|
Poor and oppressed people have faces, and we are required to look squarely into them. We can't love what we don't experience.
- Nancy Mairs
(Are you in touch with the struggles of oppressed people? Pray for the grace to be more open to recognizing Christ at work in their lives.)
|
|
|
ACTS 6:8-15; PS 119:23-24, 26-27, 29-30
JN 6:22-29
[After Jesus had fed the five thousand men, his disciples saw him walking on the sea.]
The next day, the crowd that remained across the sea
saw that there had been only one boat there,
and that Jesus had not gone along with his disciples in the boat,
but only his disciples had left.
Other boats came from Tiberias
near the place where they had eaten the bread
when the Lord gave thanks.
When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there,
they themselves got into boats
and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus.
And when they found him across the sea they said to him,
"Rabbi, when did you get here?"
Jesus answered them and said,
"Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me
not because you saw signs
but because you ate the loaves and were filled.
Do not work for food that perishes
but for the food that endures for eternal life,
which the Son of Man will give you.
For on him the Father, God, has set his seal."
So they said to him,
"What can we do to accomplish the works of God?"
Jesus answered and said to them,
"This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent."
USCCB Lectionary
|
|
|
|
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.)
____________
John 6: 22-29 (The people seek their king)
Jesus had fed the crowds, and they were eager to make him king. Knowing this, he fled from their midst and joined his disciples in their boat. Now the crowd searches for him, for anyone who can feed multitudes by blessing a few crumbs can solve all logistical problems involved in making war against the Romans. Jesus corrects their misconception about him by inviting them to work for the kind of food that will last.
* Are you looking for Jesus? Where? How do you think you can find him?
* Pray for the grace to hunger for the things of God.
Paperback, Kindle and eBook
|
|
|
|
|
Treatise
on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
____________
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.
Certainly, Theotimus, beauty is without effect, unprofitable and dead, if light and splendour do not make it lively and effective, whence we term colours lively when they have light and lustre.
But as to animated and living things their beauty is not complete without good grace, which, besides the agreement of perfect parts which makes beauty, adds the harmony of movements, gestures and actions, which is as it were the life and soul of the beauty of living things. Thus, in the sovereign beauty of our God, we acknowledge union, yea, unity of essence in the distinction of persons, with an infinite glory, together
with an incomprehensible harmony of all perfections of actions and motions, sovereignly comprised, and as one would say excellently joined and adjusted, in the most unique and simple perfection of the pure divine act, which is God Himself, immutable and invariable, as elsewhere we shall show.
God, therefore, having a will to make all things good and beautiful, reduced the multitude and distinction of the same to a perfect unity, and, as man would say, brought them all under a monarchy, making a subordination of one thing to another and of all things to himself the sovereign Monarch. He reduces all our members into one body under one head, of many persons he forms a family, of many families a town, of many
towns a province, of many provinces a kingdom, putting the whole kingdom under the government of one sole king. So, Theotimus, over the innumerable multitude and variety of actions, motions, feelings, inclinations, habits, passions, faculties and powers which are in man, God has established a natural monarchy in the will, which rules and commands all that is found in this little world: and God seems to have said to the will as Pharao said to Joseph: Thou shalt be over my house, and at the
commandment of thy mouth all the people shall obey. This dominion of the will is exercised indeed in very various ways.
Hardback, paperback, eBook and free preview versions.
|
|
|
|
|
