OPreach
Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
Christmas Eve – Receiving God
It is good for a person to receive God
Into himself or herself
And I call this receptivity the work of a virgin.But it is better
When God becomes fruitful within a person.
For becoming fruitful as a result of a gift is the
Only gratitude for the gift.I call such a person a wife
And in this sense the term wife is the noblest
Term we can give the soul,
It is far nobler than virgin.Every day
Such a person bears fruit a hundred times
Or a thousand times
Or countless times
Giving birth and becoming fruitful
Out of the most noble foundation of all.Tend only to this birth in you
And you will find there
All goodness and all consolation,
All delight,
All being and truth.~ Meister Eckhart, OP
Wednesday of Hope – Recognizing Possibilities
You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope.
– Thomas Merton
The Patience to Wait
Patience is not just the ability to wait, it’s how we behave while we’re waiting.
– Joyce Meyer
Wednesday of Hope – Hope Begins in the Dark
Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and. work: you don’t give up.
– Anne Lamotte
Our Magical Universe Is Waiting
The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
– Eden Phillpotts
Wednesday of Hope – In the Stillness of the Quiet
In the stillness of the quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper of the heart giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair.
– Howard Thurman
Looking into the Deep Landscape
While we cry ourselves to sleep, gratitude waits patiently to console and reassure us; there is a landscape larger than the one we can see.
– Sarah Ban Breathnach
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
OPreach 