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Forum on Christianity and Spirituality
April 9, 2026: 7:30 p.m. CDT Topic: The Crisis of the World: The Human One and the Noble
Shepherd, by Jerry Truex, Ph.D. See https://shalomplace.com/inetmin/forum.html for more information and registration. __________
Why does He make our hearts so strangely still,
Why stands He forth so stately and so tall?
Because He has no self to serve, no will
That does not seek the welfare of the All.
... Edwin
Markham (1852-1940)
Pray that something of this benevolent will moves through you this day. |
Daily Readings
Genesis 17:3-9
Psalm 105:4-5, 6-7, 8-9 John
8:51-59 Jesus said to the Jews:
‘I tell you most solemnly,
whoever keeps my word
will never see death.’
The Jews said, ‘Now we know for certain that you are possessed. Abraham is dead, and the prophets are dead, and yet you say, “Whoever keeps my word will never know the taste of death.” Are you greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? The prophets are dead too. Who are you claiming to be?’ Jesus answered:
‘If I were to seek my own glory
that would
be no glory at all;
my glory is conferred by the Father,
by the one of whom you say, “He is our God”
although you do not know him.
But I know him,
and if I were to say: I do not know him,
I should be a liar, as you are liars yourselves.
But I do know him, and I faithfully keep his word.
Your father Abraham rejoiced
to think that he would see my Day;
he saw it and was glad.’
The Jews then said, ‘You are not fifty yet, and you have seen Abraham!’ Jesus
replied:
‘I tell you most solemnly,
before Abraham ever was,
I Am.’
At this they picked up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself and left the Temple.
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.) John 8: 51-59 (The eternal origin of the Christ) The meeting of the human and
divine in Jesus will be forever a mystery, an inexhaustible truth. Certainly the human Jesus was born of Mary in space and time. John, however, reminds us today that the great I AM (Yahweh), whose knowledge is of eternity, also lives in Jesus. The Jews consider such a belief blasphemous and attempt to stone Jesus. • What does today’s reading say to those who consider Jesus only a great man or one of several
incarnations of God, along with Buddha and Mohammed, for example? • Spend some time with the passage “If I glorify myself, my glory is worth nothing; but it is my Father who glorifies me.” Write your impressions.
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) ____________ BOOK VI: OF THE EXERCISES OF LOVE IN PRAYER Chapter 15: Of the affectionate languishing of the heart wounded with love.
True it is, Theotimus, that Plato spoke thus of the abject, vile and
miserable love of worldlings; yet the same properties fail not to be found in heavenly and divine love. For turn your eyes a little upon those first masters of Christian doctrine, I mean those first doctors of holy evangelical love, and mark what one of them who had laboured the most said: Even unto this hour, says he, we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no fixed abode. And we labour working with our own hands: we are reviled, and we bless: we are persecuted,
and we suffer it. We are blasphemed, and we entreat: we are made as the refuse of this world, the off-scouring, and as it were the parings, of all even until now. [315] As though he had said we are so abject that if the world be a palace we are held the sweepings thereof, if the world be an apple we are its parings. What I pray you had brought them to this state but love? It was love that threw S. Francis naked before his bishop, and made him die naked upon the ground; it was love that made him
a beggar all his life; it was love that sent the great S. Francis Xavier poor, needy, ragged, through the Indies and amongst the Japanese; it was love that brought the great Cardinal S. Charles, Archbishop of Milan, to that extremity of poverty amidst the riches which his birth and dignity gave him, that, as says the eloquent orator of Italy, Master (Monseigneur) Pancirola, he was as a dog in his master's house, eating but a bit of bread, drinking but a drop of water, and lying upon a little
straw.
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