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"God is more eager to bestow blessings on us than we are to receive them."
- St. Augustine -
(What blessings would you like for God to bestow on you today? Consider deeply, then ask in good faith.)
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Daily Readings
1 Sm 1:9-20; 1 Samuel
2:1, 4-5, 6-7, 8abcd Mk 1:21-28 Jesus came to Capernaum with his followers,
and on the sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught.
The
people were astonished at his teaching,
for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.
In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit;
he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?
I know who you are–the Holy One of God!”
Jesus rebuked him and said, “Quiet! Come out of him!”
The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came
out of him.
All were amazed and asked one another,
“What is this?
A new teaching with authority.
He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.”
His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.) Mark 1: 21-28 (An exorcism) The people of Jesus' time
believed that myriad evil spirits ruled the earth. Some of these spirits, they believed, were angels who had fallen from grace, while others were evil people who had died. Jesus' healings were thus understood in terms of displacing an evil spirit with the Holy Spirit. * What kind of evil spirit keeps you from loving yourself as God loves you? What changes in your self and/or
the circumstances in which you live would make it easier for you to love yourself? Make a plan to begin working toward these changes. * Spend some time with the verse, "What have you to do with me, Jesus of Nazareth?" Listen to your thoughts as Jesus responds.
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) ____________ BOOK IV: OF THE DECAY AND RUIN OF CHARITY Chapter 6: That we ought to acknowledge all the love we bear to God to be from God The curious little fish, called echeneis, or remora, has indeed the power to stay or not to stay a ship sailing on the high sea under full sail: but it has not the power to make it set sail, or proceed or arrive; it can hinder motion, but cannot give it. Our free-will can stay and hinder the course of the inspiration and when the favourable gale of God's grace swells the sails of our soul it is in our power to refuse consent, and
thereby to hinder the effect of the wind's favour: but when our spirit sails along, and makes its voyage prosperously, it is not we that make the gale of the inspiration blow for us, nor we that make our sails swell with it, nor we that give motion to the ship of our heart; but we simply receive the gale sent from heaven, consent to its motion, and let our ship sail under it, not hindering it by the remora of our resistance. It is the inspiration then which impresses on our free-will the happy
and sweet influence whereby it not only makes it see the beauty of good, but also heats, helps, and strengthens it, and moves it so sweetly that it thus turns and freely flows out towards what is good.
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