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The one supreme, unchangeable rule of love, which is a law to all intelligent beings of all worlds, and will be a law to all eternity is this, viz., that God alone is to be loved for himself, and all other beings only in him and for him. Whatever intelligent creature lives not under this rule of love, is so far fallen from the order of his creation, and is, till he returns to his eternal law of love, an apostate from
God, and incapable of the kingdom of heaven.
Now if God alone is to be loved for himself, then no creature is to be loved for itself; and so all self-love in every creature is absolutely condemned.
And if all created beings are only to be loved in and for God, then my neighbour is to be loved, as I love myself, and I am only to love myself, as I love my neighbour, or any other created being, that is, only in and for God.
- William Law (1686-1761), The Spirit of Prayer
(Unconditional love rooted in God -- the ultimate ideal!)
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2 SM 6:12B-15, 17-19; Psalm 24:7, 8, 9, 10
MK 3:31-35
The mother of Jesus and his brothers arrived at the house.
Standing outside, they sent word to Jesus and called him.
A crowd seated around him told him,
“Your mother and your brothers and your sisters
are outside asking for you.”
But he said to them in reply,
“Who are my mother and my brothers?”
And looking around at those seated in the circle he said,
“Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of God
is my brother and sister and mother.”
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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Mark 3: 31-35 (The true relatives of Jesus)
Unlike the other evangelists, Mark does not apologize for Jesus' family and their misunderstanding of his mission. They have come to take him home, presumably to try to talk some sense into him. Jesus responds by claiming that he owes more allegiance to the family of God.
* How involved in family matters are you? Does your family identity complement or detract from your identity as a child of God?
* If you could change anything in your family, what would it be? For what are you most thankful?
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 10: That the union to which love aspires is spiritual
You see then plainly, Theotimus, that these unions which tend to animal complacency and passions are so far from producing or preserving love that they greatly hurt it and render it extremely weak.
Basil, rosemary, marigold, hyssop, cloves, chamomile, nutmeg, lemon, and musk, put together and incorporated, yield a truly delightful odour by the mixture of their good perfume; yet not nearly so much as does the water which is distilled from them, in which the sweets of all these ingredients separated from their bodies are mingled in a much more excellent manner, uniting in a most
perfect scent, which penetrates the sense of smelling far more strongly than it would do if with it and its water the bodies of the ingredients were found mingled and united. So love may be found in the unions proper to the sensual powers, mixed with the unions of intellectual powers, but never so excellently as when the spirits and souls alone, separated from all corporeal affections but united together, make love pure and spiritual. For the scent of affections thus mingled is not only sweeter
and better, but more lively, more active and more essential.
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