|
|
We, and all things, exist in God’s infinitude now; our individuality battens within it; our personality grows strong because of it; and we know, if we know anything, that while the more we approach the good the more we please God, at the same time the more we approach the good the more nobly distinctive, the more beautifully individual, do their characters
become.
… Lily Dougall (1858-1923),
The Undiscovered Country Love individuates-- sees the uniqueness and goodness of every creature. Strive to do so this
day. |
Daily Readings
1 Samuel 4:1-11
Psalm
44:10-11, 14-15, 24-25 Mark 1:40-45 A leper came to Jesus and pleaded on his knees: ‘If you want to’ he said ‘you can cure me.’ Feeling sorry for him, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. ‘Of course I want to!’ he said. ‘Be cured!’ And the leprosy left him at once and he was cured. Jesus immediately sent him away and sternly ordered him, ‘Mind you say nothing to anyone,
but go and show yourself to the priest, and make the offering for your healing prescribed by Moses as evidence of your recovery.’ The man went away, but then started talking about it freely and telling the story everywhere, so that Jesus could no longer go openly into any town, but had to stay outside in places where nobody lived. Even so, people from all around would come to
him.
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.) Mark 1: 40-45 (Jesus cures a leper) The gospels do not include a single instance when Jesus refuses to heal someone who requests wholeness. The prayer of the leper in today's reading should be a model for all of us because the leper makes his request in great humility and leaves the matter in Jesus' hands. * Do you believe that God answers your prayers? What kinds of prayers do you find answered most
often? * What are some reasons why you are usually afraid to reach out to others? Pray for the grace to overcome these resistances.
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) ____________ BOOK VI: OF THE EXERCISES OF LOVE IN PRAYER Chapter 12: Of the outflowing or liquefecation of the soul in God. Moist and liquid things easily receive the figures and limits which may
be given them, because they have no firmness or solidity which stops or limits them in themselves. Put liquid into a vessel, and you will see it remain bounded within the limits of the vessel, and according as this is round or square the liquid will be the same, having no other limit or shape than that of the vessel which contains it. The soul is not so by nature, for she has her proper shapes and limits: she takes her shape from her habits and inclinations, her limits
from her will; and when she is fixed upon her own inclinations and wills, we say she is hard, that is, self-willed, obstinate. I will take away, says God, the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh. [298] To change the form of stones, iron, or wood, the axe, hammer and fire are required. We call that a heart of iron, or wood, or stone, which does not easily receive the divine impressions, but lives in its own will, amidst the inclinations which accompany our
depraved nature. On the contrary, a gentle, pliable and tractable heart, is termed a melting and liquefied heart. My heart, said David, speaking in the person of our Saviour upon the cross, is become like wax melting in the midst of my bowels! [299] Cleopatra, that infamous Queen of Egypt, striving to outvie Mark Antony in all the excesses and dissolutions of his banquets, at the end of a feast which she made in her turn, called for a vial of fine vinegar, and dropped into it one of the pearls
which she wore in her ears, valued at two hundred and fifty thousand crowns, which being dissolved, melted and liquefied, she swallowed it, and would further have buried, in the sink of her vile stomach, the pearl which she wore in her other ear, if Lucius Plautus had not prevented her. Our Saviour's heart, the true oriental pearl, singularly unique and priceless, thrown into the midst of a sea of incomparable bitternesses in the day of his passion, melted in itself, dissolved, liquefied, gave
way and flowed out in pain, under the press of so many mortal anguishes; but love, stronger than death, mollifies, softens and melts hearts far more quickly than all the other passions.
|
|
|
