Forum on Christianity and Spirituality
December 4, 2025, 7:30 p.m. CST Topic: Our Original Face: The Immaculate Conception by Carla Mae Streeter, OP See https://shalomplace.com/inetmin/forum.html for more information and registration.
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Message of the Day
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Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.
- Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471) Love and accept yourself and others, warts and all.
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ANNUAL APPEAL
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Greetings Daily Spiritual Seed Subscribers, This year I will be publishing the same appeal message each day this week to insure that everyone is made aware of the following information: - After over 28 years of ministry at Heartland Center for Spirituality, I will be retiring effective December 31, 2025. It has been a blessing to
have served there all these years with an amazing group of people.
- After December 31, I will continue to publish A Daily Spiritual Seed, meet with spiritual directees, and maintain the shalomplace.com website and its various ministries, including the
monthly Forum webinars, discussion board, and occasional Zoom classes. I hope you will stay connected and will be part of this continuing outreach.
- Between now and December 31, please consider making a donation to support the Internet ministry of Heartland Center for Spirituality for services this past year and years before. Options for doing so are listed below.
Thank you for being part of this
ministry in the past, and I hope you will continue into the future. Phil St. Romain
Internet Ministry Coordinator
Heartland Center for Spirituality ________________
Donations are eligible for
tax-deduction secure online payment.
-scroll down a little Check payments Internet Ministry Heartland Center for Spirituality 3600 Broadway Great Bend, KS 67530
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Readings of the Day
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Wisdom 2:23–3:9
Psalm 34:2-3, 16-17,
18-19 Luke 17:7-10 Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Which of you, with a servant ploughing or minding sheep, would say to him when he returned from the fields, “Come and have your meal immediately”? Would he not be more likely to say, “Get my supper laid; make yourself tidy and wait on me while I eat and drink. You can eat and drink yourself afterwards”? Must he be grateful to the
servant for doing what he was told? So with you: when you have done all you have been told to do, say, “We are merely servants: we have done no more than our
duty.”’ USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Scripture
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“Grace and mercy are with His holy ones.” —Wisdom 3:9
The Lord promises that the just who have died will “judge nations and rule over peoples”
(Wis 3:8). Jesus said: “I give you My solemn word, in the new age when the Son of Man takes His seat upon a throne befitting His glory, you who have followed Me shall likewise take your places on twelve thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel” (Mt 19:28).
Jesus was enthroned at the right hand of the Father after His Ascension (Mk 16:19). We can rely on the saints in heaven “on whose constant intercession in [God’s] presence we rely for
unfailing help” (Eucharistic prayer #3). The saints on earth can even do greater by far than Jesus did (Jn 14:12). However, we have even greater opportunities to exercise our authority in Jesus’ name after we die. Because of His Resurrection victory, we do not lose but gain power after our death (see Mt 22:31-32). Therefore, we should earnestly seek the intercession and ministry of the saints in heaven even more than when they lived on
earth (see Rv 5:8). The Lord has planned it this way. We please Him when we claim His victory over death by increasing openness to the ministry of those who have died in Him. “Saints of God, pray for us.” Prayer: Lord, may I believe in the full Gospel and the full plan of salvation. May I accept all Your promises for my life. Promise: “I will bless the Lord at all times;
His praise shall be ever in my mouth.” —Ps 34:2 Presentation Ministries
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Spiritual Reading
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Dilexi Te: On the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ, by Pope Francis (completed by Pope Leo XIII), 2025.
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/20241024-enciclica-dilexit-nos.html
CHAPTER ONE
RETURNING TO THE HEART
11. If we devalue the heart, we also devalue what it means to speak from the heart, to act with the heart, to cultivate and heal the heart. If we fail to appreciate the specificity of the heart, we miss the messages that the mind
alone cannot communicate; we miss out on the richness of our encounters with others; we miss out on poetry. We also lose track of history and our own past, since our real personal history is built with the heart. At the end of our lives, that alone will matter. 12. It must be said, then, that we have a heart, a heart that coexists with other hearts that help to make it a “Thou”. Since we cannot develop this theme at length, we will take a
character from one of Dostoevsky’s novels, Nikolai Stavrogin. [8] Romano Guardini argues that Stavrogin is the very embodiment of evil, because his chief trait is his heartlessness: “Stavrogin has no heart, hence his mind is cold and empty and his body sunken in bestial sloth and sensuality. He has no heart, hence he can draw close to no one and no one can ever truly draw close to him. For only the heart creates intimacy, true closeness between two persons. Only the heart is able to welcome and
offer hospitality. Intimacy is the proper activity and the domain of the heart. Stavrogin is always infinitely distant, even from himself, because a man can enter into himself only with the heart, not with the mind. It is not in a man’s power to enter into his own interiority with the mind. Hence, if the heart is not alive, man remains a stranger to himself”. [9] 13. All our actions need to be put under the “political rule” of the heart. In
this way, our aggressiveness and obsessive desires will find rest in the greater good that the heart proposes and in the power of the heart to resist evil. The mind and the will are put at the service of the greater good by sensing and savouring truths, rather than seeking to master them as the sciences tend to do. The will desires the greater good that the heart recognizes, while the imagination and emotions are themselves guided by the beating of the heart. |
Please support this outreach with a tax-deductible donation. |
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