Devotions

C.S. Lewis shares the four Greek words for love.

The Practice of the Presence of God is a collection of letters and transcriptions of conversations, compiled by a disciple of Brother Lawrence. Brother Lawrence was a Carmelite monk and head cook in his monastery’s kitchens. He quickly gained an international reputation as a mystic and spiritual counselor. The Practice of the Presence records his last words of advice to his friends and disciples, as he suffered from an unnamed illness which would eventually take his life. (Description written by Kirsten Ferreri.)

Welcome

Welcome to Above All Love. This is Simply Fellowship — the Good News, quietly told.

This is a gentle space. No pressure, no performance. You don't have to have it together to be here. You don't have to be certain, or hopeful, or even very present today. You're welcome exactly as you are, wherever you are reading this.

If you need to read slowly, or stop and come back — that's completely fine. There's no right way to be here. Just be here.

Hymn

We begin with a hymn verse. Read it slowly. You might want to sit with each line before moving on.

Just as I am, without one plea,

But that thy blood was shed for me,

And that thou bidst me come to thee,

O Lamb of God, I come, I come. — Charlotte Elliott

Prayer

Loving God,

Thank you that you do not wait for us to deserve welcome before you offer it.

Thank you that your arms are already open before we have finished our speeches, before we have explained ourselves, before we have made ourselves presentable.

Meet us today in the far country, if that is where we are — or in the long road home, or at the door.

Wherever we are on the journey, let us feel the movement of your love running toward us.

And if we have been standing in the field a long time, watching from a distance, finding it hard to go in — grant us the grace to step across the threshold.

Amen.

Old Testament Anchor

"I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no more worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants."

— Luke 15:18–19 (NKJV, for context)

But before we reach the son's rehearsed speech, we need to hear the older word that echoes underneath it. The prophet Hosea, writing from within a broken covenant — God's people far from home, scattered, faithless — hears God speak in a way that should not sound like God at all:

"How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel?... My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger... For I am God, and not a man — the Holy One among you." — Hosea 11:8–9

This is the heartbeat underneath the parable. The God who cannot let go. The Father who is undone by love. Not a cold sovereign distributing justice from a distance — but one whose heart turns within him at the thought of the lost child.

How can I give you up?

It is not a rhetorical question. It is a cry. And it is the cry that sends the father running down the road.

Scripture

Our reading today is from Luke chapter fifteen, verses eleven to twenty-four, from the Easy English Bible.

Jesus also said, "There was a man who had two sons. The younger son said to his father, 'Father, please give me my part of your property now.' So the father gave each of his sons their part of his things. A few days later, the younger son sold everything that was his. He went away to a country far away. There he wasted all his money by living in a wrong way. He spent everything. Then there was no food to eat in that country, and he began to be hungry. He went to work for a man who lived there, and that man sent him to his fields to look after the pigs. He was so hungry that he wanted to eat the pig food. But nobody gave him anything. Then he began to think clearly again. He said to himself, 'My father's servants have plenty of food to eat. And here I am, so hungry that I am nearly dying. I will go back to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have done wrong things against God and against you. I am not good enough to be called your son. But please let me be one of your servants."' So he got up and he went back to his father. While he was still a long way away, his father saw him coming. His father felt sorry for him and he ran to meet him. He hugged him and he kissed him. The son said, 'Father, I have done wrong things against God and against you. I am not good enough to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best clothes and put them on my son. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fat calf and kill it. Let us eat together and be happy. My son was dead, but now he is alive again. He was lost, but now I have found him.' So they began to celebrate."

Devotion

He came to himself.

That is the line Luke gives us, quietly, before anything else happens. The turning point in the story is not the speech, not the journey, not the reunion. It is an interior moment — something shifting in the mind of a young man sitting in the mud beside a pig trough, a long way from home. He came to himself.

Which suggests he had, for a time, been somewhere other than himself. Spent. Scattered. Unrecognisable, even to his own heart.

We know that feeling, perhaps. The seasons of life when we have lived so far outside the person we meant to be that coming back requires not just a journey but a recovery of self. The far country is not only a geography. It is a state of soul.

And yet — even in the far country, he remembered. He remembered his father's house. He remembered that there was bread enough, and more than enough. The memory of home is what makes homecoming possible. Even at the furthest reach of the wasted years, something in him still knew the way.

