September 2024: Thought for the Day
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
1 September 2024 o World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation
Our traditions and rituals tell stories about our values, about our history, about our gratitude for God’s faithfulness. But they do not LIMIT or DEFINE God’s faithfulness and action. And these traditions are not meant to be used as measuring sticks of others’ faithfulness, or as weapons to exclude or criticize those who do things differently. We could have the most liturgically, historically, and theologically precise tradition of worship and welcome – where we sing, process, preach, kneel, pray and proclaim God’s love for all. But none of that matters if we’re not actually loving God and loving others. None of that matters if we’re not actually in relationship with God and neighbor. None of that matters if we’re pointing fingers and casting judgment on others
Michelle Collins
www.ambassadoraroma.com
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Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
8 September 2024
Creation is God’s work. Before humanity was, the rest of creation came into being. The earth and her creatures – indeed the whole cosmos – have beauty, dignity and meaning before human presence. So to nurture awe at the wonder of creation is part of our calling. Look up into the skies, walk in the fields, stand at the ocean’s edge. Everything belongs, everything has beauty!
Formed ‘from the dust of the ground’ we are people intimately connected to the earth. As living beings our life comes from the Creator God, whose breath animates us. What will we do with the breath that flows in and out from our bodies in the time that it is gifted to us?
Ian Adams
www.churchmissionsociety.org
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Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
15 September 2024
Hang it on the cross
If you have a secret sorrow,
a burden or a loss,
an aching need for healing…
Hang It On The Cross.
If worry steals your sleep
and makes you turn and toss,
if your heart is feeling heavy…
Hang It On The Cross.
Every obstacle to faith
or doubt you come across,
every prayer unanswered…
Hang It On The Cross.
For Christ has borne our brokenness
and dearly paid the cost
To turn our trials to triumph…
Hanging On The Cross
Lisa O. Engelhardt
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Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
22 September 2024
Who knows and loves the Savior more
than a believing child?
His faith is fresh and innocent;
her spirit, meek and mild.
So recently departed from
the reach of heaven’s arms,
a boy remembers well the One
whose loving presence warms.
A young girl understands, somehow,
whose hand will meet her need.
Small wonder we are told to follow
where a child shall lead.
Susan Noyes Anderson
Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
29 September 2024 o World Day of Migrants and Refugees
No one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well
your neighbors running faster than you
you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten pitied
i dont know what i’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here.
An excerpt from Home by Warsan Shire
see full poem www.facinghistory.org