# The soil of your soul Day 2 > Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God. > ### Opening Prayer *Father, Allow the soil of my soul to be a place that is fertile and receptive to all that you desire to plant in my heart. Tend it carefully and nurture all that has sprung up in me that is of you; that I may be a garden of your delight. Through Jesus. Amen. (JLB)* #### Psalm for the Week: Psalm 65 *O God of Our Salvation To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. A Song.* *65 Praise is due to you,[a] O God, in Zion,and to you shall vows be performed.2 O you who hear prayer,to you shall all flesh come.3 When iniquities prevail against me,you atone for our transgressions.4 Blessed is the one you choose and bring near,to dwell in your courts!We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,the holiness of your temple!* *5 By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness,O God of our salvation,* *the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas;* *6 the one who by his strength established the mountains,being girded with might;* *7 who stills the roaring of the seas,the roaring of their waves,the tumult of the peoples,8 so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs.You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.* *9 You visit the earth and water it;[b] you greatly enrich it;* *the river of God is full of water; you provide their grain,for so you have prepared it.* *10 You water its furrows abundantly,settling its ridges,softening it with showers,and blessing its growth.11 You crown the year with your bounty;your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.12 The pastures of the wilderness overflow,the hills gird themselves with joy,13 the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain,they shout and sing together for joy.* #### Scripture for the Day: Mark 4:26-29 #### The Parable of the Seed Growing *26 And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. 27 He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. 28 The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”* #### Reading for Reflection: **Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the winds carries thousands of invisible and visible winged seeds, so the stream of time brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these can not spring up anywhere except in the good soil of liberty and desire.* *The mind that is the prisoner of its own pleasure and the will that is the captive of its own desire cannot accept the seeds of a higher pleasure and a supernatural desire.* *For how can I receive the seeds of freedom if I am in love with slavery and how can I cherish the desire of God if I am filled with another and opposite desire? God will not plant His liberty in me because I am a prisoner and I do not even desire to be free. I love my captivity and I lock myself in the desire for things that I hate, and I have hardened my heart against true love. (Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton)* #### Reflection and Listening: silent and written #### Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself #### Song for the Week: You Have Redeemed My Soul Y*ou have redeemed my soul from the pit of emptiness* *You have redeemed my soul from death (Repeat)* *I was a hungry child, a dried up river.* *I was a burned out forest* *And no one could do anything for me* *But you put food in my body, water in my dry bed* *And to my blackened branches* *You brought springtime green and a new life* *And nothing is impossible for you* ### Closing Prayer: *Grow your good grace in me O God. Make me receptive to the ways that you water and tend this garden of my heart. Prune me where I need pruning, nurture me where I need nurturing, weed me where I need weeding, and care for me tenderly where I need your tender care. I love you, O Gardner of my soul. In the tenderness of Jesus. Amen. (JLB)*