So he rehearses his speech. Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no more worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants. It is a careful speech. Measured. Modest in its ambition. He is not asking to be received as a son — only to be given a place among the workers. To earn, in some small way, what cannot truly be earned back.

But the father is not listening to the speech.

The father has been watching the road. And when he sees the figure — still a long way off, still dusty and thin and uncertain — he does not wait. He does not compose himself. He does not arrange his dignity. He runs.

A father running in first-century Palestine is not a small thing. It is undignified by the standards of the time. It is the act of a man who has abandoned the performance of respectability because something more important than respectability is coming down the road. He runs, and he falls on his son's neck, and he kisses him before a single word has been spoken.

The speech still comes. The son begins his rehearsed lines. But notice: the father interrupts him. He does not let him get to the hired-servant part. He is already calling for the robe, the ring, the sandals, the feast. The son wanted to earn his way back in. The father refuses to let him.

This is the radicalism of the parable. It is not about second chances — as if the son had one more opportunity to prove himself. It is about a love that cannot be outrun, cannot be forfeited, cannot be earned or un-earned. The robe is given before any work is done. The ring — a sign of sonship, of belonging — is put on the finger of a boy who wanted to be a servant.

The celebration is not for what the son has done. It is for what has happened to him: He was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.

That is the only criterion. Not the quality of the repentance. Not the adequacy of the speech. Not the length of the road back. The son was lost, and now is found — and that is enough to throw a party.

There is, of course, another son. Standing in the field. Hearing the music. Refusing to go in. Jesus leaves that story unfinished — we do not know if the older brother crosses the threshold. We do not know if the father's gentle words reach him. The parable ends with the door open, the feast going on, and a young man who has a choice to make.

Because this story is told to two kinds of people. To those who have been in the far country and are not sure they are welcome home — it says: the father is already running. And to those who have stayed close, and worked hard, and quietly accumulated a ledger of resentments — it says: everything I have is yours. Come in. The feast is not a threat to you. It is yours too.

The good news in this parable is not only that the lost are welcomed. It is that the welcome is excessive. Unreasonable. Running-down-the-road welcome. Best-robe welcome. Kill-the-fatted-calf welcome. The God of this story does not say: well done, you came back. He says: my son was dead and is alive.

Hosea heard this voice centuries before the parable was told: How can I give you up?

The answer, it turns out, is: I can't. I won't. I never could.

And somewhere down the road — still a long way off, still unsure of our welcome, still rehearsing our speeches — the father is already running.

Wondering Questions

These aren't questions that need answers. They're just things to hold and sit with. You might want to pause here, step away from the screen for a few minutes, and let them settle.

I wonder what it felt like to come to himself — and what that moment of clarity was actually like, in the middle of the mud and the hunger?

I wonder what the father was doing on all the days he watched the road, before his son came home?

I wonder what the son expected when he finally saw his father — and what it felt like to be run to, rather than waited for?

I wonder why the father interrupted the speech — and what the son felt when he realised the hired-servant part would never be needed?

I wonder about the older son in the field, and whether his anger was entirely without reason, and what it would have cost him to go in?

I wonder if there is a speech I have been rehearsing — something I believe I must say before I can be welcomed — and whether the Father is already at the door before I have finished it?

I wonder what it would feel like to simply be found?

A Query — in the spirit of the Quaker tradition:

Is there a part of me still standing in the far country — not for want of a father to come home to, but because I am not yet sure I deserve the robe?

A Moment of Quiet

Before you read on, you might like to pause here.

Close your eyes, or look out of a window.

There's no rush. Just rest for a moment.

An Invitation

Before you go — a quiet word.

If you have never followed Jesus, or if faith has felt, for a long time, like something that belongs to better people than you — this parable was not told about better people. It was told about a boy in a pig field who had made a thorough mess of things. The welcome in the story is not conditional on the quality of the mess you made, or how long you were away, or how far you travelled.

If you want to respond to that love today, you might simply say, in your own words or in the quiet of your heart:

I am coming to myself. I am remembering the way home. And I am willing to be surprised by who comes running to meet me.

And if you already walk with Jesus — if you have been welcomed home before and perhaps need welcoming again, or if you have been standing in the field for a long time, dutiful and faintly resentful — the father's words are for you too: You are always with me, and everything I have is yours.

The feast is not a competition. The robe is not a threat. The door is open. The music is already playing.

Come in.

