If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world but lose or forfeit themselves?
– Luke 9
Self denial is never just a series of isolated acts of mortification or asceticism. It is not suicide – to deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only him who goes before us and no more the road which is too hard for us.
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer [The Cost of Discipleship]
Prayer for a Tired Branch
Jesus,
I am one worn-out
tired branch
and I need the newness
of the vine of you
to start the hope-life
running through
the streams of me again.
Lord, be my vine
and I’ll be your branch;
but free me please
from this withered
cut-off feeling
and deliver others
from the pain
I carve into their branches.
Wiederkehr, p.111
Macrina Wiederkehr,1991, Seasons of your Heart, Harper Collins, SanFrancisco.