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If I wait to be perfect before I love myself, I will always be unsatisfied and ungrateful. If I wait until all the flaws, chips, and cracks disappear, I will be the cup that stands on the shelf and is never used.
- Joyce Rupp, The Cup of Our Life
(The practice of unconditional love and self-acceptance is one of the most difficult. Just drop all self-judgment. Drop it! God's love and acceptance suffices.)
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HOS 11:1-4, 8E-9; PS 80:2AC AND 3B, 15-16
MT 10:7-15
Jesus said to his Apostles:
“As you go, make this proclamation:
‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’
Cure the sick, raise the dead,
cleanse the lepers, drive out demons.
Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.
Do not take gold or silver or copper for your belts;
no sack for the journey, or a second tunic,
or sandals, or walking stick.
The laborer deserves his keep.
Whatever town or village you enter, look for a worthy person in it,
and stay there until you leave.
As you enter a house, wish it peace.
If the house is worthy,
let your peace come upon it;
if not, let your peace return to you.
Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words--
go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet.
Amen, I say to you, it will be more tolerable
for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment
than for that town.”
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.)
Matthew 10:7-15 (The command to travel light)
Jesus sends his disciples out into the towns and countryside with a simple message and a powerful ministry. They are to prepare the people for his own visitation. The disciples are told that though this task is worthy of room and board, some will reject them. Thus it is for all who try to be ministers of the gospel.
• Do you do your share to help support people committed to full-time ministry in the Church? What can you contribute of your time, talent, and money?
• Spend some time with the passage ‘The gifts you have received return as gifts.” What are some of your gifts? How do you share these with others? What happens to you when you cling to your giftedness?
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
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BOOK III: OF THE PROGRESS AND PERFECTION OF LOVE
Chapter 1: That holy love may be augmented more and more in each one of us
Go then, says S. Bernard; go, I say with him; go, my dear Theotimus, and admit no other bounds than those of life, and as long as it remains run after this Saviour. But run ardently and swiftly: for what better will you be for following him, if you be not so happy as to take hold of him! Let us hear the Prophet: I have inclined my heart to do thy justifications for ever, he does not say that he
will do them for a time only, but for ever, and because he desires eternally to do well, he shall have an eternal reward. Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. Accursed are they who are defiled, who walk not in the law of the Lord: it is only for the devil to say that he will sit in the sides of the north. Detestable one, wilt thou sit? Ah! knowest thou not that thou art upon the way, and that the way is not made to sit down but to go in, and it is
so made to go in, that going is called making way. And God speaking to one of his greatest friends says: Walk before me and be perfect.
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