Tuesday, July 12

To read this morning's office, click here or see The Divine Hours, pp. 226-227.

"May God be merciful to us and bless us, show us the light of his countenance and come to us," so reads The Request for Presence in the morning office. "Awesome things will you show us," answers back the The Greeting. What might these "awesome things" be, I am asking myself this morning?

The rest of the office helps: God's awesome things include that his "testimonies are very sure" -- we can trust God; "holiness adorns your house" -- God is pure and right and just and this gives us stability.

Even more, and paradoxically, in our Reading we learn that the "awesome things" of God include seeing the kingdom of God, the universal establishment of God's sure and holy will, is like a "treasure hidden in a field" that, when discovered, is of so much value that everything is surrendered for it. It is like the discovery of a "pearl of great value," again worth of everything we have.

To see in this world the "awesome things" of God, I am seeing in this office, I am being asked to take God at his word and to bank on the treasure that we find in God's embracing grace and give my life for it.

What the morning office is telling us is the Jesus Creed: we are to love God with everything we have and all that we are and to love our neighbor as ourselves, and it is only in giving our all to God that we see that the All of God is ours. Faith is the name of the game: we are invited to trust God to find the pearl of great price.