# Small Day 4 > Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God. ### Opening Prayer: *Lord, give me the ability to persist through tedium, to survive without the oxygen of recognition, praise, and stroking, and to do some good things every day which are seen only by You. (Sacred Space: the Prayer Book 2010 by Jesuit Communication Centre)* #### Psalm for the Week: Psalm 131 #### John the Baptist Prepares the Way #### 1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.[a] *2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,[b]“Behold, I send my messenger before your face,who will prepare your way,3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare[c] the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”* *4 John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”* #### Scripture for the Day: Luke 22:24-32 #### Who Is the Greatest? *24 A dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. 25 And he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. 26 But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. 27 For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.* *28 “You are those who have stayed with me in my trials, 29 and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, 30 that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.* *Jesus Foretells Peter's Denial* *31 “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you,[a] that he might sift you like wheat, 32 but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”* #### Reading for Reflection: *Humility and Moderation—the graces of the self-forgetful soul—we might almost expect that if we grasped all that the Incarnation really means—God and His love, manifest not in some peculiar and supernatural spiritual manner, but in ordinary human nature. Christ, first-born of many brethren, content to be one of us, living the family life, and from within His Church inviting the souls of men to share His family life. In the family circle there is room for the childish and the imperfect and the naughty, but the uppish is always out of place.* ​ *We have got down to the bottom of the stairs now and are fairly sitting on the mat. But the proof that it is the right flight and leads up to the Divine Charity, is the radiance that pours down from the upper storey: the joy and peace in which the whole is bathed and which floods our whole being here in the lowest place. How right St. Paul was to put these two fruits at the end of his list, for as a rule they are the very last we acquire. But the saints have always seen it. When Angela of Foligno was dying, her disciples asked for a last message and she, who had been called a Mistress in Theology and whose Visions of the Being of God are among the greatest the medieval mystics have left us, had only one thing to say to them as her farewell: “Make yourselves small! Make yourselves very small.” (Fruits of the Spirit by Evelyn Underhill)* #### Reflection and Listening: silent and written #### Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself #### Song for the Week: Winter Snow *Could've come like a mighty storm* *With all the strength of a hurricane* *You could've come like a forest fire* *With the power of heaven in Your flame* *But You came like a winter snow* *Quiet and soft and slow* *Falling from the sky in the night* *To the earth below* *You could've swept in like a tidal wave* *Or an ocean to ravish our hearts* *You could have come through like a roaring flood* *To wipe away the things we've scarred* *But You came like a winter snow* *You were quiet You were soft and slow* *Falling from the sky in the night* *To the earth below* *Oh, no, Your voice wasn't in a bush burning* *No, Your voice wasn't in a rushing wind* *It was still* *It was small* *It was hidden* *You came like a winter snow* *Quiet and soft and slow* *Falling from the sky in the night* *To the earth below* *Falling* *To the earth below* *You came falling From the sky in the night* ### Closing Prayer: *Lord, High and Holy, Meek and Lowly,* *Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live* *in the depths but see thee in the heights; hemmed in* *by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.* *Let me learn by paradox* *that the way down is the way up,* *that to be low is to be high,* *that the broken heart is the healed heart,* *that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit* *that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,* *that to have nothing is to possess all,* *that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,* *that to give is to receive,* *that the valley is the place of vision.* *Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from the deepest* *wells. And the deeper the wells the brighter thy stars* *shine;* *Let me find thy light in my darkness,* *thy life in my death,* *thy joy in my sorrow,* *thy grace in my sin,* *thy riches in my poverty,* *thy glory in my valley.* *(The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions ed. by Arthur Bennett)*