Day 64 - Issue 23
Luke 2:37 NLT
'Then she lived as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the Temple but stayed there day and night, worshiping God with fasting and prayer.'
Emerging from Christmas, it can prove a challenge to re-establish your everyday routine. It’s as if we have lived in a bubble for a few days, yet eventually normal life catches up with us. Holding my daily rhythm in place over Christmas is something I find exceptionally difficult. Yet, that routine is what sustains my life in every sphere. Here, Anna at 84 praises and announces the good news of who Jesus is. Her routine was regular fasting and prayer, and note, fasting precedes the prayer.
Managing Jayne’s chronic pain condition together, we have found a tremendous benefit in reordering our diet. Gone are dairy products and all sugars, apart from those naturally found in fruit. Caffeine was an addiction and we have discovered an excellent caffeine-free substitute. Friends of ours are Orthodox Christians and in conversation we heard of the Mount Athos cookbook. The diet is pescatarian, fish and vegetables, but nutritious and tasty. The monks also enjoy longevity with a very low incidence of cancer, dementia, heart and lung problems. They live in community, devoted to prayer and work. In other words, the rhythm includes every aspect of life from worship to eating, working to community.
Here in the Oratory we are slowly establishing our rhythms; slowly, not because we’re reluctant or resistant, but because the rate of unlearning is much slower than I’d imagined. Ensuring consistency and training the body to desire routine rather than have it imposed is a work of years. Now we seek to live God’s way out of desire and preference, not struggle.
The benefit of any break from life’s daily routine is that it affords an opportunity to consider if that is the routine one wants to return to and live all over again. Anna invites us to reflect on our spiritual disciplines and consider if they are consistent and, where we recognise gaps, make some practical decisions and lay some simple plans to build towards a more wholesome Christian life. Anna’s sensitivity to God was the work of years, not simply a spontaneous act.
QUESTION: What routines and rhythms do you have that help you daily follow Christ?
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, train me again in the habits of learning and following your ways.
