Look Forward

SCRIPTURE
- Proverbs 4:25-26
"Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure." 

REFLECTION
- Fr. Jason

MUSIC
- "Moonrise" by Ola Gjeilo
- "As the Deer" by David Im

NOTES
- 

PRAYER OF LETTING GO
To You do I belong, O God,
 into Your hands I surrender my life.
 Pour out Your Spirit upon me
 that I may love You perfectly,
 and serve You faithfully
 until my soul rests in You.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:29

A very warm welcome to our time of prayer. As we begin, let's ask the Holy Spirit for one simple grace: the grace to be fully present to God. Leave behind whatever has already happened today and place whatever is still to come into his loving hands. Let us pray. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall declare your praise.

SPEAKER_03 1:11

Psalm 47, celebration. All you peoples, clap your hands, shout to God with joyful cries. For the Lord the Most High is to be feared, the great King over all the earth.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

God has gone up with a shout, the Lord amid trumpet blasts. Sing praise to God, sing praise. Sing praise to our King, sing praise.

SPEAKER_03 1:47

For God is King over all the earth, sing hymns of praise. God rules over the nations, God sits upon his holy throne.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

The princes of the peoples assemble with the people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God, highly exalted.

SPEAKER_03 2:17

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

Amen. The word of the Lord. How is God active in your life?

SPEAKER_04 3:08

In this moment, how is God active? Our scripture for today tells us to look directly forward, have your gaze set before you, ponder your path. The scripture is resolute, it's hopeful, and it grounds us in reality. The reality of what is exactly before us. And this is good because God lives in reality. Oftentimes we're pulled into distractions, we're pulled into fantasy, but to be attentive to the moment, when we're attentive to what's actually happening before us, it's there that we will find God. One such distraction that's a great temptation for all of us. I experience it myself. It's a distraction of pondering the past, of drudging up old stories, old narratives, and replaying them in our minds over and over and over again. But God is not in those old stories. God is not in the shame of our past. It's true that in prayer, God can surface things in the past, but God does that in love. And that's very different than the monologue that we find in our brain. It's different than the shame that comes up. Sure, in our past there may be points of sinfulness or brokenness, and we can experience proper guilt and say, I did that. That's different than shame. Shame takes that guilt and it applies it as an identity, that I am these things. And so often we can find ourselves mired in the past, mired in our shame. Of course, if we've done things in the past that are sinful, especially seriously sinful, we should go to the sacrament of reconciliation. We should experience God's forgiveness. What a gift. But from there, then are we able to forgive ourselves? One of my favorite stories about just this type of thing comes from St. Margaret Mary Alico. St. Margaret Mary was the great visionary. She had these visions of the sacred heart of Jesus and her spiritual director to test the visions to know if it really was Jesus. Told her that in the next apparition, to ask Jesus the sins that he confessed, the priest, the sins he confessed in his last confession. And so when Jesus appeared to St. Margaret Mary again, she said, Father wants to know from you the sins he confessed in his last confession. And Jesus said, I forgot. And so she goes back to the priest, her spiritual director, and she says, I asked Jesus, and he said, He forgot. And the priest, a wise priest, a saintly priest, said, then we know it's really Jesus. Because Jesus indeed forgets the sins of our past once we've confessed them, once we've been reconciled in the sacrament. But we remember, don't we? We remember to learn from our sins, yes, but also because the memory of the past can actually be an opportunity. It can prompt rejoicing in the conversion we experience now. As our scripture today says, look what is before you. Look at the beauty of your life, what God is doing now, His grace that has brought you to this point. God lives in reality. I pray that today you can experience God active in your life right now, in this reality, in the grace of the present moment.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. Let us pray. Loving Jesus, thank you for meeting us here, not in the past or in the worries of tomorrow, but in this very moment. When old regrets or familiar voices of shame try to pull us away from you, teach us that your mercy is always greater. Help us to trust what you have already forgiven and to walk forward with quiet confidence, knowing that you continue to lead us. Open our eyes to recognize your grace at work today, and give us hearts that are willing to follow wherever you invite us. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. To you do I belong, O God, into your hands I surrender my life. Pour out your Spirit upon me that I may love you perfectly and serve you faithfully until my soul rests in you. Thank you for praying with us today, and thank you, Father Jason. You know, there's something freeing about not having to keep looking over your shoulder. God has already met us there. Today, he's inviting us to walk with him right where we are. And may God bless us as we go forth in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Look for Christ in the small things until we pray again tomorrow.