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“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” Matt 10: 40 NRSV
Invitation to quiet: Sit, take 4-5 deep breaths, and let a word or phrase of this verse speak to you.
Reflection: After four months of sheltering in place, I arrived at my daughter’s home to be met with a huge hug by my four- year-old grandson, Kane. He quickly released himself from my arms, took my hand and excitedly led me to the front door. As my eyes rose to see the front door, my heart filled with warmth, love and joy! Before my eyes was this beautiful cross, flowers, stars, and “Welcome Nana” hand drawn by Payton, age 12. As the door opened, I was greeted by Payton at a homemade check-in desk and her two brothers, Jay (10) and Kane, the “Bellhops”. I signed the registration book; Jay took my bag; and off we went on a tour of my “suite” in the basement. This all-encompassing unconditional love and celebration must surely have been the “welcome” that Jesus referenced.
Jesus tells his disciples, “I am sending you into a dangerous world as part of my mission to love, save, bless, and be reconciled to that very world. It is dangerous out there. But you will find welcome. Those who welcome and receive you, also welcome and receive me—and they will be rewarded.”1
This is Jesus’ promise to us today. The perfect storm of the COVID-19 pandemic, political division, and violence embedded in racial inequality affirms NAPC’s three year call to the ministry of reconciliation. “In the biblical language that has long been at the core of Walter Brueggemann’s2 thinking, the devastating effects of the virus summon us to renew our covenantal relationship with God and to renew our responsibilities within that relationship.”
The time to renew our covenantal relationship with God to embrace the difficulties before us is NOW. We need the oneness of the trinity’s welcome promised in Matt 10:40.
Charge: Mary Mrozowski creates The Welcoming Prayer Practice providing a meditative focus for moments of apprehension and fear and grounds us in the promise of God’s welcome and oneness! Sit and breath.
The Welcoming Prayer Practice3
There are three movements of the prayer:
Movement 1.
FOCUS, FEEL AND SINK INTO what you are experiencing this moment in your body.
Notice, observe, pay attention.
Feel what is happening in the body.
Sink into – do not resist- the body sensation.
Simply experience the energy.
Movement 2.
“WELCOME” what you are experiencing this moment in your body as an opportunity to consent to the Divine Indwelling.
Welcome is to embrace what we find happening within.
Saying the word “welcome” interiorly is the action of embracing the Indwelling Spirit, whom we know by faith is always present, in and through our experience.
Movement 3.
LET GO by saying the letting go phrases;
“I let go of the desire for security, affection, control.” “I let go of the desire to change what I am experiencing.”
[1] Jacobson, “A Risk Worth Taking”, https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=5441
[2] Brueggemann, Walter. Virus as a Summons to Faith: Biblical Reflections in a Time of Loss, Grief, and Uncertainty . Cascade Books, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition. [3] Mrozowski, https://www.contemplativeoutreachireland.com/resources/welcoming-prayer/
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