Matthew under the arm 78

All day today, Columba was silent. Not only that, but he seemed to be walking with a slower pace than usual. [Why is it that holy people always seem to walk so fast...?] Everytime I asked him if something was wrong, all I got was the hand going up halting me from pursuing the matter. After a while I gave up talking and asking. In the evening, after supper during which Columba seemed to eat little, he went outside the inn and sat on the bench looking at the sunset. He asked me to join him. he opened the palms of his hands and let them face upwards. I copied him. 'What am I supposed to be doing?', I asked feeling rather silly. 'During this pilgrimage', he said with a sigh, 'I have come across so many people who are feeling lost and are hoping to find something, some way forward, some deeper part of themselves on this pilgrimage. Many come to me, including you, and are expecting me to give a sign, give an answer. I feel useless. So all I can do is first to open my hands and accept the uselessness as a kind fo crucifixion...me, picking up my own cross. Then I imagine I am carrying them. Help me!'


Matthew 16:24-28....
Notice carefully that Jesus indicates that the follower must take up his/ her (own) cross. We have our own journey and our own responses to circumstances. For the writer, some form of 'ending' was near, figured in the Son of man's immanent appearance. Behaviour here is not some moral code but an extravagant expenditure of life....almost like 'going for broke'! Christ is with us in the expense.

Be awake to the expense of My Love in you and from you

To enter into silent prayer is ‘to take up your own cross’. It can include, perhaps, the painful discovery that nothing of any significance may lie at the heart of you...an emptiness. Prayer does not necessarily increase spiritual strength but it deepens humility and suffering. Now, suffering here is about living in the heart of someone's pain or loss. For Christians, spirituality is not about righteousness or self-development. It's not some programme, some project. Certainly, it involves an athletes dedication as Paul would have it. It is looking out at the agony of a people and experiencing in prayer their agony, while staying with your powerlessness. Receive courage to use the sentence to enter this prayer.

+Martin
Argyll and The Isles