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Bad situations don’t have to make us bitter—they can make us better! God can use the good, the bad, the happy, the sad to mold us into the people He wants us to be. Our goal should be to focus not on what others do to us but what God will do through us. Rest assured, what
others may intend for evil, God will use for good.
- Skip Heitzig What do you need from God today?
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Daily Readings
Nehemiah 2:1-8
Psalm 137:1-2,
3, 4-5, 6 Luke 9:57-62 As Jesus and his disciples travelled along they met a man on the road who said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ Jesus answered, ‘Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’
Another to whom he said, ‘Follow me’, replied, ‘Let me go and bury
my father first.’ But he answered, ‘Leave the dead to bury their dead; your duty is to go and spread the news of the kingdom of God.’
Another said, ‘I will follow you, sir, but first let me go and say goodbye to my people at home.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Once the hand is laid on the plough, no one who looks back is fit for the kingdom of
God.’
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.) Luke 9:51-56 (The journey to Jerusalem) Chapters 9 - 18 in Luke differ from Mark and Matthew in that Jesus is shown journeying for the last time toward Jerusalem where he anticipates his decisive confrontation with the authorities. This literary organization is designed to help us appreciate the meaning of Jesus’ life and ministry. In today’s reading he proceeds through hostile territory, reprimanding James and John for their impulsive vindictiveness. - Jesus could
probably have escaped to foreign lands and lived to a ripe old age as a venerated teacher and healer. Why do you believe he chose, instead, to journey to Jerusalem where conflict was certain?
- “Don’t rock the boat” is a rule implicit in bureaucracies of all kinds. How much of this spirit has pervaded your outlook? When is it appropriate to “rock the boat”? What are the risks?
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) ____________ BOOK VI: OF THE EXERCISES OF LOVE IN PRAYER Chapter 7: Of the loving recollection of the soul in contemplation.
Propose to yourself, Theotimus, the most holy
Virgin, our Lady, when she had conceived the Son of God, her only love. The soul of that well-beloved mother did wholly collect itself about that well-beloved child, and because this heavenly dear one was harboured in her sacred womb, all the faculties of her soul gathered themselves within her, as holy bees into their hive, wherein their honey is; and by how much the divine greatness was, so to speak, straitened and contracted within her virginal womb, by so much her soul did more increase and
magnify the praises of that infinite loving-kindness, and her spirit within her body leapt with joy (as S. John in his mother's womb) in presence of her God, whom she felt. She launched not her affections out of herself, since her treasure, her loves and her delights were in the midst of her sacred womb. Now the same contentment may be practised by imitation, among those who, having communicated, feel by the certainty of faith that which, not flesh and blood, but the Heavenly Father has
revealed, that their Saviour is body and soul present, with a most real presence, to their body and to their soul, by this most adorable sacrament. For as the pearl-mother, having received the drops of the fresh dew of the morning, closes up, not only to keep them pure from all possible mixture with the water of the sea, but also for the pleasure she feels in relishing the agreeable freshness of this heaven-sent germ:--so does it happen to many holy and devout of the faithful, that having
received the Divine Sacrament which contains the dew of all heavenly benedictions, their heart closes over It, and all their faculties collect themselves together, not only to adore this sovereign King, but for the spiritual consolation and refreshment, beyond belief, which they receive in feeling by faith this divine germ of immortality within them. Where you will carefully note, Theotimus, that to say all in a word this recollection is wholly made by love, which perceiving the presence of the
well-beloved by the attractions he spreads in the midst of the heart, gathers and carries all the soul towards it, by a most agreeable inclination, a most sweet turning, and a delicious bending of all the faculties towards this well-beloved, who attracts them unto him by the force of his sweetness, with which he ties and draws hearts, as bodies are drawn by material ropes and bands.
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