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The soul’s center is God. When it has reached God with all the capacity of its being and the strength of its operation and inclination, it will have attained to its final and deepest center in God; it will know, love
and enjoy God with all its might.
- St. John of the Cross
(Is this the goal of your spiritual life? If not, what
is?)
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JER 20:10-13; PS 18:2-3A, 3BC-4, 5-6, 7
JN 10:31-42
The Jews picked up rocks to stone Jesus.
Jesus answered them, "I have shown you many good works from my Father.
For which of these are you trying to stone me?"
The Jews answered him,
"We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy.
You, a man, are making yourself God."
Jesus answered them,
"Is it not written in your
law, 'I said, 'You are gods"'?
If it calls them gods to whom the word of God came,
and Scripture cannot be set aside,
can you say that the one
whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world
blasphemes because I said, 'I am the Son of God'?
If I do not perform my Father's works, do not believe me;
but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me,
believe the works, so that you may realize and understand
that the Father is in me and I am in the
Father."
Then they tried again to arrest him;
but he escaped from their power.
He went back across the Jordan
to the place where John first baptized, and there he remained.
Many came to him and said,
"John performed no sign,
but everything John said about this man was true."
And many there began to believe in him.
USCCB Lectionary
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John 10: 31-42 (Jesus confronts his critics)
Before the Jews rush to hasty conclusions, Jesus again reminds them that his works confirm his words, and he invites them to reconsider their unfounded judgments against him. When they reply by trying to arrest
him, he escapes because he is not yet ready to make his decisive confrontation.
• To whom do your works testify? To whom do you give the glory?
• Spend some time with the passage The Father is in me and I am in the Father” and its equivalent in the First Letter of John: The one who is in
you is greater than the one who is in the world” (4: 4). Pray for the grace to be filled with this power.
3rd edition pocketbook, trade book, Kindle, eBook.
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God and I: Exploring the Connections between God, Self and Ego, by Philip St. Romain, 2016 (2nd ed.) ____________ Chapter 7: The Journey to Belonging: The Ego-God Relationship
The God Who Loves Egos
Most of the great heroes of the Bible weren’t especially
religious people before encountering God. They were quite ordinary individuals, living their lives, more or less minding their own business. Consider Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Jeremiah, Mary, and the Apostles of Jesus: their life-changing experiences of God were not the fruit of some great spiritual quest. Perhaps they were somewhat authentic in their reasoning and choosing; I don’t know that they had Open Individuating Egos, however. Some of them, like the Apostle Matthew, seemed to be
scoundrels, deeply immersed in false self values of accumulating wealth and status. The Apostle Paul was a murderer, stopped in his tracks en route to another campaign of killing Christians.
Yet God chose to enter into relationship with these people! All throughout the Bible, the initiative lies with God.
It is a story of God-breaking-in, intervening, revealing Godself to us in ways we would not have guessed. Hardback, paperback, eBook and free preview versions.
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