Welcome to the Saturday Examen. Find a large chair, if possible one with arms. Sit down, deliberately, in the chair. Place your arms on the arms of the chair. Just let them rest there. Feel the chair holding the weight of your body. Close your eyes and breathe slowly and deeply. Be still. Sit with the sensation of being held by the chair. In your imagination let the chair become a very special chair, perhaps even a throne. Are your feet planted on the ground, or are they dangling, as a child’s? Enjoy that sensation of being rooted, or being free. Allow your face and your heart to be lifted up to the Lord. Open and expectant. As a child’s. A child of God. Now become aware of many other thrones around you. All children of God. Thank God for all His children. Remember the promise: “To all who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” (John 1:12) Thank God for this invitation, this right, this gift, to be God's child. Ask God to breathe the loving Holy Spirit on the year ahead. Ask to be a child who is loving and giving in the year ahead. Sit for a while. Then, gently and slowly, stand up. Bow your head for a moment before God, before the throne of grace. Then quietly, respectfully, take your leave. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Saturday 11 January 2025