Sacrament of the moment

The ‘sacrament of the moment’ a concept coined by de Caussade an eighteenth century writer has important meaning for our perception of the Christian journey. It focuses on the now of our lives and not the has been or should be thought avenues. Everything that is happening at the moment in our lives has either been allowed by God to happen or has been purposively instituted by God. This seems all fine when the things going on in our lives are great but not so when they are traumatic and bloody. We possibly have to get out of our comfortable cocoon created by our longing for the comfortable and realize that we are to respond to God even in the dirty parts of our lives. Those moments that look plain may have meaning, the time when you are in grief, you are lonely, you are feeling rejection, those moments can be converted into a sacrament if we allow them to. If we recognize that God is in every moment and has not vacated the premises.

A resurrection proof

Thoughts from - John 13:31-35
The readings on loving one another in the lectionary for this week are at first glance a pattern of words and meanings that seem to be a cliché that even a cliché is not able make cliché. This religious thought is not new as Jesus suggests either. Well, that is in the way we understand new. There are other commands to love, found in the first testament of the bible q.v. Leviticus. I don’t think Jesus (a Rabbi) would have slipped up here. The new would no doubt be the newness that is freshly expressed in the new testament of our bibles viz. the law of love now written on our hearts in flesh. The example given before this text is Jesus washing the disciples feet. A love that is not written down to achieve, but a love that moves from the deep interior of our hearts. A love that is so powerfully entrenched that it sacrificial in its dealings, and is glorified in its death. The latter is because it is a love-death that will never die. The glorification that is evident in the betrayal/death of Jesus is not the death itself. That is the first part of the equation that ends with resurrection proportions. The best evidence of the resurrection of Jesus is the love that is shown in and amongst the disciples. It is a sacrament. It is a command by Jesus that we often neglect because it is firstly not easily done, secondly it is not something we want to do under law, and thirdly we unaware of its connection with the Resurrection. John speaks of a love amongst one another, not a love for the world, or for ones enemies. He is speaking of a love at its source. A love before it streams out to the world and gets bogged down with other meanings and dammed up with selfish intentions. The love that is witness to the Resurrection of Jesus in the world.