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We must get rid of the pestilent, deadly notion that the amount of things we get through is the standard. The steadiness with which we radiate God is the standard.
- Evelyn Underhill
(How do you measure up to this standard? Be mindful of love throughout this day.)
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ACTS 4:23-31; PS 2:1-3, 4-7A, 7B-9
JN 3:1-8
There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
He came to Jesus at night and said to him,
"Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God,
for no one can do these signs that you are doing
unless God is with him."
Jesus answered and said to him,
"Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless one is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God."
Nicodemus said to him,
"How can a man once grown old be born again?
Surely he cannot reenter his mother's womb and be born again, can he?"
Jesus answered,
"Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless one is born of water and Spirit
he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.
What is born of flesh is flesh
and what is born of spirit is spirit.
Do not be amazed that I told you,
'You must be born from above.'
The wind blows where it wills,
and you can hear the sound it makes,
but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes;
so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."
USCCB Lectionary
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Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.)
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]John 3: 1-8 (Jesus and Nicodemus)
The dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus gives us some ideas about the new life that comes to us through the risen Christ. Nicodemus has come at night because he fears the Jews; he expresses a very tentative faith in Jesus. Jesus responds by inviting Nicodemus to experience a renewed identity through baptism and the Holy Spirit.
*What does the phrase "born of the Spirit" mean to you? Do you consider yourself born of the Spirit?
* What keeps you from completely giving your life over to Jesus?
Paperback, Kindle and eBook
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Treatise
on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
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BOOK I: CONTAINING A PREPARATION FOR THE WHOLE TREATISE
Chapter 1: That for the beauty of human nature, God has given the government of all the faculties of the soul to the will.
Union in distinction makes order; order produces agreement; and proportion and agreement, in complete and finished things, make beauty. An army has beauty when it is composed of parts so ranged in order that their distinction is reduced to that proportion which they ought to have together for the making of one single army. For music to be beautiful, the voices must not only be true, clear, and distinct from one
another, but also united together in such a way that there may arise a just consonance and harmony which is not unfitly termed a discordant harmony or rather harmonious discord.
Now as the angelic S. Thomas, following the great S. Denis, says excellently well, beauty and goodness though in some things they agree, yet still are not one and the same thing: for good is that which pleases the appetite and will, beauty that which pleases the understanding or knowledge; or, in other words, good is that which gives pleasure when we enjoy it, beauty that which gives pleasure when we know it. For which
cause in proper speech we only attribute corporal beauty to the objects of those two senses which are the most intellectual and most in the service of the understanding—namely, sight and hearing, so that we do not say, these are beautiful odours or beautiful tastes: but we rightly say, these are beautiful voices and beautiful colours.
The beautiful then being called beautiful, because the knowledge thereof gives pleasure, it is requisite that besides the union and the distinction, the integrity, the order, and the agreement of its parts, there should be also splendour and brightness that it may be knowable and visible. Voices to be beautiful must be clear and true; discourses intelligible; colours brilliant and shining. Obscurity, shade and darkness
are ugly and disfigure all things, because in them nothing is knowable, neither order, distinction, union nor agreement; which caused S. Denis to say, that “God as the sovereign beauty is author of the beautiful harmony, beautiful lustre and good grace which is found in all things, making the distribution and decomposition of his one ray of beauty spread out, as light, to make all things beautiful,” willing that to compose beauty there should be agreement, clearness and good grace.
Hardback, paperback, eBook and free preview versions.
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