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An act of love, a voluntary taking on oneself of some of the pain of the world, increases the courage and love and hope of all."
- Dorothy Day How might you help to lighten
the load of another today?
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Daily Readings
Acts 20:28-38
Psalm 68:29-30,
33-35a, 35bc-36ab John 17:11b-19 Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said: ‘Holy Father,
keep those you have given me true to your name,
so that they may be one like us.
While I was with
them,
I kept those you had given me true to your name.
I have watched over them
and not one is lost
except the one who chose to be lost,
and this was to fulfil the scriptures.
But now I am coming to you
and while still
in the world I say these things
to share my joy with them to the full.
I passed your word on to them,
and the world hated them,
because they belong to the world
no more than I belong to the world.
I am not asking you to remove them from the
world,
but to protect them from the evil one.
They do not belong to the world
any more than I belong to the world.
Consecrate them in the truth;
your word is truth.
As you sent me into the world,
I have sent them into
the world,
and for their sake I consecrate myself
so that they too may be consecrated in truth.’
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.) John 17:11-19 (Jesus consecrated for
us) The work of love is to unify people in a dynamic relationship of growth and development. In today’s reading Jesus prays that we will be united with the Father in truth, and he offers the gift of his life to make this unity possible. This is the supreme act of love. • How does the world hate you because of your fidelity to God’s commandments? What do you think Jesus
means by this? • Hear the words of the psalmist describing the love of God, I have loved you with Ian everlasting love; so I have kept my mercy toward you” (Jeremiah 31:3). Bask in the mystery of this great love.
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 2: Of meditation -- the
first degree of prayer or mystical theology The bee flies from flower to flower in the spring-time, not at hazard but of set purpose, not only to be recreated in the verdant diapering of the meadows, but to gather honey; which having found, she sucks it up, and loads herself with it; then carrying it to her hive, she treats it skilfully, separating from it the wax, of which she makes comb, to store the honey for the ensuing winter.
Such is the devout soul in meditation. She passes from mystery to mystery, not at random, or only to solace herself in viewing the admirable beauty of those divine objects, but deliberately and of set purpose, to find out motives of love or of some heavenly affection; and having found them she draws them to her, she relishes them, she loads herself with them, and having brought them back and put them within her heart, she lays up what she sees most useful for her advancement, by finally making
resolutions suitable for the time of temptation. Thus in the Canticle of Canticles the heavenly spouse, as a mystical bee, settles, now on the eyes, now on the lips, on the cheeks, on the hair of her beloved, to draw thence the sweetness of a thousand passions of love, noting in particular whatever she finds best for this. So that, inflamed with holy love, she speaks with him, she questions him, she listens to him, sighs, aspires, admires him, as he on his part fills her with delight, inspiring
her, touching and opening her heart, and pouring into it brightness, lights and sweetnesses without end, but in so secret a manner that one may rightly say of this holy conversation of the soul with God, what the holy text says of God's with Moses: that Moses being alone upon the top of the mountain spoke to God, and God answered him. [278]
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