God is thrust onward by his love, not attracted by our beauty.
He comes even in moments when we have done everything wrong, when we have done nothing . . . even when we have sinned.
- Carlo Carretto, The God Who Comes
(God comes . . . NOW! What is
your response?) |
ACTS 13:26-33; PS 2:6-7, 8-9, 10-11AB
JN 14:1-6
Jesus said to his disciples:
"Do not let your hearts
be troubled.
You have faith in God; have faith also in me.
In my Father's house there are many dwelling places.
If there were not,
would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come back again and take you to myself,
so that where I am you also may be.
Where I am going you know the way."
Thomas said to him,
"Master, we do not know where you are going;
how can we know the
way?"
Jesus said to him, "I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me."
Reflection on the
Scriptures |
. . . How frequently we hear Christianity demeaned as merely a set of external obligations prescribed by religious authorities. The Christian faith is reduced to a checklist of do’s and don’ts required for admittance into heaven. The institutional checklist is typically gathered under the three categories of creed (beliefs), code (moral teachings) and cult (worship).
But this is a caricature of authentic Christian faith: the one-on-one personal relationship with Jesus is absent -- the soul of faith is missing! The institutional dimensions come to life only to the degree they embody a personal relationship with Jesus.
Today’s Alleluia Verse is an
invitation from Jesus to come to him and to abide in a personal relationship with him, “I am the way and the truth and the life, says the Lord; no one comes to the Father except through me”(Jn 14:6).
Today we bring our hearts – especially our troubled hearts – to Jesus and take seriously his invitation, ”Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith in me also”
(Jn14:1).
- by Dick Hauser, S.J. Revelations of Divine
Love - by Julian of Norwich
Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 37 “In every soul that shall be saved is a Godly Will that never assented to sin, nor ever shall.”—”For failing of Love on our part, therefore is all our travail”
What may make me more to love mine even-Christians than to see in God that He loveth all that shall be saved as it were all one soul?
For in every soul that shall be saved is a Godly Will that never assented to sin, nor ever shall. Right as there is a beastly will in the lower part that may will no good, right so there is a Godly Will in the higher part, which will is so good that it may never will evil, but ever good. And therefore we are that which He loveth and endlessly we do that which Him pleaseth.
This shewed our Lord in [shewing] the wholeness of love that we stand in, in His sight: yea, that He loveth us now as well while we are here, as He shall do while we are there afore His blessed face. But for failing love on our part, therefore is all our travail.
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