# Ordinary Day 4 > Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God. ### Opening Prayer: I thank You God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes (I who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay great happening illimitably earth) how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any--lifted from the no of all nothing--human merely being doubt unimaginable You? (now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened) #### Psalm for the Week: Psalm 98 *Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things! His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him. 2 The Lord has made known his salvation; he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations. 3 He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.* *4 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises! 5 Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody! 6 With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord!* *7 Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who dwell in it! 8 Let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together 9 before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.* #### Scripture for the Day: Isaiah 53:1-6 53 Who has believed what he has heard from us?[a] And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected[b] by men; a man of sorrows,[c] and acquainted with[d] grief;[e] and as one from whom men hide their faces[f] he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. #### Reading for Reflection: Letters from the Desert by Carlo Carreto *“Jesus has so diligently searched for the lowest place that it would be very difficult for anyone to tear it from him.”* *Nazareth was the lowest place: the place of the poor, the unknown, of those who didn’t count, of the mass of workers, of people subjected to work’s grim demands just for a scrap of bread.* *But there is more. Jesus is the “Holy One of God.” But the Holy One of God realized his sanctity not in an extraordinary life, but one impregnated with ordinary things: work, family and social life, obscure human activities, simple things shared by all people.* *The perfection of God is cast in a material which people almost despise, which they don’t consider worth searching for because of its simplicity, its lack of interest, because it is common to all of us.* #### Reflection and Listening: silent and written* #### Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself #### Song for the Week: Take My Life and Let It Be *Take my life, and let it be* *Consecrated, Lord, to Thee;* *Take my moments and my days,* *Let them flow in ceaseless praise,* *Let them flow in ceaseless praise.* *Take my hands, and let them move* *At the impulse of Thy love;* *Take my feet and let them be* *Swift and beautiful for Thee,* *Swift and beautiful for Thee.* *Take my voice, and let me sing* *Always, only, for my King;* *Take my lips, and let them be* *Filled with messages from Thee,* *Filled with messages from Thee.* *Take my silver and my gold;* *Not a mite would I withhold;* *Take my intellect, and use* *Every power as Thou shalt choose,* *Every power as Thou shalt choose.* *Take my will, and make it Thine;* *It shall be no longer mine.* *Take my heart; it is Thine own;* *It shall be Thy royal throne,* *It shall be Thy royal throne.* *Take my love; my Lord, I pour* *At Thy feet its treasure-store.* *Take myself, and I will be* *Ever, only, all for Thee,* *Ever, only, all for Thee.* ### Closing Prayer: Our Father, help us to see you today in all that we come into contact with, knowing that you use ordinary things to give us an extraordinary sense of your presence in our lives. In the name of Jesus. Amen. (JLB)