“Feelings are great liars. If Christians worshipped only when they felt like it, there would be precious little worship. We think that if we
don’t feel something there can be no authenticity in doing it. But the wisdom of God says something different: that we can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting. Worship is an act that develops feelings
for God, not a feeling for God that is expressed in an act of worship."
- Eugene Peterson (author of The Message bible) (This is true about many aspects of life, is it not?)
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Christianity and Spirituality monthly forum
Tonight: 7:30 - 8:30 p.m. CDT
Topic: Keeping the First Great Commandment of Jesus
More info via the link below
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2 Tm 2:8-15; Ps 25:4-5ab, 8-9, 10 and 14
Mk 12:28-34
One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him,
"Which is the first of all the commandments?"
Jesus replied, "The first is this:
Hear, O Israel!
The Lord our God is Lord alone!
You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, with all your mind,
and with all your strength.
The second is this:
You shall love
your neighbor as yourself.
There is no other commandment greater than these."
The scribe said to him, "Well said, teacher.
You are right in saying,
He is One and there is no
other than he.
And to love him with all your heart,
with all your understanding,
with all your strength,
and to love your neighbor as yourself
is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."
And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding,
he said to him, "You are not far from the Kingdom of God."
And no one dared to ask
him any more questions.
Reflection on the Scriptures
Mark 12:28-34 (The two great commandments) The two great religious questions are: What kind of God is God? and What does God expect of human beings? Jesus answers these questions in today’s reading by emphasizing the importance of love. • Write a short statement
about what it means to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Do these reflections describe your love of God? • Augustine maintained that loving and praising God is the greatest joy a human being can experience. Do you agree? • Pray for the grace to love God more deeply from Praying the Daily Gospels
Psychic Energy and Contemplation by James
Arraj From St. John of the Cross and Dr. C. J. Jung, Part III, Chapter 7. Inner Growth Books, 1986. Temptations and Contemplation "At other times another abominable spirit, which Isaias calls Spiritus vertiginis, is allowed to molest them not in order
that they may fall, but that it may try them. This spirit darkens their senses in such a way that it fills them with numerous scruples and perplexities, so confusing that, as they judge, they can never, by any means, be satisfied concerning them, neither can they find any help for their judgment in counsel or thought."(26) The introduction of temptations to scrupulosity recalls St. John's trials in prison and presents a new facet in the phenomena that accompany the transition to contemplation. The root of scrupulosity lies in the inability to make a judgment about the value of certain conscious contents, whether they be good, bad or indifferent. The sufferers of this torment, as St. John says, cannot find any help for their judgment in counsel or thought, which is an indication that the
problem does not lie in the realm of conscious decision. Therefore, we should look to the unconscious and its highly energized contents which are attempting to manifest themselves by way of scrupulosity. Those neglected contents, since they have no ordinary avenues of expression, emerge by way of various states of guilt and anxiety, and fasten themselves to conscious contents. The affect which then accompanies these conscious contents is out of proportion to the actual contents themselves,
though in many cases these states of affect are selective in their choice of what they fasten onto. Scrupulous people are often scrupulous about a particular kind of thing, and this class of contents is related to the repressed and unassimilated contents in the unconscious.
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