He said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand? For there is nothing hidden, except to be disclosed; nor is anything secret, except to come to light. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you. For to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved. http://www.usccb.org/bible/approved-translation
“For there is nothing hidden except to be disclosed; nor is anything secret except to come to light.” There have been times in my life when these words terrified me and times in my life when I embraced them with hope.
Often my prayer feels like an exercise in rigorous honesty. I simply sit and try to be as honest as I can about my thoughts and feelings. When I can go no further, I ask for the grace to be more honest, and I often have to ask for the desire to be honest. The great thing about rigorous honesty is that it leaves me impoverished, no pretenses to defend, but confident in God’s undergirding and overwhelming mercy and love. And it’s here, I think, that I’m most ready to receive what God has to share.
May I practice rigorous honesty today, confident that God takes great joy in this attempt to share myself, just as I take joy in a loved one’s sharing with me.
—Ryen Dwyer, S.J., a Chicago-Detroit province Jesuit scholastic, is currently studying philosophy at Loyola University Chicago.
Take, O take me as I am; summon out what I shall be.
Set your seal upon my heart and live in me.
—John L. Bell, © 1995, The Iona Community, GIA Publications, Inc., agent
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