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I inquired what iniquity was, and found it to be no substance, but the perversion of the will, turned aside from Thee, O God, the
Supreme, towards these lower things.
- St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Confessions (Turning from "the lower" to "the Highest." How are you being called to do so
this day?) |
Acts 16:11-15; Ps 149:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6a and 9b
Jn 15:26—16:4a Jesus said to his disciples:
"When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father,
the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father,
he will testify to me.
And you also testify,
because you have been with me from the beginning. "I have told you this so that you may not fall away.
They will expel you from the synagogues;
in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you
will think he is offering worship to God.
They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me.
I have told you this so that when their hour comes
you may remember that I told you."
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.) John 15:26- 16: 4 (We must hear witness)
With the Resurrection came a mandate: we are to spread the news of the forgiveness of sin and the victory over death which Jesus brought. To help us in this endeavor, God’s own Spirit—the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead—will be our helper. • How do you
feel about sharing your religious beliefs with family members? With friends? With working acquaintances? • What are some key issues facing your local secular community? How involved are you in working through these issues? • Pray to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
(Do this with family and/or friends, if possible.)
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) ____________ BOOK III: OF THE PROGRESS AND PERFECTION OF LOVE Chapter 12: Of the progress and perfection of love.
The most sweet S. Bernard, as yet a little boy at Chastillon-sur-Seine, was waiting in Church on Christmas night for the divine office to begin, and whilst waiting the poor child fell into a light slumber, during which (O God what sweetness!) he saw in spirit, yet in a vision very distinct and clear, how the Son of God, having espoused human nature, and becoming a little child in His Mother's most pure womb, was with a humble sweetness mingled with a celestial
majesty, virginally born of her:--As a bridegroom coming out of his bride-chamber: --a vision, Theotimus, which so replenished the loving heart of the little Bernard with gladness, jubilation and spiritual delights, that he had all his life an extreme sense of it, and therefore, though afterwards as a sacred bee he ever culled out of all the divine mysteries the honey of a thousand sweet and heavenly consolations, yet had he a more particular sweetness in the solemnity of the Nativity, and spoke
with a singular relish of this birth of his Master. But Ah! I beseech thee, Theotimus, if a mystical and imaginary vision of the temporal and human birth of the Son of God, by which he proceeded man from a woman, virgin from a virgin, ravishes and so highly delights a child's heart, what shall it be when our spirits, gloriously illuminated with the light of glory, shall see this eternal birth by which the Son proceeds, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, divinely and
eternally! Then shall our spirit be joined by an incomprehensible complacency to this object of delight, and by an unchangeable attention remain united to it for ever.
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