St. Teresa of Avila wrote: 'All difficulties in prayer can be traced to one cause: praying as if God were absent.' This is the conviction that we bring with us from early childhood and apply to everyday life and to our lives in general. It gets stronger as we grow up, unless we are touched by the Gospel and begin the
spiritual journey. This journey is a process of dismantling the monumental illusion that God is distant or absent.
- Thomas Keating
(God is here . . . now . . . loving. Let this awareness deepen within you.)
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1 Kgs 17:7-16; Psalm 4:2-3, 4-5, 7b-8
Mt 5:13-16
Jesus said to his disciples:
“You are the salt of the earth.
But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?
It is no longer good for anything
but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
You are the light of the world.
A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.
Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket;
it is set on a lampstand,
where it gives light to all in the house.
Just so, your light must shine before others,
that they may see your good deeds
and glorify your heavenly Father.”
Reflection on the Scriptures
The readings today are saying, You Matter! We Matter! We are the salt and light of the world. Now, although we are usually asked to cut back on salt, our bodies actually need a bit of salt for our health. There is even a special area on our tongues that enable us to taste salt fully. We are made that way. If we
are salt, then just as salt can help transmit nerve impulses throughout our bodies and help with the contraction and relaxation of muscles in our heart, then yes, we do contribute to the health of the church in one way or another. We add flavor; we preserve; we enhance. When we live as children of God, we preserve goodness in the world; our very presence adds flavor to a world that can be a little tasteless sometimes; and when we don’t hide, we light the path of others, and are
beacons of hope in the world.
- by Vivian Amu
The Existence of God
by Francois Fenelon
SECTION XVII. Of the Sun
But besides the constant course by which the sun forms days and nights it makes us sensible of another, by which for the space of six months it approaches one of the poles, and at the end of those six months goes back with equal speed to visit the other pole. This excellent order makes one sun sufficient for the whole earth. If it were of a
larger size at the same distance, it would set the whole globe on fire and the earth would be burnt to ashes; and if, at the same distance, it were lesser, the earth would be all over frozen and uninhabitable. Again, if in the same magnitude it were nearer us, it would set us in flames; and if more remote, we should not be able to live on the terrestrial globe for want of heat. What pair of compasses, whose circumference encircles both heaven and earth, has fixed such just
dimensions? That star does no less befriend that part of the earth from which it removes, in order to temper it, than that it approaches to favour it with its beams. Its kind, beneficent aspect fertilizes all it shines upon. This change produces that of the seasons, whose variety is so agreeable. The spring silences bleak frosty winds, brings forth blossoms and flowers, and promises fruits. The summer yields rich harvests. The autumn bestows the fruits
promised by the spring. The winter, which is a kind of night wherein man refreshes and rests himself, lays up all the treasures of the earth in its centre with no other design but that the next spring may display them with all the graces of novelty. Thus nature, variously attired, yields so many fine prospects that she never gives man leisure to be disgusted with what he possesses.
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