God is always present, always available. At whatever moment in which one turns to him the prayer is received, is heard, is authenticated, for it is God who gives our prayer its value and its character, not our interior dispositions,
not our fervor, not our lucidity. The prayer which is pronounced for God and accepted by him becomes, by that very fact, a true prayer.
… Jacques Ellul (1912-1994), Prayer and Modern Man
(God is always present . . . always available . . . )
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ACTS 7:51—8:1A; PS 31:3CD-4, 6 AND 7B AND 8A, 17 AND 21A
JN 6:30-35
The crowd said to Jesus:
"What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you?
What can you do?
Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written:
He gave them bread from heaven to eat."
So Jesus said to them,
"Amen, amen, I say to you,
it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven;
my Father gives you the true bread from
heaven.
For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world."
So they said to Jesus,
"Sir, give us this bread always."
Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me will never hunger,
and whoever believes in me will never
thirst." UCCB Lectionary
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Reflection on the Scriptures |
The bread which Jesus offers his disciples sustains us not only on our journey to the heavenly paradise, it gives us the abundant supernatural life of God which sustains us both now and for all eternity. When we receive from the Lord's table we unite ourselves to Jesus Christ, who makes us sharers in his body and blood and partakers of his divine life. Ignatius of Antioch (35-107 A.D.) calls it the "one bread that provides the
medicine of immortality, the antidote for death, and the food that makes us live for ever in Jesus Christ" (Ad Eph. 20,2). This supernatural food is healing for both body and soul and strength for our journey heavenward. Do you hunger for God and for the food which produces everlasting life?
"Lord Jesus Christ, you are the bread of life. You alone can satisfy the hunger in my heart. May I always find in you, the true bread from heaven, the source of life and
nourishment I need to sustain me on my journey to the promised land of heaven." DailyScripture.net
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The Ascent of Mount Carmel, by St. John of the Cross E. Allison Peers Translation. Paperback, Kindle, Audio Book.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1935785982/?tag=christianspiritu
BOOK THE FIRST Wherein is described the nature of dark night and how necessary it is to pass through it to Divine union; and in particular this book describes the dark night of sense, and desire, and the evils which these work in the soul.
CHAPTER VII
Wherein is shown how the desires torment the soul. This is proved likewise by comparison and quotations.
1. The second kind of positive evil which the desires cause the soul is in their tormenting and afflicting of it,
after the manner of one who is in torment through being bound with cords from which he has no relief until he be freed. And of these David says: Funes peccatorum circumplexi sunt me. The cords of my sins, which are my desires, have constrained me round about. And, even as one that lies naked upon thorns and briars is tormented and afflicted, even so is the soul tormented and afflicted when it rests upon its desires. For they take hold upon it and distress it and cause it pain, even
as do thorns. Of these David says likewise: Circumdederunt me sicut apes: et exarserunt sicut ignis in spinis. Which signifies: They compassed me about like bees, wounding me with their stings, and they were enkindled against me, like fire among thorns; for in the desires, which are the thorns, increases the fire of anguish and torment. And even as the husbandman, coveting the harvest for which he hopes, afflicts and torments the ox in the plough, even so does concupiscence afflict
a soul that is subject to its desire to attain that for which it longs. |
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