James: You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.
St. James, Sant Iago, Camino de Santiago de Compostela, has a special place in my heart. I journeyed along the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain in 2014. It means the Way of St. James of the Field of Stars because the most traveled route, the Camino Frances, is said to line up with the Milkyway.
Your job along the Camino is walking, eight hours a day, one foot in front of the other. Oftentimes, you end up walking with one or two people and have conversations, not, "Oh, the weather is fine," conversations, but deeper discussions as to why people go on such a pilgrimage, or faith, or St. James, or God.
Before I left for the Camino, a friend of mine told me about a bible study she did regarding St. James, how for one of the shortest books in the bible, it is one of the most direct and intense.
"You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures."
Recently, I went on a spiritual retreat and I was a little nervous about the whole experience when another friend said, "As long as you have a heart-centered intention, you'll be fine."
That experience turned out to be extremely profound because I set a heart-centered intention first. The Camino experience, though profound, was different in that there were snippets of heart-centered intention, but mostly I was just open to the experience.
In my life, I've wasted much time asking wrongly in my prayer life, and have discovered the beauty and awe when I pray from the heart.
May this day bring us beauty and awe in everything we pray, think, do, and say.
April 3
Matthew: The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
Mark: “Listen! A sower went out to sow.
Luke: The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”
John: he left Judea and started back to Galilee.
Acts: So they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening.
Romans: For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.”
1 Corinthians: But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself.
2 Corinthians: And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.
Galatians: So with us; while we were minors, we were enslaved to the elemental spirits of the world.
Ephesians: making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Philippians: Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life.
Colossians: At the same time pray for us as well that God will open to us a door for the word, that we may declare the mystery of Christ, for which I am in prison,
1 Thessalonians: For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication;
1 Timothy: They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.
2 Timothy: For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires,
Hebrews: For we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, “As in my anger I swore, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’” though his works were finished at the foundation of the world.
James: You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.
1 Peter: You have already spent enough time in doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry.
1 John: and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming; and now it is already in the world.
Revelation: And the one seated there looks like jasper and carnelian, and around the throne is a rainbow that looks like an emerald.