Moment of Oneness, August 3, 2022

Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81507551772
Meeting ID: 815 0755 1772
To connect by phone dial: +1 646 558 8656

Opening Song: You Say ~ I Believe by Lauren Daigle

https://youtu.be/9uvsNrK1QT8

Opening Prayer:

Gracious God,

You have so richly blessed us with life,

With love and joy,

With hope in the midst of despair.

Help us to be the salt of the earth.

Help us to be the light of the world,

Sharing with others that which we have received,

Boldly proclaiming the good news of your love,

Finding the seeds of your kingdom within us 

And letting your way grow in our lives and throughout the world.

Reading:

The beatitudes are for people who have their hearts set on having the reign of God come about. Beatitudes are a way of life designed for those who want their lives to be a blessing. Beatitude people are searching people. They have this working with God on their minds and they can’t rest until the world is right and just and equitable for all. They urge us out of the comfortable and the ordinary. They invite us to risk in our daily living and meet the holy in the unsettling questions of the day. They tell us that God is forever in our midst if we bless the world with Beatitude-living. The beatitudes are values that come straight from the mind of Christ. Translated into simple language, Jesus could have said something like this:

1. 1. Blessed are those who are convinced of their basic dependency on God, whose lives are emptied of all that doesn’t matter, those for whom the riches of this world just aren’t that important ~ The Kin-dom of heaven is theirs. 

1. 2. Blessed are those who know that all they are is gift from God, and so they can be content with their greatness and their smallness, knowing themselves and being true to themselves. ~For they shall have the earth for their heritage.

1. 3. Blessed are those who wear compassion like a garment, those who have learned how to find themselves by losing themselves in another’s sorrow. ~ For they too shall receive comfort. 

1. 4. Blessed are those who are hungry for goodness, those who never get enough of God and the truth and righteousness. ~For they shall be satisfied.

1. 5. Blessed are the merciful, those who remember how much has been forgiven them, and are able to extend this forgiveness into the lives of other. ~For they shall see God.

1. 6. Blessed are those whose hearts are free and simple, those who have smashed all false images and are seeking honesty for truth. ~ For they shall see God.

1. 7. Blessed are the creators of peace, those who build roads that unite rather than walls that divide, those who bless the world with the healing power of their presence. ~ For they shall be called children off God. 

1. 8. Blessed are those whose love has been tried, like gold, in those who have lived their belief out loud, no matter what the cost of pain. ~For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Silent prayers/meditation

Closing Blessing:

By Margaret Silf

Landmarks: An Ignatian Journey

I bless the poverty in your heart, that knows its own emptiness, because that gives me the space to grow my Kin-dom there.

I bless that in you that touches others gently, because everyone responds to gentleness, and gentleness can capture even hardened hearts. 

I bless that in you which grieves and aches for all that is lost or can never be, because that is my opportunity to comfort you with me, much greater love. 

I bless that in you which longs and strives after your own deepest truth and after truth for the world, because even as you pray, I am constantly satisfying these deep unspoken longings. 

I bless you every time you show mercy and forgiveness, because that is like a little window in your heart, setting you free from resentment and opening up a space for me to enter and to heal. 

I bless the purity of your heart, because that is the elusive center where your deepest desire meets mine. That is where we meet face to face.

I bless the peacemaker in you, that in you which seeks the peace that passes all understanding, knowing the cost of its obtaining, because that is what I sent my Son to give, and in your peacemaking you become my daughter. 

I bless even those things in your experience of journeying with me that feel like persecution and abuse and misunderstanding, because they are the proof that your faith is no illusion. 

Amen.