Toronto, Ontario, Canada - "Fourth Sunday of Lent" Your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.--Psalm 138:8 "A Cry for Mercy"

Toronto, Ontario, Canada - "Fourth Sunday of Lent" Your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.--Psalm 138:8 "A Cry for Mercy"
O Lord, this holy season of Lent is passing quickly. I entered into it with fear, but also with great expectations. I hoped for a great breakthrough, a powerful conversion, a real change of heart; I wanted Easter to be a day so full of light that not even a trace of darkness would be left in my soul. But I know that you do not come to your people with thunder and lightning. Even St. Paul and St. Francis journeyed through much darkness before they could see your light. Let me be thankful for your gentle way. I know you are at work. I know you will not leave me alone. I know you are quickening me for Easter - but in a way fitting to my own history and my own temperament.
I pray that these last three weeks, in which you invite me to enter more fully into the mystery of your passion, will bring me a greater desire to follow you on the way that you create for me and to accept the cross that you give to me. Let me die to the desire to choose my own way and select my own desire. You do not want to make me a hero but a servant who loves you.
Be with me tomorrow and in the days to come, and let me experience your gentle presence. Amen.--Father Henri J. M. Nouwen [Excerpt from A Cry for Mercy: Prayers from the Genesee, Copyright © 1981 Henri J.M. Nouwen. Published by Doubleday. Used with kind permission of the publisher. Scripture quotation from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989, 1993 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America.]
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Henri Nouwen Society
PO Box 220522
St. Louis, Missouri 63122 United States
Henri Nouwen Society
John M. Kelly Library, 3rd Floor
113 Street Joseph Street
Toronto. Ontario, M5S 1J4 Canada
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