Susanne Timpani's Blog, page 3

Second Station: Jesus, Betrayed by Judas, is Arrested

10 Minute Daily Retreat - Read the Word of God with a prayerful heart.By Malcolm Davies (No. 234)

Then, while Jesus was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived, accompanied by a crowd with swords and clubs, who had come from the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders. His betrayer had arranged a signal with them, saying, "the man I shall kiss is the one; arrest him and lead him away securely." He came and immediately went over to him and said, "Rabbi." And he kissed him. At this they laid hands on him and arrested him.
(Mark 14: 43-46)


Judas' betrayal of Jesus continues to be a mystery. Judas greets Jesus with a kiss which was a sign of deep friendship and respect during that time.It may be that Judas was trying to bring about the reign of God by betraying Jesus and then expecting him to initiate a perverted Kingdom of earthly power. In this Kingdom, the Roman rulers would be destroyed through the direct intervention of God the Father.The possibilities of perversion of the human heart are endless. The only way to authentic conversion and the true Kingdom of God is to place oneself on the side of Jesus, assuming his point of view.We must try, day after day, to be in full communion with Jesus through lives of prayer, forgiveness and service of the poor. After his fall, Peter repented and found forgiveness and grace. In contrast, Judas did not seek the forgiveness and mercy of Jesus.Jesus offers us grace and mercy every day. We have the freedom to choose to be like Peter and experience grace or be like Judas and experience despair.
Lord, for the times I have betrayed you, have mercy on me. 

First Station: Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane

10 Minute Daily Retreat - Read the Word of God with a prayerful heart.By Susanne Timpani (No. 233)
  Matthew 26: 40-43Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.”  He took along Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to feel sorrow and distress.  Then he said to them, “My soul is sorrowful even to death. Remain here and keep watch with me.”  
He advanced a little and fell prostrate in prayer, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will.” 
When he returned to his disciples he found them asleep. He said to Peter, “So you could not keep watch with me for one hour?  Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”


Jesus chose to leave Peter and the two sons of Zebedee while He advanced into the garden to pray. He clearly felt the need to be alone with His Father in His final hour. When He returned to find his disciples asleep, why did He challenge them? Did He really need their support to manage His sorrow and distress?
As humans, we all experience trials. We may receive support from our friends and family, but in the end, no one can walk our journey for us.
My friend who works in adult education told me the most stressful moment for educators can be handing back exam papers. Students who fail can become aggressive and cast around for someone or something to blame. Surely as adults we take responsibility for our own learning…or life's challenges? The educator could only provide so much support for the student; in the end no one else could sit that exam for them.
Jesus took complete responsibility for what He knew lay ahead. He drew on the only source of strength which could truly help; His Heavenly Father. He challenged His disciples to watch and pray, not for His support but for their own. They too had a difficult journey ahead.
'Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test.' Matthew 26: 41 If Jesus needed His Father in his moment of greatest need, how much more do we?
No one can develop our spirituality for us. Why not use this time of Lent to draw on the strength of our Heavenly Father? The 10 Minute Daily Retreat will focus on the Scriptural Stations of the Cross, posting on Sundays and Fridays, and every day during Holy Week.
Let us stay awake together because we all know that "that our spirit is willing, but our flesh is weak.” Matthew 26: 41

Can you drink this cup?

10 Minute Daily Retreat - Read the Word of God with a prayerful heart.By Susanne Timpani (No. 232)

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons, and kneeling before him, she asked a favour of him.  
And he said to her, “What do you want?” 
She said to him, “Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” 
“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” 

“We can,” they answered. Matthew 20:22



I’m a nurse; I’ve seen people suffer. I’ve helped calm women as they experience the agony of childbirth.  I’ve administered morphine when the pain of cancer becomes too much to bare. I’ve held a mother as she wailed after the death of her child.
James and John want prestige, position and favouritism from Jesus. Instead he offers them suffering! And they accepted it. They went on to experience terrible suffering, and they persevered and endured.
Do we dare to sit before Jesus and allow Him to ask us, 'can you drink of this cup?'
During this season of Lent, why not try? We may be surprised at where our openness leads. 

God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing, he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Psalm 12

10 Minute Daily Retreat - Read the Word of God with a prayerful heart.By Louise Crossley (No. 231)

Help, LORD, for no one is faithful anymore;    those who are loyal have vanished from the human race.Everyone lies to their neighbour;    they flatter with their lips    but harbor deception in their hearts…You, LORD, will keep the needy safe    and will protect us forever from the wicked, who freely strut about    when what is vile is honoured by the human race.
Psalm 12  

Like. Like. Like. Help, LORD.‘You’re amazing. You’re beautiful. You’re talented’. Help, LORD.He’s awesome for his financial status. Help, LORD.She’s a winner for her great job. Help, LORD.They’re good people for their social skills. Help, LORD.
Flattery and deception feeds the wicked and the vileWhile faithfulness and honour lay starving clinging to vintage valuesStrutting freely is our disposable societyabundantly supporting – with tongue not heart
Arriving in 2017; the dawn of ‘trending’I worryBut only for a micro-secondFor eyes don’t lieAnd now and then the kind eyes surfaceNot as a collective but an individual
I go home to my 2017 lifeAnd clean my heartFor the LORD is talking to the ‘good-enough’ tooWhen He promises…
‘(He will) Protect us forever from the Wicked’

