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To realize that you are safe and happy standing at God’s side, with His love encompassing you because you are forgiven; too happy to take offense any more; too much in love with life to want to be made miserable with an unforgiving heart, and that now every conflict is a chance to learn more of the exceeding beauty of Love: that is worth living for, and surely worth dying to this misery-making self for.
- Florence Allshorn (1887-1950), The Notebooks of Florence Allshorn
(Let this be your attitude today.)
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NM 11:4B-15; PS 81:12-13, 14-15, 16-17
MT 14:13-21
When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist,
he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.
The crowds heard of this and followed him on foot from their towns.
When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd,
his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick.
When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said,
"This is a deserted place and it is already late;
dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages
and buy food for themselves."
He said to them, "There is no need for them to go away;
give them some food yourselves."
But they said to him,
"Five loaves and two fish are all we have here."
Then he said, "Bring them here to me,"
and he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass.
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven,
he said the blessing, broke the loaves,
and gave them to the disciples,
who in turn gave them to the crowds.
They all ate and were satisfied,
and they picked up the fragments left over–
twelve wicker baskets full.
Those who ate were about five thousand men,
not counting women and children.
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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Matthew 14: 13-21 (Jesus feeds the multitudes)
Jesus loved John the Baptist very deeply. When he hears of John’s death, he seeks a lonely place where he can mourn the loss of his friend, but the crowds deny him even this small amount of privacy. His response to them is one of mercy, however, and not reproach.
• "My interruptions are my work,” Henri Nouwen wrote. How do you handle interruptions? Do you believe that some interruptions are God’s way of breaking into your life?
• Think over your day, anticipating times when you will probably be interrupted. How can you respond in a loving way? Pray for the grace to remember to do 50 when those times come.
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 6: How the love of God has dominion over other loves
The will governs all the other faculties of the soul, yet it is governed by its love which makes it such as its love is. Now of all loves that of God holds the sceptre, and has the authority of commanding so inseparably united to it and proper to its nature, that if it be not master it ceases to be and perishes.
Ismael was not co-heir with Isaac his younger brother, Esau was appointed to be his younger brother’s servant, Joseph was adored, not only by his brothers, but also by his father, yea, and by his mother also, in the person of Benjamin, as he had foreseen in the dreams of his youth. Truly it is not without mystery that the younger of these brethren thus bear away the advantage from the
elder. Divine love is indeed the last begotten of all the affections of man’s heart, for as the Apostle says: That which is animal is first; afterwards that which is spiritual:but this last born inherits all the authority, and self-love, as another Esau is deputed to his service; and not only all the other motions of the soul as his brethren adore him and are subject to him, but also the understanding and will which are to him as father and mother. All is subject to this heavenly love, who will
either be king or nothing, who cannot live unless he reign, nor reign if not sovereignly.
Hardback, paperback, eBook and free preview versions.
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