Going Out

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

May you know today that you are not beyond the reach

of a love that runs down roads.

May something in you come to itself —

some forgotten corner that has been in the far country a long while —

and may it remember the way home.

May you find, on the road,

that the welcome is already moving toward you.

And may you receive, without earning,

the robe, the ring, and the feast —

and hear it said of you, in whatever language your heart speaks:

This one was lost, and is found.

Was dead, and is alive again.

Above all, love.

Amen.

Thank you for being here. Above all, love.

The Practice of the Presence of God Brother LAWRENCE (1614 – 1691) The Practice of the Presence of God is a collection of letters and transcriptions of conversations, compiled by a disciple of Brother Lawrence. Brother Lawrence was a Carmelite monk and head cook in his monastery’s kitchens. He quickly gained an international reputation as a mystic and spiritual counselor. The Practice of the Presence records his last words of advice to his friends and disciples, as he suffered from an unnamed illness which would eventually take his life. (Description written by Kirsten Ferreri.)

The Practice of the Presence of God Brother LAWRENCE (1614 – 1691) The Practice of the Presence of God is a collection of letters and transcriptions of conversations, compiled by a disciple of Brother Lawrence. Brother Lawrence was a Carmelite monk and head cook in his monastery’s kitchens. He quickly gained an international reputation as a mystic and spiritual counselor. The Practice of the Presence records his last words of advice to his friends and disciples, as he suffered from an unnamed illness which would eventually take his life. (Description written by Kirsten Ferreri.)

The Practice of the Presence of God Brother LAWRENCE (1614 – 1691) The Practice of the Presence of God is a collection of letters and transcriptions of conversations, compiled by a disciple of Brother Lawrence. Brother Lawrence was a Carmelite monk and head cook in his monastery’s kitchens. He quickly gained an international reputation as a mystic and spiritual counselor. The Practice of the Presence records his last words of advice to his friends and disciples, as he suffered from an unnamed illness which would eventually take his life. (Description written by Kirsten Ferreri.)

The Practice of the Presence of God

Brother LAWRENCE (1614 – 1691)

The Practice of the Presence of God is a collection of letters and transcriptions of conversations, compiled by a disciple of Brother Lawrence. Brother Lawrence was a Carmelite monk and head cook in his monastery’s kitchens. He quickly gained an international reputation as a mystic and spiritual counselor. The Practice of the Presence records his last words of advice to his friends and disciples, as he suffered from an unnamed illness which would eventually take his life. (Description written by Kirsten Ferreri.)

This is a gentle space. No pressure, no performance. You don't have to have it together to be here. You don't have to be healed, or feeling anything in particular today. You're welcome exactly as you are, wherever you are reading this.

If you need to move, or step away and come back later — that's completely fine. There's no right way to be here. Just be here.

HYMN

We begin with a hymn verse. Read it slowly. You might want to sit with each line before moving on.

Breathe on me, Breath of God,

Fill me with life anew,

That I may love what thou dost love,

And do what thou wouldst do.

— Edwin Hatch

PRAYER

Loving God,

Thank you that you do not wait for us to be well before you notice us.

Thank you that in the middle of our years — in the middle of our waiting, our weariness, our half-lived lives — you are not absent.

Revive us today, not in some distant future,

but here, in the midst of things.

And if we find ourselves healed and walking forward,

may we be the kind of people who turn back.

Amen.

OLD TESTAMENT ANCHOR

"Lord, I have heard your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Renew them in our day, make them known in our time; in wrath remember mercy."

— Habakkuk 3:2

The prophet Habakkuk is not praying from a place of triumph. He is praying from the middle. He has heard what God has done in the past — the great deeds, the ancient mercies — and he is asking that those same deeds might happen again, now, in his own time. Not in some golden age. Not when things are better. Now. In the midst of the years.

Revive us, O Lord, in the midst of the years.

It is one of the most honest prayers in scripture. It does not pretend things are fine. It does not wait until they are. It simply asks: would you do it again? Here? For us?

SCRIPTURE

Our reading today is from Luke chapter seventeen, verses eleven to nineteen, from the Easy English Bible.

