# Dying Day 3 > Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God. ### Opening Prayer: *You, O Christ, are my wealth. All those things I thought I couldn't live without "dissolve" in a glance from you. They are nothing when considered in the larger light of your intimate presence. How difficult it has been to come to this moment! The moment of letting go! I, who have learned so well to hoard, grasp, clutch, and control! Now I want only to be grasped by you. All my possessions are empty when they become obstacles to my union with you. O Glance of God, prepare my heart for the Great Surrender. Enable me to surrender my ego self so that I may put on Christ. Then I will begin enjoying heaven on earth. Amen. (Abide by Macrina Wiederkehr)* #### Psalm for the Week: Psalm 49 #### Why Should I Fear in Times of Trouble? #### To the choirmaster. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. *49 Hear this, all peoples!Give ear, all inhabitants of the world,2 both low and high,rich and poor together!3 My mouth shall speak wisdom;the meditation of my heart shall be understanding.4 I will incline my ear to a proverb;I will solve my riddle to the music of the lyre.* *5 Why should I fear in times of trouble, when the iniquity of those who cheat me surrounds me,6 those who trust in their wealth and boast of the abundance of their riches?7 Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life,8 for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice,9 that he should live on forever and never see the pit.* *10 For he sees that even the wise die;the fool and the stupid alike must perish and leave their wealth to others.11 Their graves are their homes forever,[a] their dwelling places to all generations, though they called lands by their own names.12 Man in his pomp will not remain;he is like the beasts that perish.* *13 This is the path of those who have foolish confidence;yet after them people approve of their boasts.[b] Selah14 Like sheep they are appointed for Sheol;death shall be their shepherd,* *and the upright shall rule over them in the morning.Their form shall be consumed in Sheol, with no place to dwell.15 But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol,for he will receive me. Selah* *16 Be not afraid when a man becomes rich,when the glory of his house increases.* *17 For when he dies he will carry nothing away; his glory will not go down after him.* *18 For though, while he lives, he counts himself blessed —and though you get praise when you do well for yourself—19 his soul will go to the generation of his fathers,who will never again see light.20 Man in his pomp yet without understanding is like the beasts that perish.* #### Scripture for the Day: Mark 8:31-38 #### Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection *31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”* *34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”* #### Reading for Reflection: *The sacrificial instinct is the deep recognition that something always has to die for something bigger to be born. We started with human sacrifice (Abraham and Isaac), we moved to animal sacrifice (the ritual killing of the Passover lamb described in Exodus 12), and we gradually get closer to what really has to be sacrificed, our own beloved ego, as protected and beloved as a little household lamb! We will all find endless disguises and excuses to avoid letting go of what really needs to die. And it is not other humans (firstborn sons of Egyptians), animals (lambs or goats), or even meat on Friday that God wants or needs. It is always our false self that has to be let go, which is going to die anyway.* ​ *By becoming the symbolic Passover Lamb, plus the foot-washing servant in tonight’s Gospel, Jesus makes the movement to the human and the personal very clear and quite concrete. It is always, we, in our youth, in our beauty, in our power and over-protectedness that must be handed over. Otherwise, we will never grow up, big enough to eat of the Mystery of God and Love. It really is about “passing over” to the next level of faith and life. And that never happens without some kind of “dying to the previous levels.” ~Richard Rohr* #### Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself #### Song for the Week: Alas and Did My Savior Bleed *Alas and did my savior bleed* *And did my Sovereign die?* *Would He devote that sacred head* *For sinners such as I?* *Was it for sins that I have done* *He suffered on the tree?* *Amazing pity! Grace unknown!* *And love beyond degree!* *Well might the sun in darkness hide* *And shut His glory in* *When Christ, the great Redeemer died* *For man the creature's sin.* *Thus might I hide my blushing face* *While His dear cross appears,* *Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,* *And melt mine eyes to tears.* *But drops of grief can ne'er repay* *The debt of love I owe:* *Here, Lord, I give myself away* *'Tis all that I can do.* ### Closing Prayer: *Dear God,* *Please untie the knots that are in my mind my heart and my life. Remove the have nots, the can nots, and the do nots I have in my mind. Erase the will nots, may nots, the might nots that may find a home in my heart. Release me from the would nots could nots and should nots that obstruct my life. And most of all, remove from my mind my heart and my life, the am nots that I have allowed to hold me back especially the thought that I am not good enough. Amen. (Author unknown)*