|
|
Seek what suffices, seek what is enough, and don’t desire more. Whatever goes beyond that produces anxiety not relief: it will weigh you down instead of lifting you up.
- St. Augustine (What desires of yours go beyond what "suffices" or "is enough"? How do these desires and attachments "produce anxiety" in your life?)
|
Daily Readings
Daniel 3:14-20, 91-92, 95; Daniel 3:52, 53, 54, 55,
56 John 8:31-42 To the Jews who believed in him Jesus said:
‘If you make my word your home
you will indeed be my disciples,
you will learn the truth
and the truth will make you free.’
They answered, ‘We are descended from Abraham and we have never been the slaves of anyone; what do you mean, “You will be made free”?’ Jesus replied:
‘I tell you most solemnly,
everyone who commits sin is a slave.
Now the slave’s place in the house is not assured,
but the son’s place is assured.
So if the Son makes you free,
you will be free indeed.
I know that you are descended from Abraham;
but in spite of that you want to kill me
because nothing I say has penetrated into you.
What I, for my part, speak of
is what I have seen
with my Father;
but you, you put into action
the lessons learnt from your father.’
They repeated, ‘Our father is Abraham.’ Jesus said to them:
‘If you were Abraham’s children,
you would do as Abraham did.
As it is, you want to kill me
when I tell you the truth
as I have learnt it from God;
that is not what Abraham did.
What you are doing is what your father does.’
‘We were not born of prostitution,’ they went on ‘we have one father: God.’ Jesus answered:
‘If God were your father, you would love
me,
since I have come here from God;
yes, I have come from him;
not that I came because I chose,
no, I was sent, and by him.’
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.) John 8:31-42 (The meaning of
freedom.) It is a paradox that untamed passions bring enslavement, whereas self-discipline brings freedom. Jesus promises that the discipline of living according to his teaching will bring freedom, for he is the Son who reveals to us the human way to God. • What does freedom mean to you? What situations restrict your experience of freedom? What
limits your exercise of freedom? • Resolve to discipline a passion that has caused you to feel enslaved. Pray for the grace to have control over this passion.
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) ____________ BOOK VI: OF THE EXERCISES OF LOVE IN PRAYER
Complacency for St. Francis de Sales means contentment to simply be with God, to rest in God. Chapter 1: A description of
mystical theology, which is no other thing than prayer.
We have two principal exercises of our love towards God, the one affective, the other effective, or, as S. Bernard calls it, active; by that we affect or love God and what he loves, by this we serve God and do what he ordains; that joins us to God's goodness, this makes us execute his will: the one fills us with complacency, benevolence, yearnings, desires, aspirations and
spiritual ardours, causing us to practise the sacred infusions and minglings of our spirit with God's; the other establishes in us the solid resolution, the constancy of heart, and the inviolable obedience requisite to effect the ordinances of the divine will, and to suffer, accept, approve and embrace, all that comes from his good-pleasure; the one makes us pleased in God, the other makes us please God: by the one we conceive, by the other we bring forth: by the one we place God upon our heart,
as a standard of love, around which all our affections are ranged, by the other we place him upon our arm, as a sword of love whereby we effect all the exploits of virtue.
Now the first exercise consists principally in prayer; in which so many different interior movements take place that to express them all is impossible, not only by reason of their number, but also for their nature and quality, which being spiritual, they cannot but
be very rarefied, and almost imperceptible to our understanding. The cleverest and best trained hounds are often at fault; they lose the strain and scent by the variety of sleights which the stag uses, who makes doubles, puts them on a wrong scent, and practises a thousand arts to escape the cry; and we oftentimes lose the scent and knowledge of our own heart in the infinite diversity of motions by which it turns itself, in so many ways and with such promptitude, that one cannot discern its
track. God alone is he, who, by his infinite wisdom, sees, knows and penetrates all the turnings and windings of our hearts: he understands our thoughts from afar, he finds out our traces, doubles and turnings; his knowledge therein is admirable, surpassing our capacity and reach. Certainly if our spirits would turn back upon themselves by reflections, and by reconsiderations of their acts, we should enter into labyrinths from which
we should find no outgate; and it would require an attention quite beyond our power, to think what our thoughts are, to consider our considerations, to observe all our spiritual observations, to discern that we discern, to remember that we remember,--these acts would be mazes from which we could not deliver ourselves. This treatise, then, is difficult, especially to one who is not a person of great prayer.
|
|
|