As Jesus was going to Jerusalem, he walked along the border between Samaria and Galilee. He was going into a village when ten men met him who had a skin disease. They were standing far away from him. They called out to him, "Jesus! Master! Please help us!" When Jesus saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." As they went, they were healed and made clean. When one of them saw that he was healed, he came back. He praised God with a loud voice. He bowed down at Jesus' feet with his face on the ground. He thanked Jesus. This man was from Samaria. Jesus asked, "Were not ten healed? Where are the other nine? Has no one come back to praise God except this man from another country?" Then Jesus said to him, "Stand up and go. Your faith has made you well."

DEVOTION

They were standing far away.

That is where the story begins. Not in a crowd, not in a conversation — at a distance. Because they had to be. The law said so. They were unclean, and the world had arranged itself accordingly: over there, not here. Close enough to be seen, far enough not to touch.

But they had heard about Jesus. And so they called out — a single, desperate cry across the gap: Jesus! Master! Please help us!

It is not an elaborate prayer. There is no theology in it, no doctrinal precision. Just a name, a title, and a please. Just ten human beings, standing at a distance from everything they wanted to belong to, asking to be brought back in.

And Jesus does something surprising. He doesn't touch them, doesn't pronounce them healed, doesn't make a spectacle. He simply says: Go and show yourselves to the priests. Go. As if it's already done. As if the healing will happen on the way.

And it does. As they went, they were healed.

We don't know what that felt like — to look down at your hands mid-walk and find the skin changed. To feel the wrongness lifting. To realise, somewhere between where you were and where you were going, that something had shifted in the world. That you were not who you had been.

Nine of them keep walking. Which is not, perhaps, as heartless as it sounds — Jesus told them to go to the priests, and they are going. They are obeying. They are doing the sensible next thing. They have what they came for.

But one of them stops. And turns around.

He is a Samaritan — the detail Luke gives us quietly, without fanfare, but it matters. He is the outsider among the outsiders. The one who, even after healing, would have had the least to go back to in the religious system Jesus pointed toward. The priests would not have welcomed him. The community he was returning to was already one that looked at him sideways. He had every practical reason to keep walking.

And yet.

He turns. He comes back. He falls at Jesus' feet, face to the ground, praising God. And Jesus asks the question that still hangs in the air: Where are the other nine?

It is not a question of accounting. Jesus is not keeping score. It is a question of wonder — of something like grief, perhaps, at how much can be received and how little noticed. How easy it is to be changed and not know it. To receive a gift so overwhelming that you simply carry it away, too stunned or too busy or too focused on the next thing to look back at where it came from.

This story is the answer to Habakkuk's prayer. Revive us, O Lord, in the midst of the years. Not at the end. Not when we are ready. Not when the priests have certified it and the paperwork is done. In the midst of the going, while the feet are still moving, on the ordinary road between one place and another — there it is. The reviving. The skin made clean. The life given back.

The question the story leaves us with is not whether God revives. It is what we do when he does.

The nine received a gift. The one received a relationship. Both were healed. But only one came back to know the healer.

Stand up and go, Jesus says to him. Your faith has made you well.

He was already well. The skin had already changed. What Jesus is speaking to here is something deeper — a wholeness that goes beyond the body. A being-known that the nine, walking away, did not stop to receive.

There are seasons in a life when we are mid-healing. When things are better than they were but not yet where we want them to be. When we have been changed but haven't fully understood how. When God has done something, quietly, on the road — and we are not quite sure whether to keep walking forward or to stop and look back at where it came from.

The good news in this story is that it is not too late to turn around.

The one who came back did not arrive at Jesus' feet with everything together. He arrived with a loud voice and a face on the ground and a gratitude he couldn't contain. He arrived exactly as he was — just changed.

That is enough. It has always been enough.

In the midst of the years, God revives. And when we notice — when we stop and turn and fall at the feet of the one who did it — we find that the healing was only the beginning.

WONDERING QUESTIONS

These aren't questions that need answers. They're just things to hold and sit with. You might want to pause here, step away from the screen for a few minutes, and let them settle.

I wonder what it felt like to be standing far away — to call out and not be sure anyone would answer?

I wonder what happened in those ten bodies as they walked, and the moment each one noticed they were healed?

I wonder why nine kept going and one came back — and whether the answer is simple or complicated?

I wonder what it cost the Samaritan, as the outside outsider, to be the one who turned around?

I wonder what Jesus meant when he said something beyond the physical healing to the one who returned?

I wonder if there is something God has already done for me — quietly, on some road I was walking — that I have not yet stopped to acknowledge?

I wonder what it would look like, today, to turn back?

