|
|
“Religion is nothing if it be not the vital act by which the entire mind seeks to save itself by clinging to the principle from which it draws its life. This act is prayer, by which term I understand no vain exercise of words, no mere repetition of certain sacred formulae,
but the very movement itself of the soul, putting itself in a personal relation of contact with the mysterious power of which it feels the presence—it may be before it even has a name by which to call it. Whenever this interior prayer is lacking, there is no religion; wherever, on the other hand, this prayer rises and stirs the soul, even in the absence of forms or doctrines, we have living religion.”
- William James, The Varieties of Religious
Experiences -
(Let yourself be moved to this deep, interior prayer this day.)
|
Daily Readings
1 Kgs 21:17-29; PS:51:3-4, 5-6ab, 11 and
16
Mt 5:43-48
Jesus said to his disciples:
"You have heard that it was said,
You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
But I say to you, love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of your heavenly Father,
for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good,
and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?
Do not the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet
your brothers only,
what is unusual about that?
Do not the pagans do the same?
So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect."
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.) Matthew 5:43-48 (Love your enemies) Jesus’ command to love our
enemies is one of his most challenging teachings. Because all people are children of God, we should love them all—even those with whom we disagree. Then will new things happen in our lives and in our world. • Is it possible to disagree with someone and still love that person? Think of a few people with whom you often disagree; how can you love them? • Do you believe it is ever appropriate for a Christian to kill someone with whom he or she disagrees? • Pray for the grace to be able to recognize all people as children of God.
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) ____________ Chapter 2: How by complacency we are made as little infants at our saviour's breasts. Nature surely lodges the breasts in the bosom to the end that, since the heat of the heart there concocts the milk, as the mother is the child's nurse, so her heart may be his foster-father, and the milk may be a food of love, better a hundred times than wine. Note, meantime, Theotimus, that the comparison of milk and wine seems so proper to the holy spouse that she is not content to have said once that the breasts of her beloved are better than wine, [227] but she
repeats it thrice. Wine, Theotimus, is the milk of grapes, and milk is the wine of the breasts, and the sacred spouse says that her well-beloved is to her a cluster of grapes, but of Cyprian grapes, [228] that is, of an excellent odour. Moses said that the Israelites might drink the most pure and excellent blood of the grape, and Jacob describing to his son Juda the fertility of the portion which he should have in the land of promise, prophesied under this figure the true felicity of Christians,
saying that the Saviour would wash his robe, that is, his holy Church, in the blood of the grape, [229] that is in his own blood. Now blood and milk are no more different than verjuice and wine, for as verjuice ripening by the sun's heat changes its colour, becomes a grateful wine, and is made good for food, so blood tempered by the heat of the heart takes a fair white colour, and becomes a food most suited for infants.
|
|
|
