"We were all baptized into one body."
We invite you to a few minutes of silence before we begin our prayer time together.
Take a deep breath and breathe in the breath of God, knowing by faith that God breathes into us the breath of life.
CONTEMPLATIVE / SILENT PRAYER
Our Centering Prayer sit is 20 - 30 minutes sounded by the chime/chant. At the end of the Prayer sit, we will linger in silence a few minutes, then follow by praying together the Our Father.
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First reading & silent reflection: Reflect in silence.
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LECTIO: from I Cor. 12: 12-31a
For just as the body is one and
has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body,
so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one
body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one
Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the
foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that
would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear would say,
“Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it
any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the
hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?
But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he
chose.
Second reading & reflection: What word or phrase catches your attention? Share or pass.
Third reading & reflection: How does this word or phrase touch your life? Share or pass.
Fourth and last reading & silent reflection: How is God inviting you to grow? We will reflect in silence for a few moments before we move from Lectio Prayer to the teaching by Father Keating.
Teaching: Epiphany is the crowning feast of
Christmas. We tend to think of Christmas as the greater feast, but in actual
fact, it is only the beginning. It whets our appetite for the treasures to be
revealed in the feasts to come. The great enlightenment of the
Christmas-Epiphany Mystery is when we perceive that the divine light manifests
not only that the Son of God has become a human being, but that we are
incorporated as living members into Christ’s body. This is the special grace of
Epiphany. Thomas Keating, Mystery of Christ, p 16.
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We now take some time to share our thoughts and reflections on our own spiritual journey and our prayer practice. Followed by brief prayers of intercession. Share or pass.
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Go in the name of Christ Jesus to love and serve the Lord. Thanks be to God!
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[This is an adapted format courtesy of Martha Johnston, Contemplative Outreach of Maryland and Washington, DC]
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