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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. __________
Our imitation of God in this life—that is, our willed imitation, as distinct from any of the likenesses which He has impressed upon our natures or our states—must be an imitation of God Incarnate: our model is the Jesus, not only of Calvary, but of the workshop, the roads, the crowds, the clamorous demands and
surly oppositions, the lack of all peace and privacy, the interruptions. For this, so strangely unlike anything we can attribute to the Divine life in itself, is apparently not only like, but is, the Divine life operating under human conditions.
- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), The Four Loves
“The Divine life operating under human conditions” . . . So may it be with you this
day. |
Daily Readings
Acts 3:11-26
Psalm 8:2ab and 5, 6-7, 8-9 Luke
24:35-48 The disciples told their story of what had happened on the road and how they had recognised Jesus at the breaking of bread. They were still talking about all this when Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you!’ In a state of alarm and fright, they thought they were seeing a ghost. But he said, ‘Why are you so agitated, and why are these doubts rising in your hearts? Look at my hands and feet; yes, it is I
indeed. Touch me and see for yourselves; a ghost has no flesh and bones as you can see I have.’ And as he said this he showed them his hands and feet. Their joy was so great that they still could not believe it, and they stood there dumbfounded; so he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ And they offered him a piece of grilled fish, which he took and ate before their eyes. Then he told them, ‘This is what I meant when I said, while I was still with you, that
everything written about me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the Psalms has to be fulfilled.’ He then opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, ‘So you see how it is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that, in his name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to
this.’
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.) Luke 24: 35-48 (Jesus appears to his disciples.) There is little doubt that Jesus'
disciples believed that he had been raised from the dead and that they experienced him in a profoundly significant way. In today's reading Luke tries to express some of the impressions left by the risen Christ on his disciples. He leaves us with as many questions as answers, however. What was the nature of this risen body, for example? These are questions we cannot answer. Like the disciples, we are simply invited to embrace the mystery. *
How do you feel about the prospect of your own death? How does belief in the Resurrection help you live more fully before death? * Spend some time hearing Jesus say to you, "Peace be with you."
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.
Truly, Theotimus, when the wounds and strokes of love are frequent
and strong they put us into a languor, and into love's well-beloved sickness. Who could ever describe the loving languors of the SS. Catharine of Siena and Genoa, or of a S. Angela of Foligno, or S. Christina, or the Blessed Mother (S.) Teresa, a S. Bernard, a S. Francis. And as for this last, his life was nothing but tears, sighs, plaints, languors, wastings, love-trances. But in all this nothing is so wonderful as that admirable communication which the sweet
Jesus made him of his loving and precious pains, by the impression of his wounds and stigmata. Theotimus, I have often pondered this wonder, and have made this conception of it. That great servant of God, a man wholly seraphical, beholding the lively picture of his crucified Saviour, represented in a shining seraph, who appeared unto him upon Mount Alverno, was touched beyond what could be imagined, being taken with a sovereign consolation and compassion, in
beholding this bright mirror of love, which the angels cannot satisfy themselves in beholding. Ah! he as it were swooned away with sweetness and contentment. But seeing also the lively representation of the marks and wounds of his Saviour crucified, he felt in his soul the merciless sword which transfixed the sacred breast of the virgin-mother on the day of the passion, with as much interior pain as though he had been crucified with his dear Saviour. O God!
Theotimus, if the picture of Abraham holding the death-stroke over his dear only-begotten, to sacrifice him, a picture drawn by mortal hand, had the power to touch and make weep the great S. Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, as often as he beheld it,--Ah! how extreme was the tenderness of the great S. Francis when he beheld the picture of our Saviour sacrificing himself upon the cross, a picture which not a mortal hand, but the master-hand of a heavenly seraph, had drawn
and traced from its very original, representing to the life and to nature the divine king of angels, bruised, wounded, pierced, broken, crucified.
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