"Reflections for Ragamuffins"
Thought I'd share some of Brennan Manning's words from his book "Reflections for Ragamuffins" with you, and hope it would be as much of a blessing to you as it was to me this morning. This book was a gift to Al for his birthday by friends of ours, Gary and Lynda, and I too thought I'd pass it on to friends and family.
I have another book by him on order that I hear is excellent as well - very SIMPLE. It's called "Abba's Child".
"God is so great that there is an infinite distance between God and all that is not God".
(C. de Foucauld)
"God works His divine effects only when persons acknowledge human insufficiency (..human powerlessness)....
The most fundamental act of religion is that we owe our life and being to Another. Dependence and loving surrender were the very breath of their life. The ragamuffins were the poor in spirit, those who were little in their own sight, those who were conscious of their nakedness and poverty before God and who thus cast themselves without reservation on His mercy.
This was the spirit that God looked for in His people; it is the only attitude that rings true to human creaturehood. It compounds a sense of personal powerlessness with unfailing confidence in the love of God and total surrender to the guidance of His will...
('I have loved you with an everlasting love'. (Jer.31:3)
God's love is based on nothing, and the fact that it is based on nothing makes us secure....
People who realize this can live freely and to the fullest).
'Blessed are the ragamuffins; the reign of God is theirs.' ('Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven'. Matt.5:3).
I share these reflections with a specific purpose in mind: not to transmit inspiring thoughts, but to awaken, revive, and rekindle radical, ruthless trust in the God bodied forth in the carpenter from Nazareth.
Ruthless trust .. is a rare and precious thing because it often demands a degree of courage that borders on the heroic.
I continue to confront this choice in the darkest, loneliest, and most desolate moments of my life. By inviting you to join me on this ragamuffin journey, I ask of you no more than I ask of myself: to trust in God's love no matter what happens to us."
I have another book by him on order that I hear is excellent as well - very SIMPLE. It's called "Abba's Child".
"God is so great that there is an infinite distance between God and all that is not God".
(C. de Foucauld)
"God works His divine effects only when persons acknowledge human insufficiency (..human powerlessness)....
The most fundamental act of religion is that we owe our life and being to Another. Dependence and loving surrender were the very breath of their life. The ragamuffins were the poor in spirit, those who were little in their own sight, those who were conscious of their nakedness and poverty before God and who thus cast themselves without reservation on His mercy.
This was the spirit that God looked for in His people; it is the only attitude that rings true to human creaturehood. It compounds a sense of personal powerlessness with unfailing confidence in the love of God and total surrender to the guidance of His will...
('I have loved you with an everlasting love'. (Jer.31:3)
God's love is based on nothing, and the fact that it is based on nothing makes us secure....
People who realize this can live freely and to the fullest).
'Blessed are the ragamuffins; the reign of God is theirs.' ('Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven'. Matt.5:3).
I share these reflections with a specific purpose in mind: not to transmit inspiring thoughts, but to awaken, revive, and rekindle radical, ruthless trust in the God bodied forth in the carpenter from Nazareth.
Ruthless trust .. is a rare and precious thing because it often demands a degree of courage that borders on the heroic.
I continue to confront this choice in the darkest, loneliest, and most desolate moments of my life. By inviting you to join me on this ragamuffin journey, I ask of you no more than I ask of myself: to trust in God's love no matter what happens to us."
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