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Those who run from God in the morning will scarcely find him the rest of the day.
- John Bunyan (It does seem that there is a “window of openness” in the early morning. Don't
miss out on it.)
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Daily Readings
Hebrews 2:14-18; Psalm 105:1-2, 3-4, 6-7,
8-9 Mark 1:29-39 On leaving the synagogue, Jesus went with James and John straight to the house of Simon and Andrew. Now Simon’s mother-in-law had gone to bed with fever, and they told him about her straightaway. He went to her, took her by the hand and helped her up. And the fever left her and she began to wait on them. That evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were sick and those who were possessed by devils. The whole town came crowding round the door, and he cured many who were suffering from diseases of one kind or another; he also cast out many devils, but he would not allow them to speak, because they knew who he was. In the morning, long before dawn, he got up and left the house, and went off to a lonely place
and prayed there. Simon and his companions set out in search of him, and when they found him they said, ‘Everybody is looking for you.’ He answered, ‘Let us go elsewhere, to the neighbouring country towns, so that I can preach there too, because that is why I came.’ And he went all through Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out
devils.
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.) Mark 1:29-38 (A full day of ministering) The healing of Simon Peter's mother-in-law shows us that Jesus did not heal only to impress the masses. He extends his healing touch because people need healing. He travels the countryside to touch many. * Jesus' day was a mixture of solitude and action. Do you believe there is a good balance between these disciplines in your own life? How can you better balance
them? * Pray for the grace to be more willing to share yourself with others.
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) ____________ Chapter 9: How benevolence makes us call all creatures to the praise of God.
The heart that is taken and
pressed with a desire of praising the divine goodness more than it is able, after many endeavours goes oftentimes out of itself, to invite all creatures to help it in its design. As did the three children in the furnace, in that admirable canticle of benedictions, by which they excite all that is in heaven, on earth and under the earth, to render thanks to the eternal God, by blessing and praising him sovereignly. So the glorious Psalmist, quite mastered by holily disordered passion moving him
to praise God, goes without order, leaping from heaven to earth, and from earth to heaven again, invoking angels, fishes, mountains, waters, dragons, birds, serpents, fire, hail, mists, assembling by his desires all creatures,--to the end that they all may conspire to lovingly magnify their Creator, some in their own persons celebrating the divine praise, others affording matter of praise by the wonders of their different properties, which manifest their Maker's power; so that this divine royal
Psalmist, having composed a great number of psalms with this inscription: Praise God: after he had run through all creatures, holily inviting them to bless the divine Majesty, and gone over a great variety of means and instruments proper for the celebration of the praises of this eternal goodness, in the end, as falling down through lack of breath, closes his sacred song with this ejaculation: Let every spirit praise the Lord; [249] that is, let all that has life, neither live nor breathe but to
bless its Creator, according to the invitation he had elsewhere given: O magnify the Lord with me; and let us extol his name together. [250]
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