Louise Crossley

Sacred Space

10 Minute Daily Retreat - Read the Word of God with a prayerful heart.By Susanne Timpani (No. 230)
But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Matthew 6:6 


Susanna Wesley, the mother of the famous preachers John and Charles, gave birth to nineteen children and lived in a tiny house. The only place she could retreat to pray was the corner of her kitchen. Her children knew that when she sat there with her face hidden behind her apron, woe betide anyone who disturbed her. This was her sacred space.
The word, sacrosanct, first came into use around the 15th Century. It virtually disappeared from everyday English for a few hundred years, making a comeback in recent times. It is derived from two Latin words: sacro 'by a sacred rite' and sanctus, 'holy.'
I've heard it applied to routines, places and personal values. Web designers use it to refer to the 'white space' on the left hand side of webpages.
In today's reflection, Jesus gave a beautiful image of the sacrosanct ritual of prayer. Like Susanne Wesley, we don’t always have our own room to disappear for quiet time. Sometimes we have no option but to capture a scripture or an image and withdraw into a sacred space inside ourselves, while in the 'marketplace'.
Like any relationship, if we rely solely on those adhoc moments we might find we make minimal progress. Creating a 'sacrosanct' approach to prayer fosters a deep relationship between ourselves and God.
I light a candle to pray. It's a reminder to myself and others that I'm unavailable to face distractions.
I also light my candle to write. This defines the sacrosanct ritual I attach to writing. Applying the discipline of prayer to writing enriches my writing. Applying the discipline of writing to prayer enriches my prayer.
Are there sacrosanct moments in your own life? Perhaps you have exercise routines, settling routines with young children, house and garden chores, study?
Can you apply the value you place on one of those moments to develop your prayer? Or apply your sacrosanct approach to prayer to enrich your life in one of those other precious moments?

Beloved: '...your love is better than wine.'

10 Minute Daily Retreat - Read the Word of God with a prayerful heart.By Susanne Timpani (No. 229)

Beloved: 2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!For your love is better than wine,3     your anointing oils are fragrant,your name is perfume poured out;    therefore the maidens love you.4 Draw me after you, let us make haste.
The king has brought me into his chambers...

7 Tell me, you whom my soul loves,    where you pasture your flock,    where you make it lie down at noon; Song of Songs SS 1:2-4,7


I tapped impatiently on the steering wheel, waiting for the church car park to clear. It had been a long, hot Service and I felt totally washed out. The sermon had urged us to seek an experience of spiritual renewal. There was nothing fresh about my spirit. Physically tired from long shifts, mentally drained from study and emotionally wrecked from house sharing, there was little room for spiritual growth.
In my naivety I didn’t recognize this very place as God's watering hole. My voiceless surrender that my search for Him was way too hard opened a spiritual door. 
In the confines of my beat up old car, something very deep stirred in my spirit. This was a 'before and after' moment. There are theological terms for this experience. I prefer to call it my falling in love moment.
Did my spirit ever again experience the dry thirst of the 'before'? Absolutely. The glimmer of first love dulls as we face life's hurdles.
In today's verses from Solomon's Song of Songs, the Beloved is fresh with new love. She's bursting at the seams to tell us how amazing her Lover is. Yet the verses end with the Beloved asking the Lover to take her someplace else.
Perhaps she no longer experiences Him in her everyday life. After a time she loses sight of Him completely. She calls out, asking where she can find Him.
We're no different. There are times when we fail to hear God's voice in the quiet of our prayer. We can be tempted to give in, saying He's not there. It's in those moments that we need to reflect and believe in God's Word:

'Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord…'Jeremiah 29:12-14a

Broken Hearts

10 Minute Daily Retreat - Read the Word of God with a prayerful heart.By Margaret Kirchner (No. 228)
My heart is ready, GodMy heart is ready;I will sing and make music for you.Psalm 57:7 

‘My doctor is discussing palliative care.' Mary looked at me with sadness in her eyes. My friend had just had the worst news and all she could think of was how it would affect me.
'He says I only have a year to live,' she said, but my mind had already blanked out in denial and her words washed over me. Tears welled in my eyes as my mind already was changing the details. Maybe the doctor was mistaken. I left in a daze.
Three weeks later I got the phone call. ‘Mary is in the hospice and is failing fast.'
Her bed has been pushed out in the garden in the shade of a leafy tree. An impossibly blue sky stretches overhead and friends gather to pray and say farewell.
Sadness overwhelms me. We support each other, wondering why life has to be like this.
She slips into unconsciousness. We hold her hand and sing her favourite songs. We even dare to smile a little though our hearts are breaking.
A gifted vocalist, Mary exited the conscious world in the same way she had thrived in it, amidst singing and music.
Mary's heart was ready. We witnessed God's final note on Mary's page.

