Day 4 of Lent :: Around the Table

“I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you.”
~Luke 22:15

If you were one of the disciples, where would you have seated yourself at the table?  Would you have felt the freedom to rest your head intimately on Jesus as did John the Beloved?  Or, would you have been inclined to sit at a distance from Him?

Do you believe that Jesus longs to be with you?  He does — more than you could ever imagine. Considered the following prayer of Catherin of Siena.

When then, eternal Father, did you create this creature of yours?. . . You show me that you made us for one reason only: in your light you saw yourself compelled by the fire of your love to give us being in spite of the evil we would commit against you, eternal Father. It was fire, then, that compelled you. Oh, unutterable love, even though you saw all the evils your creatures would commit against your infinite goodness, you acted as if you did not see and set your eye only on the beauty of your creature, with whom you had fallen in love like one drunk and crazy with love. . . You are the fire, nothing but a fire of love, crazy over what you have made.

Memorize: 

“I belong to my beloved, 

and his desire is for me.” 

(Song of Solomon 7:10)

Prayer: Today, while waiting at stoplights, shopping lines and other intermittent moments, offer up this simple, yet powerful prayer to God:  “God, I belong to You.” Don’t make it anything more than that.  It is enough.