Grace, Gratitude, and Gathering
Word From Wiese
15 November 2023
Richard Rohr is a Roman Catholic priest who distributes daily prayers/centering thoughts he hopes others might find encouraging and hopeful. Rohr’s offerings this week touched me. For I find in them a sweet mixture of grace, gratitude, and gathering—exactly the themes so prevalent in our COS congregational life as we are in the midst of offering our Faith Giving Intents for 2024’s Multiplying Love initiative as well as getting ready to gather with family and friends at Thanksgiving. Just like a delicious pie contains just the right ingredients, I think these daily prayers do too. Taste, pray, and see.
Sunday
Grace cannot be understood by any ledger of merits and demerits. It cannot be held to patterns of buying, losing, earning, achieving, or manipulating. Grace is, quite literally, “for the taking.” It is God eternally giving away God—for nothing—except the giving itself.
—Richard Rohr
Monday
We stop seeking our own worthiness and we begin to know the gift of God. We begin to realize that it’s all gift, and it’s all free, and we already have it, and all we can do is learn to enjoy it. That changes everything.
—Richard Rohr
Tuesday
The movement of grace toward gratitude brings us from the package of self-obsessed madness to a spiritual awakening. Gratitude is peace.
—Anne Lamott
Wednesday
To understand the gospel in its radical, transformative power, we have to stop counting, measuring, and weighing. We have to stop saying “I deserve” and deciding who does not deserve. This daily conversion is hard to do unless we’ve experienced infinite mercy and realize that it’s all a gift—all the time.
—Richard Rohr
Thursday
Jesus established a table of hospitality where all are guests and no one owes anything to anyone else. Around this table, gifts pass without regard to payback or debt. Everyone sits. Everyone eats. And, recognizing that everything is a gift, all are grateful.
—Diana Butler Bass
Friday
In the world of grace and freedom, for a channel to be opened, it must flow forward, through, and toward something else—or the channel becomes blocked. The positive and appreciative response demands consciousness and choice—and freedom on our part.
—Richard Rohr
Question for Reflection:
Which day’s prayer/centering thought spoke to you most profoundly? May you let that keep message keep washing over you throughout the day and week.
Embracing grace, gratitude, and gathering with you,
Pastor Fritz
++++
Related action steps within the flow of grace, gratitude and gathering:
- Gather with us next Wednesday evening for our Chili Supper and Hymn Sing
- Show gratitude to God by participating in our Multiplying Love Generosity Series. Help COS reach our two goals: 150 family units sharing Faith Giving Intents and at least 100 family units continuing or signing up for regular, online giving. (Email [email protected] for assistance).
We’ve received word that not everyone received their mailings. Here are links you may use or call the office for replacement materials.
Multiplying Love Overview Brochure
