Day By Day #4

Day by Day #4

MORNING/MIDDAY OFFICE

Silence and Stillness before God (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading: Matthew 7:1–5

Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Devotional

A synonym for the word judge is despise. It happens when we harden our heart toward someone. In the context of Matthew 7, the issue with judgment is not discernment of good and evil, right or wrong, but the condemnation of “writing someone off.”

Anthony the Great (254–356 AD) is perhaps the earliest and most significant teacher among the Christian desert fathers. He wrote:

Our life and our death is with our neighbor. If we win our brother, we win God. If we cause our brother to stumble, we have sinned against Christ.^a

When Anthony refers to death with our neighbor, he means that we renounce our right to pronounce judgment over them—a challenge difficult enough to be described as a death.

Theodore of Pherme, another prominent fourth-century desert father, went so far as to say that a mature, nonjudgmental love toward others is the foundational virtue or character quality upon which all others are built:

There is no other virtue than that of not being scornful [despising anyone].^b

Maximus the Confessor (580–662 AD), a Christian theologian, monk, and advisor to the emperor of Constantinople, captured this truth through another lens:

Interior freedom is not possessed by anyone who cannot close his eyes to the fault of a friend, whether real or apparent.^c

The early desert fathers understood that it is impossible to think about the spiritual life apart from living in loving community with others. They emphasized that genuine spirituality is marked by a humility that seeks to hide the faults of others rather than expose them, and that the nearer we draw to God in love, the nearer we are drawn in love to our neighbor. They understood that when we harden our hearts to another person, we harden our hearts to Christ.

Question to Consider

In what subtle or perhaps even unconscious ways might you be judging or despising someone in your life?

Prayer

Father, I fear that my tendency to look down on and judge others is so much a part of me that I scarcely notice it. Grant me an awareness, by the Holy Spirit, of when my tone of voice, facial expressions, words, or actions fail to communicate safety, acceptance, or tenderness to those around me. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

MIDDAY/EVENING OFFICE

Silence and Stillness before God (2 minutes)

Scripture Reading: Mark 14:3–6

While he [Jesus] was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.

Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.

“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.”

Devotional

Pedro Arrupe (1907–1991) left medical school and a promising career to join the Jesuits in 1927, but in 1945 his medical training was put to use when he led the first rescue team into Hiroshima, Japan, after the atomic bomb was dropped on that city. He offers us insight into the power of the love of Jesus to transform all we do:

Nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.^d

The woman who anointed Jesus with the alabaster jar of perfume was not preoccupied with what others thought of her. Christ’s love and forgiveness had, in Arrupe’s words, already “decided everything.” Her heart brimmed over with thankfulness to Jesus for his love and mercy. She understood that her significance came from her relationship to Jesus, not from the approval of others. This gave her confidence to be herself, regardless of what others might think about her.

Question to Consider

In your own life, how might it be true that falling in love with Jesus and staying in love with Jesus will decide everything? How could it change you, as well as your relationships?

Prayer

I arise today through the strength of heaven;

Light of sun, radiance of moon,

Splendor of fire, speed of lightning,

Swiftness of wind, depth of sea,

Stability of earth, firmness of rock.

I arise today through God’s strength to pilot me . . .

God’s word to speak for me,

God’s hand to guard me,

God’s way to lie before me . . .

I summon today all these powers between me and evil,

Against every cruel, merciless power that

may oppose my body and soul.

—Attributed to Saint Patrick, 500 AD

Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)

^a Quoted in Rowan Williams, Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another (Boston: Shambhala, 2005), 13–14.

^b The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection, trans. Benedicta Ward (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1975), 75.

^c Maximus the Confessor, quoted in George Berhold, Maximus the Confessor: Selected Writings, Classics of Western Spirituality (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1985), 86.

^d Finding God in All Things: A Marquette Prayer Book (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2009), 50, 100.