It is Friday, for many of us the end of our work week and the start of the weekend…for others our work is just beginning. Some of us will go to a house of worship today, or tomorrow, or the next day or like the woman, in this short story from Taking Flight: A Book of Story Meditations by Anthony de Mello, S.J., we will go every morning.
Please listen carefully to her story.
“There was once a woman who was religious and devout and filled with love for God. Each morning she would go to church. And on her way children would call out to her, beggars would accost her, but so immersed was she in her devotions that she did not even see them.
Now, one day she walked down the street in her customary manner and arrived at church just in time for service. She pushed the door, but it would not open. She pushed it again harder, and found the door was locked.
Distressed at the thought that she would miss service for the first time in years, and not knowing what to do, she looked up. And there, right before her face, she found a note pinned to the door.
It said, “I’m out there!”
Meditate on this a while and then join me in prayer.
O God, sometimes we put you in a box, like the ancients, we give you a “Holy of Holies”, a place for you to live, to be. Help us to remember that you are also “out there”, and you need us to be “out there” with you. Help us to remember that you call us to “Love” and that “Love” is an action verb – that “We Are Called” to be your eyes and ears, your arms and legs – to do the work you need done. This we ask in Jesus’ name, Amen.