A Query — in the spirit of the Quaker tradition:

Is there a healing in my life — a reviving, however small — that I have received and carried away, without yet turning to notice where it came from?

A MOMENT OF QUIET

Before you read on, you might like to pause here. Close your eyes, or look out of a window. There's no rush. Just rest for a moment.

AN INVITATION

Before you go — a quiet word.

If you have never followed Jesus, or if faith has felt, for a long time, like something happening at a distance — you do not need to be clean before you call out. The ten weren't. They called from exactly where they were, with exactly what they had, and Jesus heard them.

If you want to respond to that love today, you might simply say, in your own words or in the quiet of your heart:

I am standing at a distance. But I am calling out. And I am willing to notice what changes on the road.

And if you already walk with Jesus — if you have been revived before, and are perhaps in need of reviving again — may this be the moment you stop and turn. Not because you have to. Not because nine others didn't. Simply because the one who gave the gift is still there, and it is not too late to look him in the face.

The road is not over. The reviving is not finished. In the midst of the years, he is still at work.

GOING OUT

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

May you know today that you are not standing at a distance from a God who cannot reach you.

You are standing within earshot of the one who heals on the road.

May something change for you, quietly, in the midst of the going —

and may you have the grace to notice.

May you be the one who turns back.

May you find him still there when you do.

And may you hear, in whatever language your heart speaks,

the words that were spoken on that dusty road:

Stand up and go. Your faith has made you well.

Above all, love.

Amen.

Thank you for being here. Above all, love.

WELCOME

Welcome to Above All Love. This is Simply Fellowship — the Good News, quietly told.

This is a gentle space. No pressure, no performance. You don't have to have it together to be here. You don't have to be hopeful, or certain, or even feel particularly faithful today. You're welcome exactly as you are, wherever you are reading this.

If you need to move, or step away and come back later — that's completely fine. There's no right way to be here. Just be here.

HYMN

We begin with a hymn verse. Read it slowly. You might want to sit with each line before moving on.

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;

The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;

When other helpers fail and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.

— Henry Francis Lyte

PRAYER

Loving God,

Thank you that you walk beside us even when we do not know it is you.

Thank you that you ask us questions and listen to our answers, and do not tell us off for getting things wrong.

Help us today to recognise you — in the breaking of bread, in the kindness of a stranger, in the moment when our hearts feel strangely warm.

And may we find, when we look back, that you were with us all along.

Amen.

SCRIPTURE

Our reading today is from Luke chapter twenty-four, verses thirteen to thirty-five, from the Easy English Bible.

That same day, two of Jesus' followers were going to a village called Emmaus. It was about eleven kilometres from Jerusalem. They were talking together about everything that had happened. While they were talking, Jesus himself came near and walked along with them. But they did not recognise him. He asked them, "What are you talking about as you walk along?" They stopped. They looked very sad. One of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered, "Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that happened there recently?" Jesus asked them, "What things?" They told him about Jesus of Nazareth. They told him that the chief priests and rulers had handed him over to be killed. They had hoped that he was the one who would set Israel free. But now it was the third day since these things had happened. Some women of their group had surprised them. The women went to the tomb early in the morning. They did not find his body there. They came and told them that they had seen angels, who said that Jesus was alive. Then Jesus explained to them what was said about himself in all the scriptures. When they came near to the village, Jesus acted as if he was going further on. But they asked him strongly to stay. "Stay with us," they said. "It is nearly evening and the day is almost over." So he went in to stay with them. While he was at the table with them, he took the bread. He gave thanks for it. He broke it and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognised him. And he disappeared from their sight. They said to each other, "Our hearts were burning inside us while he talked with us on the road."

DEVOTION

They are walking away.

That is the first thing to notice. Not towards Jerusalem, where the other disciples are gathered. Away from it. Away from the empty tomb, away from the rumours, away from the women's astonishing report that he was alive. They have heard all of it and it has not been enough. They are going home — or somewhere that feels more like home than a city full of confusion and grief.

It is hard to blame them. Three days earlier, everything they had hoped for had been nailed to a cross and buried. They had believed he was the one. The one who would change things. The one who would make it all come right. And he hadn't — or so it seemed. Now there was just the long road, the sore feet, and the words they kept turning over between them, trying to make sense of something that refused to make sense.

And Jesus falls into step beside them.

