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If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were
never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main
object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity Are you in touch with this desire for your "true country?" What helps to keep this desire alive?
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Daily Readings
Acts 8:1b-8
Psalm 66:1-3a,
4-5, 6-7a John 6:35-40 Jesus said to the crowd:
‘I am the bread of life.
He who comes to me will never be hungry;
he who believes in me will never thirst.
But, as I have told you,
you can see me and still you do not believe.
All that the Father gives me will come to me,
and whoever comes to me I shall not turn him away;
because I have come from heaven, not to do my own will,
but to do the will of the one who sent me.
Now the will of him who sent
me
is that I should lose nothing of all that he has given to me,
and that I should raise it up on the last day.
Yes, it is my Father’s will
that whoever sees the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life,
and that I shall raise him up on the last
day.’
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.) John 6: 35-40 (We shall be raised up) Today's reading teaches us a tremendous lesson. Jesus' Resurrection demonstrated the power of God over the forces of evil and guaranteed that those who are with Jesus shall themselves be raised up. This shall be true for us as long as we strive to do the will of the one who has sent Jesus. * Grace refers to all those unearned blessings that help make us who we are. Reflect on some of the
graces from your early life and family that have helped form you (parents, teachers, place of birth. for example). List these in your journal and give thanks to God for them. * Spend some time with the passage I have come not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
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.
Love speaks not only by the tongue, but by the eyes, by sighs, and play of features; yea, silence and dumbness are words for it. My heart hath said to thee, my face hath sought thee: thy face, O Lord, will I still seek. [261] My eyes have failed for thy word, saying: When wilt thou comfort me? [262] Hear my prayer, O Lord, and my supplication: give ear to my tears. [263]
Let not the apple of thy eye cease, [264] said the desolate heart of the inhabitants of Jerusalem to their own city. Do you mark, Theotimus, how the silence of afflicted lovers speaks by the apple of their eye, and by tears? Truly the chief exercise in mystical theology is to speak to God and to hear God speak in the bottom of the heart; and because this discourse passes in most secret aspirations and inspirations, we term it a silent conversing. Eyes speak to eyes, and heart to heart, and
none understand what passes save the sacred lovers who speak.
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