"Praised be my Lord for our sister, mother earth, which sustains and keeps us, and brings forth diverse fruits with grass and flowers bright."
- Francis of Assisi, The Canticle of the Sun Creation reflecting God's goodness . . . Let yourself be nourished so this day.
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Acts 15:7-21
Psalm 96:1-2a, 2b-3, 10 John 15:9-11 Jesus said to his disciples: ‘As the Father has loved me,
so I have loved you.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments
you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.
I have told you this
so that my own joy may be in you
and your joy be complete.’
Reflection on the Scriptures
All humans love …”love”…they love their families, significant others, and friends. We love watching love whether it’s displayed in movies, or families and friends gathered at special events. We love seeing
communities rise together at pivotal moments, singing patriotic songs for their countries, experiencing births of newborns…all are representative of some form of love. I had a nurse colleague of mine once say …”I am so glad I have a child who is capable of loving.” Love is often taken for granted and when it is lost..it is a loss that is described as
unsurmountable causing a grief so profound it shakes us to our core. I love being loved by Jesus. I am blessed and grateful. In return, I promise to love more: more profound, more deeply, more like Jesus as he desires. - by Cindy Contanzo
The Bodily Resurrection of Jesus, by James Arraj
https://innerexplorations.com/catchtheomor/resurrecion.htm Inner Growth Publications, 2007.
Chapter 4: The Resurrection of Jesus Incorruptible Bodies But what we want to examine are not the remarkable qualities of the
saints’ bodies while they were alive, but the strange phenomena exhibited by their dead bodies. Among them, for example, was the so-called odor of sanctity, a fragrant and attractive smell given off by the remains of some of the saints. Others exhibited a lack of the usual rigor mortis, and in certain cases their bodies bled long after their deaths, or exuded some sort of oil. But the central feature in these kinds of phenomena has been a certain kind of incorruption in which the normal rapid
course of human decomposition has been suspended, or more accurately, greatly retarded. When Thurston, for example, examined the cases of 42 saints from 1400 to 1900 whose feasts were celebrated throughout the universal church by those using the Roman rite,
he found that in 22 of those cases “there is good evidence that the body of the saint was found incorrupt after an interval of time which in normal individuals almost invariably sees the development either of an advanced stage of decomposition or of complete decay.”54 To these cases we can add the more modern one of Charbel Makhlouf, a Maronite monk who died in 1898 in obscurity, and was buried without embalming or coffin. An extraordinary light surrounding his grave led to the exhumation of the body which, although it was floating in mud, was perfectly preserved. This state of preservation was later attested to in 1927, and 1950, and later.56 What are we to make of this? In Thurston’s estimation these cases are well-attested, and they deal with highly visible facts, that is, the rigidity of the corpse, its stage of decay, and so forth. Further, the wide dispersion of such accounts over time and distance argues in favor of their authenticity. Certainly forensics has advanced significantly since Thurston’s time, and more so from the times from which these
accounts derive, and while it would be valuable to have modern studies of these kinds of remains that resist corruption, what we do appear to have is evidence that exceeds what can be explained by the normal laws of bodily decomposition. Thurston confines himself to reporting the facts, but it is hard to resist trying to go farther. Certainly it appears that we can rule out psychosomatic effects, for the psyche is no longer present. Is it possible to say that these bodies have retained in some
mysterious fashion qualities imprinted on them by the soul during life?
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