We have been made for communion, a 'union with' God and fellow human beings. Another way of putting it is to describe God as love and we, through God's abiding, loving presence dwelling within us and inside of each event of each day, are to receive His loving energies and thus live in communion with all persons we meet. We
begin to move toward loving communion by means of 'communication.'
- George Maloney, S.J., Invaded by God
(Remember that the "loving energies" of God are available to you all through the day. Be open . . . )
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Ez 47:1-9, 12; Psalm 46:2-3, 5-6, 8-9
Jn 5:1-16
There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate
a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes.
In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled.
One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him lying there
and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him,
“Do you want to be well?”
The sick man answered him,
“Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool
when the water is stirred up;
while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.”
Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.”
Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.
Now that day was a sabbath.
So the Jews said to the man who was cured,
“It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.”
He answered them, “The man who made me well told me,
‘Take up your mat and walk.’“
They asked him,
“Who is the man who told you, ‘Take it up and walk’?”
The man who was healed did not know who it was,
for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there.
After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him,
“Look, you are well; do not sin any more,
so that nothing worse may happen to you.”
The man went and told the Jews
that Jesus was the one who had made him well.
Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus
because he did this on a sabbath.
Reflection on the Scriptures
In the Gospel we again see healing waters, and come across a man who needs healing but is unable to access the waters. He is right there, but because he doesn’t have any one to help him into the waters, others always get ahead of him and he does not get the healing benefits. He’s been ill for 38 years and unable to access the waters because of
his infirmity. Like the waters in Ezekiel that heal everything they touch, he needs to touch the waters for the healing properties. He must be very frustrated, so close, and unable to touch the waters. But Jesus sees him, and recognizes his plight. He knows the man has been trying for a long time to get to the waters. He says to him, “Do you want to be well?” and the man tells him how he can’t get to the waters because he has no one to help him. But Jesus says, “Take up your mat and walk.” And
that’s all it took. Not the healing waters but the words from Jesus.
- Tamora Whitney
The Existence of God
by Francois Fenelon
SECTION X. Of the General Structure of the Universe.
Let us, in the first place, stop at the great object that first strikes our sight, I mean the general structure of the universe. Let us cast our eyes on this earth that bears us. Let us look on that vast arch of the skies that covers us; those immense regions of air, and depths of water that surround us; and those bright stars that light us. A person who lives without reflecting thinks only on the parts
of matter that are near him, or have any relation to his wants. He only looks upon the earth as on the floor of his chamber, and on the sun that lights him in the daytime as on the candle that lights him in the night. His thoughts are confined within the place he inhabits. On the contrary, a man who is used to contemplate and reflect carries his looks further, and curiously considers the almost infinite abysses that surround him on all sides. A large kingdom appears then
to him but a little corner of the earth; the earth itself is no more to his eyes than a point in the mass of the universe; and he admires to see himself placed in it, without knowing which way he came there.
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