Let me seek, then, the gift of silence, and
poverty, and solitude, where everything I touch is turned into prayer: where the sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayers, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is all in all.
- Thomas Merton Contemplative
awareness!
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1 John 4:11-18
Psalm 72:1-2, 10, 12-13 Mark 6:45-52 After the five thousand had eaten and were satisfied,
Jesus made his disciples get into the boat
and precede him to the other side toward Bethsaida,
while he dismissed the crowd.
And when he had taken leave of them,
he went off to the mountain to pray.
When it was evening,
the boat was far
out on the sea and he was alone on shore.
Then he saw that they were tossed about while rowing,
for the wind was against them.
About the fourth watch of the night,
he came toward them walking on the sea.
He meant to pass by them.
But when they saw him walking
on the sea,
they thought it was a ghost and cried out.
They had all seen him and were terrified.
But at once he spoke with them,
“Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid!”
He got into the boat with them and the wind died down.
They were completely
astounded.
They had not understood the incident of the loaves.
On the contrary, their hearts were hardened.
Reflection on the Scriptures
“What the world needs now is Love, sweet love.” The words of this song could not be more true now. God is love. God so loved the world he sent his son, the baby Jesus we celebrated two weeks ago, who grew up to
be our savior. From the first reading, “If God so loved us, we also must love one another.” I am constantly discouraged by all the hate in the world. It often seems to me that hate has won, and I hate that. There’s so much violence, so much discrimination. “Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us.” The best way to love God is to share the love God has for us. God loved us so much he gave us this world, and each other, and his son as savior. But rather than returning that love too many respond with hate and destruction, greed and selfishness. What the world needs now is love, and from the song, “no, not just for some but for everyone.” “God is love, and whoever remains in love
remains in God and God in him.” When we love, God is acting in us and through us. God is love and love is God. We share in that love, and need to share it with the world. -by Tamora Whitney
The Imitation of Christ, Thomas A. Kempis https://amzn.to/40FrikB Paperback and Kindle versions available BOOK
ONE: Thoughts Helpful in the Life of a Soul
The Thirteenth Chapter: Resisting Temptations
SO LONG as we live in this world we
cannot escape suffering and temptation. Whence it is written in Job: "The life of man upon earth is a warfare."[4]4 Everyone, therefore, must guard against temptation and must watch in prayer lest the devil, who never sleeps but goes about seeking whom he may devour, find occasion to deceive him. No one is so perfect or so holy but he is sometimes tempted; we cannot be altogether free from temptation.
Yet temptations, though troublesome and severe, are often useful to us, for in them we are humbled, purified, and instructed. The saints all passed through many temptations and trials to profit by them, while those who could not resist became reprobate and fell away. There is no state so holy, no place so secret that temptations and trials will not come. We never safe from them as long as we live, for they come from within us -- in sin we
were born. When one temptation or trial passes, another comes; we shall always have something to suffer because we have lost the state of original blessedness.
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