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- Happy New Year! -
As long as I see any thing to be done for God, life is worth having: but O how vain and unworthy it is, to live for any lower end!
- David Brainerd (1718-1747)
(May you give glory to God during the coming year. How will you do so today?) |
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NM 6:22-27; PS 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8
LK
2:16-21
The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph,
and the infant lying in the manger.
When they saw this,
they made known the message
that had been told them about this child.
All who heard it were amazed
by what had been told them by the shepherds.
And Mary kept all these things,
reflecting on them in her heart.
Then the shepherds
returned,
glorifying and praising God
for all they had heard and seen,
just as it had been told to them.
When eight days were completed for his circumcision,
he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel
before he was conceived in the womb.
USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Scripture |
"God has sent forth into our hearts the Spirit
of His Son Which cries out 'Abba!' ('Father!')" —Galatians 4:6
"Mary" Christmas and Happy New Year! The Holy Spirit came to Mary, and she conceived Jesus (Lk 1:35). The Spirit cried out in her heart "Abba" (Gal 4:6; Rm 8:15). Mary became not only the mother of God but also the daughter of God the Father.
When Mary saw Jesus lying in the manger, nursing at her breasts, saying His first words, taking His first steps, playing games, learning to be a carpenter from Joseph, crying, laughing, or saying His prayers, Mary saw not only Jesus but God the Father (see Jn 14:9).
When Mary and Joseph found the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple, He responded to their sorrow with the puzzling
questions: "Why did you search for Me? Did you not know I had to be in My Father's house?" (Lk 2:49) When Mary was taught by her Son to pray by calling God her "Abba" (see Mt 6:9), she addressed for the first time the all-holy God as "Dad."
When Jesus was hanging on the cross, she heard Jesus cry out right before He died: "Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit" (Lk 23:46). "Mary treasured all these
things and reflected on them in her heart" (Lk 2:19).
After Jesus' Resurrection, at the first Christian Pentecost, and later, when Mary was taken to heaven and crowned queen, she knew what she had reflected on for years. She knew her Father's love.
Prayer: Abba, on this day of prayer for peace and justice, may this world live in Your love as never before (see Jn 15:9).
Promise: "The Lord bless you and keep you!" —Nm 6:24
Praise: Praise Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary!
Presentation Ministries
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From Meditation to Contemplation, by James Arraj - Reprinted from St. John of the Cross and Dr. C. G. Jung.
Cooperating With the Grace of Infused Contemplation
In order to perceive this new reality,
the soul must abandon all its discursive activity and become like that which it is to receive. “Since God, then, as the giver communes with him through a simple, loving knowledge, the individual also, as the receiver, communes with God, through a simple and loving knowledge or attention, so that knowledge is thus joined with knowledge and love with love. The receiver should act according to the mode of what is received, and not otherwise, in order to receive and keep it in the way it is
given.”(“Living Flame of Love,” S 3, 34) The beginner must overcome his feelings of anxiety he is doing nothing because he is not working with the natural faculties. His work, rather, is receiving. “They must be content simply with a loving and peaceful attentiveness to God, and live without the concern, without the effort, and without the desire to taste or feel Him. All these desires disquiet the soul and distract it from the peaceful quiet and sweet idleness of the contemplation which is
being communicated to it.”(“Dark Night of the Soul,” 1, 10, 4)
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