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Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. - Mahatma
Gandhi (The really difficult work begins at the level of thought. What helps you maintain discipline in your thinking? What weakens this discipline?) |
2 Kgs 5:1-15ab; PS 42:2, 3; 43:3, 4
Lk 4:24-30 Jesus said to the people in the synagogue at Nazareth: “Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong. But he passed through the midst of them and went
away.
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.) Luke 4:24-30: A confrontation in
Nazareth Since Jesus grew up in Nazareth, it is understandable that the people of his town thought they knew him better than most. They could not accept his special ministry, however, so Jesus confronted them for their lack of faith. • Have you ever felt boxed-in or limited by close
friends and family members who are interested only in that part of you with which they are comfortable? What is your response to this? • Is there some friend or family member whom you need to get to know better? Resolve to communicate with that person about something new this week.
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) ____________ BOOK III: OF THE PROGRESS AND PERFECTION OF LOVE Chapter 8: Of the incomparable love which the mother of Christ, our Blessed Lady, had. Besides, dear Theotimus, do you not know that bad dreams, voluntarily procured by the depraved thoughts of the day, are in some sort sins, inasmuch as they are consequences and execution of the malice preceding? Even so the dreams which proceed from the holy affections of our waking time, are reputed virtuous and holy. O God! Theotimus, what a consolation it is to hear S. Chrysostom recounting on a certain day to his
people the vehemence of his love towards them. "The necessity of sleep," said he, "pressing our eyelids, the tyranny of our love towards you excites the eyes of our mind: and many a time while I sleep methinks I speak unto you, for the soul is wont to see in a dream by imagination what she thinks in the daytime. Thus while we see you not with the eyes of the flesh, we see you with the eyes of charity." O sweet Jesus! what dreams must thy most holy Mother have had when she slept, while her heart
watched? Did she not dream that she had thee yet in her womb, or hanging at her sacred breasts and sweetly pressing those virginal lilies? Ah! what sweetness was in this soul. Perhaps she often dreamed that as Our Saviour had formerly slept in her bosom, as a tender lambkin upon the soft flank of its mother, so she slept in his pierced side, as a white dove in the cave of an assured rock: so that her sleep was wholly like to an ecstasy as regards the spirit, though as regards the body it was a
sweet and grateful unwearying and rest. But if ever she dreamed, as did the ancient Joseph, of her future greatness,--when in heaven she should be clothed with the sun, crowned with stars and having the moon under her feet, [166] that is, wholly environed with her Son's glory, crowned with that of the Saints, and having the universe under her--or if ever, like Jacob, she saw the progress and fruit of the redemption made by her Son, for the love of the angels and of men;--Theotimus, who could
ever imagine the immensity of so great delights? O what conferences with her dear child! What delights on every side!
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