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Amma Syncletica said, “Many live on the mountains and behave as if they were living amidst the uproar of a city, and they are lost. It is possible while living amongst a crowd to be inwardly solitary, and while living alone to be inwardly beset by the
crowd.”
- Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Syncletica - (Spiritual solitude is difficult! To live before God, knowing what you know and feeling what you feel — that is a start.)
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Daily Readings
Hebrews 10:11-18; Psalm 110:1, 2, 3,
4 Mark 4:1-20 Jesus began to teach by the lakeside, but such a huge crowd gathered round him that he got into a boat on the lake and sat there. The people were all along the shore, at the water’s edge. He taught them many things in parables, and in the course of his teaching he said to them, ‘Listen! Imagine a sower going out to sow. Now it happened that, as he sowed, some of
the seed fell on the edge of the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some seed fell on rocky ground where it found little soil and sprang up straightaway, because there was no depth of earth; and when the sun came up it was scorched and, not having any roots, it withered away. Some seed fell into thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it produced no crop. And some seeds fell into rich soil and, growing tall and strong, produced crop; and yielded thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold.’
And he said, ‘Listen, anyone who has ears to hear!’
When he was alone, the Twelve, together with the others who formed his company, asked what the parables meant. He told them, ‘The secret of the kingdom of God is given to you, but to those who are outside everything comes in parables, so that they may see and see again, but not perceive; may hear and hear again, but not understand; otherwise they might be converted and be forgiven.’
He said to them, ‘Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand any of the parables? What the sower is sowing is the word. Those on the edge of the path where the word is sown are people who have no sooner heard it than Satan comes and carries away the word that was sown in them. Similarly, those who receive the seed on patches of rock are people who, when first they hear the word, welcome it at once with joy. But they have no root in them, they
do not last; should some trial come, or some persecution on account of the word, they fall away at once. Then there are others who receive the seed in thorns. These have heard the word, but the worries of this world, the lure of riches and all the other passions come in to choke the word, and so it produces nothing. And there are those who have received the seed in rich soil: they hear the word and accept it and yield a harvest, thirty and sixty and a
hundredfold.’
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.) Mark 4: 1-20 (Parable of the Sower) Jesus tries to teach about spiritual matters by using analogies to human experiences. His parables are attempts to tease the mind into understanding his message. * Apply this parable to your present situation, letting the seed be the Word of God and the field be your own heart rather than society. * What are examples of footpaths, rocky ground,
thorns, and fertile ground in your life? How can you better cultivate your field to give the Word fertile ground?
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) ____________ Chapter 10: How the desire to praise God makes us aspire to heaven.
The amorous soul, perceiving that she
cannot satiate the desire she has to praise her well-beloved while she lives in this world, and knowing that the praises which are given in heaven to the divine goodness are sung to an incomparably more delightful air,--O God! says she, how much to be praised are the praises which are poured forth by those blessed spirits before the throne of my heavenly king; how blessed are their blessings! O what a happiness is it to hear this melody of the most holy eternity, in which by the sweetest
concurrence of dissimilar and varied tones, are made those admirable accords--all the parts mingling together with a continued sequence and marvellous linking of progressive movements--by which perpetual Alleluias do resound on every side.
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