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If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning—just as, if there were no light in the universe, and therefore no
creatures with eyes, we should never know that it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.
- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Mere Christianity (The quest for meaning in life is inescapable. Where have you found meaning
lately?) |
AActs 11:1-18; Ps 42:2-3; 43:3, 4
Jn 10:11-18 Jesus said:
“I am the good shepherd.
A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
A hired man, who is not a
shepherd
and whose sheep are not his own,
sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away,
and the wolf catches and scatters them.
This is because he works for pay and has no
concern for the sheep.
I am the good shepherd,
and I know mine and mine know me,
just as the Father knows me and I know the Father;
and I will lay down my life for the
sheep.
I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.
These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice,
and there will be one flock, one shepherd.
This is why the Father
loves me,
because I lay down my life in order to take it up again.
No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own.
I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again.
This command I have received from my Father.”
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.) John 10:1-10 (The Good Shepherd)
Jesus used many examples to explain the relationship between God and people. In today’s reading John recalls Jesus identifying himself as the sheepgate. Out in the fields, sheep were herded into corrals. Shepherds slept in the openings of the corrals to protect the sheep. So, too, has Jesus laid down his life for us. • Do you believe that following Jesus will enable you to experience life to the fullest? What is the full life? • Spend some time reflecting on Jesus’ promise to he committed to our growth and development. How does this make you feel?
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) ____________ BOOK III: OF THE PROGRESS AND PERFECTION OF LOVE Chapter 11: Of the union of the blessed spirits with God, in the vision of the divinity.
But in heaven, Theotimus,--Ah! my God, what a favour!--The Divinity will unite itself to our understanding without the mediation of any species or representation at all, but it will itself apply and join itself to our understanding, making itself in such sort present unto it, that that inward presence shall be instead of a representation or species. O God! what sweetness shall it be for our understanding to be united for ever to its
sovereign object, receiving not its representation but its presence, not the picture or species, but the very essence of its divine truth and majesty. We shall be there as most happy children of the divinity, and shall have the honour to be fed with the divine substance itself, taken into our soul by the mouth of our understanding, and what surpasses all sweetness is, that as mothers are not contented with feeding their babes with their milk, which is their own substance, if they do not also put
the breast into their mouth, that these may receive their substance, not in a spoon or other instrument, but even in, and by this same substance (so that this maternal substance serves as well for food, as for a conduit to convey it to the dear little suckling);--so God our Father is not contented to make us receive his proper substance in our understanding, that is, to make us see his divinity, but by an abyss of his sweetness, wills himself to apply his substance to our soul, to the end that
we may no longer understand it by species or representation but in itself and by itself; so that his fatherly and eternal substance is both species and object to our understanding. Then these divine promises shall be fulfilled in an excellent manner: I will lead her into the wilderness, and I will speak to her heart, and give her suck. Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad with her. That you may suck and be filled with the breasts of her consolations, that you may milk out, and flow with delights
from the abundance of her glory: you shall be carried at the breasts, and upon the knees they shall caress you.
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