Fr Philip Carter offers a ministry of spirituality, with a series of meditations on some questions that we may ponder as we consider our life in God.
You will find here his reflections and questions for meditation, images, music and poetry to enrich your life’s journey.
To hear Jesus speak was to feel clean.
Just as Jesus in his inner experience, in his vulnerability and poverty, lived selflessly for others, and indeed for the Other, so our starting point for our search to become more fully human, will be in learning and growing into those things that “take us outside ourselves”, and so reflect in our way of life our very human capacity to transcend ourselves. The great gift Jesus brings us is surely our discovery that, made as we are in the image of God, our hearts are already open to God.
So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.
John 13:14
Image: Daniel Bonnell, The Moon the Dove and the Footwasher
To hear Jesus speak was to feel clean. His word was welcoming and inviting, spoken in freedom and appealing to the freedom and dignity of the hearer. And to let him wash our feet, touch us in a vulnerable place, is to hear him say, “You matter”: But he doesn’t stop there. Having been washed, we are to wash one another’s feet. We are gathered, only to be sent out; brought home, only to reach out.
My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.
2 Corinthians 12:9
The tradition speaks of the imitation of Christ or following Jesus – but more profoundly still it speaks of being found in him and he in us. Our experience becomes the crucible in which God’s life and ours meet – where our poverty and weakness become the place of grace, and where the power of love is proved. I do not so much see God, as see with God’s eyes; I do not so much hear God, but hear with God’s ears; I do not so much feel God, but feel with Jesus the power of God.
Repent, for the reign of God is at hand.
Matthew 4:17
Image: Daniel Bonnell, The Father’s Forgiveness
A change of heart, an about turn, a new way of looking at things: this is repentance. And it opens us up to the attractive, imaginative, alternative reality of the Kingdom. Repentance is genuinely prophetic: like the prophet, we see with the eyes of God.
The images in this post are of paintings by Daniel Bonnell.
My painting reflects on the ultimate human need to fulfill an intrinsic longing that extends from birth to death. Simply put, it is a need to be held….I choose to paint primarily on grocery bag paper….Each work of art is a devotion…All real beauty finds rest on a stage of humility–even a grocery bag. This manner of working becomes a creative conductor that allows my process to become centering prayer, a means to listen–and to be held.
Source: Daniel Bonnell
Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est
Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor
Exultemus, et in ipso iucundemur
Temeamus, et amemus Deum vivum
Et ex corde diligamus nos sincero
Where there is charity and love, God is there
We are gathered as one in Christ’s love
Let us rejoice, and be glad in that
Let us fear and love the living God
And love from our hearts in sincerity
For a printable PDF of the text of this meditation please click on the link below.
