|
Message of the Day
|
|
If we can, by God’s grace, turn ourselves entirely to Him, and put aside everything else in order to speak with Him and worship Him, this does not mean that we can always imagine Him or feel His presence. Neither imagination nor feeling are required for a full conversion of our whole being to God. Nor is intense concentration on an idea of God especially desirable. Hard as it is to convey in human language, there is a very real and very recognizable (but almost entirely undefinable)
Presence of God, in which we confront Him in prayer knowing Him by Whom we are known, aware of Him Who is aware of us, loving Him by Whom we know ourselves to be loved. - Thomas Merton
(How does this quote speak to you? What kind of practice doees it invite?)
|
|
Readings of the Day
|
The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from
Jerusalem gathered round Jesus, and they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with unclean hands, that is, without washing them. For the Pharisees, and the Jews in general, follow the tradition of the elders and never eat without washing their arms as far as the elbow; and on returning from the market place they never eat without first sprinkling themselves. There are also many other observances which have been handed down to them concerning the washing of cups and pots and bronze
dishes. So these Pharisees and scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not respect the tradition of the elders but eat their food with unclean hands?’ He answered, ‘It was of you hypocrites that Isaiah so rightly prophesied in this passage of scripture: This people honours me only with lip-service, while their hearts are far from
me. The worship they offer me is worthless, the doctrines they teach are only human regulations. You put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions.’ And he said to them, ‘How ingeniously you get round the
commandment of God in order to preserve your own tradition! For Moses said: Do your duty to your father and your mother, and, Anyone who curses father or mother must be put to death. But you say, “If a man says to his father or mother: Anything I have that I might have used to help you is Corban (that is, dedicated to God), then he is forbidden from that moment to do anything for his father or mother.” In this way you make God’s word null and void for the sake of your tradition which you have
handed down. And you do many other things like this.’ USCCB lectionary
|
|
Reflection on the Scripture
|
Of all creation, only human beings are made in the image and likeness of God. When God looked at the oceans and mountains He had created, He said, “good” (Gn 1:12, 18). After God created human beings, He said, “very good” (Gn 1:31). We
are the crown of creation. We are God’s pride and joy.
Consequently, Satan, in his rebellion against and hatred of God, thought that disfiguring God’s prize creation would be a prime way to offend God. So Satan seduced us into yielding to his temptations. In that way, he wounded and warped human nature. God’s masterpiece seemed ruined. Then God sent His Son to become a man. Jesus, the God-Man, is the perfect Image of the Father (Col 1:15) and the perfect man
(Eph 4:13). By being baptized into Jesus and by imitating Him, we “are being transformed from glory to glory into His very image by the Lord Who is the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:18). In Baptism, our disfigured, wounded, and warped human nature is buried, and we received a new nature by which we share in the divine nature (2 Pt 1:4). Thus, as new creations in Jesus (see Gal 6:15), we are even more in the image and likeness of God than when human beings were first created. The Lord has worked all things
together for the good of those who love Him (Rm 8:28). Baptized into Christ and made holy by the Spirit, we live as Christ’s disciples, restored and transformed into an even better image and likeness of God. We are the crown of God’s new creation. We are more than His pride and joy. We are His sons and daughters. Alleluia! Prayer: Father, thank You for adopting me as Your child. Promise: “God blessed them, saying: ‘Be fertile and multiply; fill
the earth and subdue it.’ ” —Gn 1:28 Presentation Ministries
|
|
Spiritual Reading
|
|
|
|
The Practice of the Presence of God: The Best Rule of Holy Life, by Brother Lawrence (1611 - 1691). Christian Classics Ethereal Library.
https://ccel.org/ccel/lawrence/practice/practice Fourth Conversation
That when we enter upon the spiritual we should consider, and examine to the bottom, what we are. And then we should find ourselves worthy of all contempt, and such as do not deserve the name of
Christians, subject to all kinds of misery, and numberless accidents, which trouble us, and cause perpetual vicissitudes in our health, in our humours, in our internal and external dispositions: in fine, persons whom GOD would humble by many pains and labours, as well within as without. After this, we should not wonder that troubles, temptations, oppositions and contradictions, happen to us from men. We ought, on the contrary, to submit ourselves to them, and bear them as long as GOD pleases, as
things highly advantageous to us.
Paperback and eBook versions
|
Please support this outreach with a tax-deductible donation. |
|
|