He doesn't announce himself. He doesn't say: it is I, do not be afraid. He just walks with them, at their pace, in the direction they are going. And then he asks a question — one of the most tender questions in all of scripture. What are you talking about?

He knows. Of course he knows. But he asks anyway. He lets them tell it. He listens to the whole sad unravelling of their hopes. He does not interrupt or correct or rush them to the good part. He walks and listens while two heartbroken people explain, to the very person they are heartbroken about, that they had hoped so much and now that hope is gone.

Only after they have said it all does he begin to speak.

And even then, they do not recognise him. Not on the road. Not through the teaching. It is only later — at the table, in the breaking of the bread, in that one ordinary and familiar gesture — that their eyes are opened. And in the moment they see him, he is gone.

But what they are left with is enough. Our hearts were burning, they say. All along the road, something was happening inside them that they couldn't name. They thought it was just a conversation with a stranger. It was something else entirely.

There are seasons in a life when faith feels like walking away from Jerusalem. When the things we hoped for haven't happened the way we expected. When the tomb is empty but somehow that doesn't feel like good news yet — just another confusing thing to carry. When we are mid-road, mid-grief, mid-doubt, and not sure where we are going.

The good news in this story is that Jesus does not wait for us to turn around before he finds us. He walks in the direction we are walking. He asks what is on our heart. He stays when we ask him to stay. And he makes himself known not in a vision or a thunderclap, but in the breaking of ordinary bread at an ordinary table at the end of an ordinary road.

Sometimes we only recognise him when we look back. But he was there. All along the road, he was there.

WONDERING QUESTIONS

These aren't questions that need answers. They're just things to hold and sit with. You might want to pause here, step away from the screen for a few minutes, and let them settle.

I wonder what it felt like to be walking away — and to have a perceived stranger fall into step beside you?

I wonder why Jesus chose to ask questions rather than simply reveal himself at once?

I wonder what it means that they recognised him in the breaking of bread, and not before?

I wonder if there has been a time in my own life when I felt I was walking away — and later wondered if someone was walking with me?

I wonder what their hearts were burning about, and what that burning felt like?

I wonder what made them say "stay with us" to one they thought was a stranger they had only just met?

I wonder where on my own road I might have missed someone walking beside me?

A Query — in the spirit of the Quaker tradition:

Is there any part of me that is walking away from something right now — and might I be willing to notice who is walking with me?

A MOMENT OF QUIET

Before you read on, you might like to pause here. Close your eyes, or look out of a window. There's no rush. Just rest for a moment.

AN INVITATION

Before you go — a quiet word.

If you have never followed Jesus, or if your faith has grown cold on a long and disappointing road — you do not need to have turned around yet. The two on the road to Emmaus hadn't. They were mid-doubt, mid-grief, mid-leaving. And Jesus walked with them anyway.

If you want to respond to that love today, you might simply say, in your own words or in the quiet of your heart:

I'm not sure where I'm going. But I'm willing to notice who might be walking beside me.

And if you already walk with Jesus — if you have followed him for years, or are finding your way back after a long absence — may this be a moment of recognition. A reminder that the one who walked to Emmaus has not stopped walking. He is still asking: what are you talking about? He is still listening to the whole of it. He is still breaking bread at ordinary tables with tired and hopeful people.

The road is not abandoned. You are not alone on it.

GOING OUT

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

May you know today that on whatever road you are walking —

whether it leads toward Jerusalem or away from it —

you are not walking it alone.

May your heart burn, even when you cannot explain why.

May you find him in the ordinary things —

the bread broken, the table set,

the stranger who asked how you were and actually waited for the answer.

May you look back on this day and say:

he was there. All along the road, he was there.

Above all, love.

Amen.

Thank you for being here. Above all, love.

A prayer often attributed to:

Saint Francis of Assisi (1181 - 1226)

St. Francis of Assisi (Italian: San Francesco d'Assisi, born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, but nicknamed Francesco ("the Frenchman") by his father, 1181/1182 – October 3, 1226) was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher. He founded the men's Order of Friars Minor, the women’s Order of St. Clare, and the Third Order of Saint Francis for men and women not able to live the lives of itinerant preachers followed by the early members of the Order of Friars Minor or the monastic lives of the Poor Clares. Though he was never ordained to the Catholic priesthood, Francis is one of the most venerated religious figures in history.

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Wiki - Saint Francis of Assisi