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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Yes, I pray that my pain might be removed, that it might cease; but more so, I pray for the strength to bear it, the grace to benefit from it, and the devotion to offer it up to God as a sacrifice of praise.
-Joni Eareckson Tada (What pain can you offer up in this manner?)
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Readings of the Day
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Prv 30:5-9; Ps 119:29, 72, 89, 101, 104,
163 Lk 9:1-6 Jesus summoned the Twelve and gave them power and authority
over all demons and to cure diseases,
and he sent them to proclaim the Kingdom of God
and to heal the sick.
He said to them, "Take nothing for the
journey,
neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money,
and let no one take a second tunic.
Whatever house you enter, stay there and leave from there.
And as for those who do not welcome you,
when you leave that town,
shake the dust from your feet in
testimony against them."
Then they set out and went from village to village
proclaiming the Good News and curing diseases
everywhere. USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Scripture
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“Add nothing to His words, lest He reprove you, and you be exposed as a deceiver.” —Proverbs 30:6
When the Bible uses the phrase, “God’s words,” it
does not refer only to the Bible. The Bible refers to itself as “the Scriptures,” that is, the written Word of God (see Mt 21:42; 22:29). “God’s words” include the Scriptures, and also the authoritative teaching of the Church which preceded and is the basis of the Scriptures. So in Proverbs 30:6, the Lord commands us to add nothing to the teachings of the Church, including both its teaching through the Bible and its oral, authoritative teachings throughout the
centuries. However, many people nullify God’s Word in favor of merely human traditions (Mk 7:13). For example, they take pop-psychology and the propaganda of secular humanist institutions as the gospel truth, while denying the truth of the Gospel. At the same time, we are arrogant and confused enough to subtract from God’s Word. We are tempted to take less and less of it
authoritatively, as we ignore Sacred Tradition and water down the Bible. In the last few verses of the Bible, the Lord warns us: “If anyone adds to these words, God will visit him with all the plagues described herein! If anyone takes from the words of this prophetic book, God will take away his share in the tree of life and the holy city described here!” (Rv 22:18-19) Prayer: Father, Your words are spirit and life (Jn 6:63). May I
know and live them. May I submit to them as they are taught by the Church. Promise: “So they set out and went from village to village, spreading the good news everywhere and curing diseases.” —Lk 9:6 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
We can see, here, a deepening grasp of this Christian mystery as the decades move along. Tertullian, in particular, articulates an understanding informed by Greek philosophy that was to take fuller expression in the Council of Nicea a little over a century later.
How can we make sense of this idea of Three Persons and one divine nature, especially if philosophical terms used to explain it traditionally don’t make sense to us?
I think we can use our own human experience as an analogy, here. Without ever thinking much about it, I’m sure we all grasp intuitively that even though one man and another, or one woman and another, are different
individuals, what they share in common is the possession of a human nature. It is this human nature even more than the way they dress or speak that makes them human beings. Because they are human, you expect to see certain powers at work in them, or that they will possess similar capacities for feeling and understanding. I think we can do the same with God. We can analogize from our human experience that there can be but one divine nature or supernatural realm, with its
distinct powers (omniscience, omnipotence, etc.) and with three Persons—Father, Son, and Spirit—possessing it by nature. Two men might have very different gifts, but they are no less human because they are different; so, too, the Persons of the Trinity have different roles in the work of creation and salvation, but that makes them no less divine.
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