Angelou
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