Forum on Christianity and Spirituality
October 3, 2024, 7:30 p.m. CDT Mary - A Woman Clothed With the Son
by Carla Mae Streeter, OP See https://shalomplace.com/inetmin/forum.html for more information and registration.
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Message of the Day
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Jesus lived His life in complete dependence upon God, as we all ought to live our lives. But such dependence does not destroy human personality. We are never so fully and so truly personal as when we are living in complete dependence upon God. This is how personality comes into its own. This is humanity at its most personal.
… Donald M. Baillie (1887-1954), God was in Christ: an essay on incarnation
and atonement, Scribner, 1955, p. 93 (Our deepest, truest identify is realized in close relationship with God. How do you experience this?)
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Readings of the Day
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1 Cor 12:31-13:13; Ps 33:2-3, 4-5, 12 and 22
Lk 7:31-35
Jesus said to the crowds:
“To what shall I compare the people of this generation?
What are they like?
They are like children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, but you did not
dance.
We sang a dirge, but you did not weep.’ For John the Baptist came neither eating food nor drinking wine,
and you said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’
The Son of Man came eating and drinking and you said,
‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard,
a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’
But wisdom is vindicated by all her
children.” USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Scripture
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““If I give everything I have to feed the poor and hand over my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” —1 Corinthians 13:3 Without love,
even the best things in your life mean nothing. Therefore, the most important questions in the world are: Do you love the Lord with all your heart and soul? (Lk 10:27) Do you love your neighbor as yourself? (Lk 10:27) Do you love your brothers and sisters in Christ? (1 Jn 4:7) Do you love your enemies? (Lk 6:27, 35) Are you growing in love? To answer these questions, we must know the meaning of love. “The way we came to understand love was
that [Jesus] laid down His life for us; we too must lay down our lives for our brothers” and sisters (1 Jn 3:16). Love is not a feeling or an experience; rather, it is a commitment to be faithful to others even if we must die for them. Love is long-suffering and bearing others’ burdens (see 1 Cor 13:4). It is not jealous, proud, and selfish; it is forgiving (see 1 Cor 13:5). The perfect picture of love is Jesus hanging on the cross. “There is no greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for
one’s friends” (Jn 15:13). “It is precisely in this that God proves His love for us” (Rm 5:8). To love authentically, more deeply, and even completely (see 1 Jn 4:12, 17, 18), we must become purified. We are purified by obedience, especially by obeying the Lord in being faithful and true to the people He puts in our lives (1 Pt 1:22). “God is Love” (1 Jn 4:8, 16). Live in love (Jn
15:9-10). Prayer: Father, may love displace fear in my life (1 Jn 4:18). Promise: “Love never fails.” —1 Cor 13:8 Presentation Ministries
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Spiritual Reading
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Readings from Jesus Alive in Our Lives, by Philip St. Romain. Ave Maria Press, 1985. Contemplative Ministries, Inc. 2011. Part Three, Gift of the Spirit Chapter : The Holy Spirit and the
Trinity - Selected quotes
When we turn to the writings of the early Fathers of the Church (2nd and 3rd centuries A.D.), we find continuing references to the persons of the Trinity. Do we not have one God, one Christ, and one Spirit of Grace poured out upon us?
(St. Clement, 80 A.D.)
The three days before the luminaries were created are types of the Trinity: God, His Word, and His Wisdom. (St. Theophilus of Antioch, 181 A.D.)
For the Church, although dispersed through the whole world even to the ends of the earth, has received from the Apostles and their disciples the faith in the one God, Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth and sea and all that is in
them; and in one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became flesh for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who announced through the prophets the dispensations and the comings . . . (St. Irenaeus, 199 A.D.)
We do indeed believe that there is only one God; but we believe that under this dispensation . . . there is also a Son of this one only God, His Word, who proceeded from Him and through whom all things were made
. . . We believe that He (the Son) sent down from the Father, in accord with his own promise, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father and in the Son and in the Holy Spirit. . . the Unity is distributed in a Trinity. Placed in order, the Three are Father, Son, and Spirit. They are Three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in kind; of one
substance, however, and one condition, and one power . . . (Tertullian, 213 A.D.)
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