Wednesday, 2nd Week: Life Is Full Of Sorrows And Joys

"But Jesus answered, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?" Matthew 20:22
           
"Can we drink the cup?" is the most challenging and radical question we can ask ourselves. The cup is the cup of life, full of sorrows and joys.

Can we hold our cups and claim them as our own? Can we lift our cups to offer blessings to others, and can we drink our cups to the bottom as cups that bring us salvation?

Keeping this question alive in us is one of the most demanding spiritual exercises we can practice. Drinking our cups means fully appropriating and internalizing what each of us has acknowledged as our life, with all its unique sorrows and joys. How do we drink our cups? We drink them as we listen in silence to the truth of our lives, as we speak in trust with friends about ways we want to grow, and as we act in deeds of service. Drinking our cups is following freely and courageously become the cups of salvation. When we have emptied them to the bottom, God will fill them with "water" for eternal life.

"What do you fail to accept and appreciate about your life?"

Henri Nouwen