Daily Devotions

Today we start the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and will follow the material prepared by the community of Bose, an ecumenical monastery of brothers and sisters in northern Italy. The week’s thoughts are based on the question posed by Jesus to Martha: ‘Do you believe this?’ (John 11:26)

Day 1

The fatherhood and motherhood of God who rules the universe

Scripture Readings you may wish to read.

• Isaiah 63:15-17
• Psalm 139:1-3, 13, 23-24
• 1 Corinthians 8:5-6

Commentary

Ancient writers, and the Bible itself, recognise the qualities of both Father and Mother in God, as Clement of Alexandria, one of the earliest commentators, notes, in God’s ‘compassion he has become for us mother’. We cannot truly conceive of the vastness of the universe, when it would take the fastest mode of transport we could now devise fifteen thousand years to reach the nearest star system to our sun, but we can begin to appreciate the miracle of that tiny, tiny part of the universe which we inhabit. 

Not everything around us is ‘bright and beautiful’ and we ourselves have abused our earth, yet it is God “who continually entreats us to take from his riches and to carry off wealth from his storehouse, that we may be rich through his treasures and not poverty-stricken” (Philoxenus of Mabbug). May we be constantly mindful of the riches entrusted to us and of the privilege and the responsibility which that stewardship entails.

Reflection

What is

all this?

What is ‘is’ at all?

You know, as we can only guess.

Enflame us, ultimate I Am, with the wonder of being

when our understanding must bow to your beyond.

Prayer

We bless you, O Lord, Father of lights:

from you descends every good thing and every perfect gift.

You have made the world and all that it contains,

you are the Lord of heaven and earth.

You created all the peoples that dwell on the earth.

For them you established the order of time and the boundaries of their space.

In the heart of human beings, you have placed the depth of eternity.

Rebirth in us that unity that our selfishness has fractured

in your Church and in the one world around us.

God of all consolation, 

call us to follow you

and make firm for us the work of our hands.

We praise you through Jesus Christ, your only-begotten Son, 

in the communion of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

Questions

• How have you experienced God’s fatherly care and motherly compassion in your own life?
• What hinders us from recognising each person as a child of God?
• How does acknowledging God as the Father of all affect our perception of and relationship with others, whether next door or on another continent?