We, her bereaved friends, pray. We give thanks. For we know that with the same infinite care, our Lord God brings healing to our broken hearts.

Celtic Skin

10 Minute Daily Retreat - Read the Word of God with a prayerful heart.
By Susanne Timpani  (No. 227)

'The sun has played havoc on your Celtic skin.' Dr Raju tilted her head.I'd never considered myself a member of the Celtic clan before. For a moment I felt I had been plucked from their midst and deposited into my current, sunburnt, country.
'The cream will irritate, redden, wrinkle, blotch and burn your skin,' she muttered as her hand swept across her script pad, 'but it will halt the changes to your cells and prevent skin cancer.'
She pulled the page off the pad and swung around to face me. 'Twice a day for four weeks and I'll review in three months.'
I push through the glass door and the sun blinds me. Celtic skin. Hazel eyes. I fossick around in my handbag, and retrieve eye protection. Fabulously designed to filter out UV, wrap around the sides of the eyes and fit over prescription glasses. If only I had discovered these decades ago.
Celtic skin. Well suited to the grey, protective clouds of the British Isles.I slide my freckled, wrinkled hands into my fingerless gloves and shove on my wide brim hat.
In 1969, along with another 80,000 immigrants from the UK, our family responded to TV ads promising days of endless sunshine in Australia. Missing from the Ads, and the dictionary, were terms such as basal cell carcinoma, ultra-violet rays and SP Factor 30 +. Perhaps we wouldn’t have splashed baby oil on our backs and cooked ourselves on the beach. We thought calamine lotion would fix it all.

I had travelled to the farthest limits of the sea, but even here He had guided me, protecting me in His right hand. The skin condition I had developed can turn into cancer. Dr Raju's ointment promises healing and I thank God His hand guided me to seek her out. 
  If I take the wings of the morning
    and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me fast.Psalm 139: 9-10

10 Minute Daily Retreat

No. 227Read the Word of God with a prayerful heart.By Susanne Timpani  He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”Luke 11:1   Orchid Praying Mantus
I listened to a speaker recently who claimed that a survey in the USA concluded that most people prayed. Whether they prayed to win the lottery, pass an exam or be healed of an illness, they said that they prayed.
Some knew the name of the person, or 'being' that they prayed to, some made up their own name, and some hadn't really thought about it.
My conclusion to this survey is that we are all born with an innate desire to pray.
If we turn up for prayer we can be guaranteed that our Father is there waiting for us. But that's the hard bit. Turning up; day after day, year after year.
In 1993 Ericsson, a psychologist and researcher, said that 'it takes 10,000 hours (20 hours for 50 weeks of year for ten years = 10, 000) of deliberate practice to become an expert in almost anything.' 
For writers to excel they must write, for athletes to win they must train and for musicians to perform well they must practice.


It's no different with prayer. The 10 Minute Daily Retreat provides us with the opportunity to deepen our prayer life, and grow in intimacy with Jesus.
There will be a brief break in publishing these posts until late January, 2017. I hope you will continue to share this spiritual journey at that time.
God Bless,
Susanne

Advent / Christmas 30 Day Retreat: Day 30

Read the Word of God with a prayerful heart. By Susanne Timpani
13  When they [the three kings] had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.“Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” 14  So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15 where he stayed until the death of Herod.' (Matthew 2:13-15)

Fleeing from bullets My African friend has told me stories of his flight out of his home country. Bullets seared banana leaves as his family stumbled through fields. A child at the time, some memories are sharper than others. While he remembered neighbours and friends screaming, he also remembered others singing. Through their songs they cried out to God for His help. 
Nursing in refugee health afforded me the opportunity to hear many tragic tales. Yet, despite their recount of horrific experiences I am astounded by people's frequent conclusion, ‘but I give thanks to God.’ Even with the strength of my faith I still find it hard to believe that you could experience such atrocities and come out praising God. 
If born in Australia it's unlikely that we have ever been forced to escape persecution and become refugees. Even so, we may have experienced isolation from our family, friends, work colleagues and, unfortunately, even our church communities. 
Today we read about the Holy Family being uprooted and fleeing from their homeland. This taints the joy and wonder that has so far surrounded the birth of Jesus. From this moment on, Jesus’ life will always be a dichotomy of suffering and healing. Jesus recognises that we all suffer at some level. In His humanity, Jesus suffers as we do. In His divinity, Jesus suffers for our redemption.His humanity, He suffers like us. In His divinity, His suffering is a redemptive act for us. Christmas and Easter will always go hand in hand.
As this 30 Day Online Retreat draws to a close, I would like to thank you for joining me on the journey. Setting aside 10 Minutes each day to listen and reflect on God's Word yields a promise,
11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:11
Please join me tomorrow as I share my thoughts about the 10 Minute Daily Retreat for 2017.
Blessings,
Susanne