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Suggestions for Fasting and Feasting:
Fast from discontent; feast on thankfulness.
Fast from worry; feast on trust.
Fast from anger; feast on patience.
Fast from self-concern; feast on compassion for others.
Fast from unrelenting pressures; feast on unceasing prayers .
Fast from bitterness; feast on forgiveness.
Fast from discouragement, feast on hope.
Fast from media hype, feast on the honesty of the Bible.
Fast from idle gossip; feast on purposeful silence.
Fast from problems that overwhelm; feast on prayer that undergirds.
Anonymous
(Which of these fasts do you need to undertake at this time?)
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Living The Serenity Prayer in Times of Darkness
- free pdf booklet; podcast
Evaluating Personal Risk During the Covid-10 Pandemic
- free pdf worksheet
God, and the Problem of Suffering
- free digital options; paperback booklet
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NM 21:4-9; Ps 102:2-3, 16-18, 19-21
JN 8:21-30
Jesus said to the Pharisees:
“I am going away and you will look for me,
but you will die in your sin.
Where I am going you cannot come.”
So the Jews said,
“He is not going to kill himself, is he,
because he said, ‘Where I am going you cannot come’?”
He said to them, “You belong to what is below,
I belong to what is above.
You belong to this world,
but I do not belong to this world.
That is why I told you that you will die in your sins.
For if you do not believe that I AM,
you will die in your sins.”
So they said to him, “Who are you?”
Jesus said to them, “What I told you from the beginning.
I have much to say about you in condemnation.
But the one who sent me is true,
and what I heard from him I tell the world.”
They did not realize that he was speaking to them of the Father.
So Jesus said to them,
“When you lift up the Son of Man,
then you will realize that I AM,
and that I do nothing on my own,
but I say only what the Father taught me.
The one who sent me is with me.
He has not left me alone,
because I always do what is pleasing to him.”
Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.
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 8: 21-30 (Jesus is one with the Father)
Unlike Matthew, Mark, and Luke, John often has Jesus involved in long, profound dialogues with unbelievers and authorities. This is a method he uses to articulate his community’s understanding of who Jesus is as they face persecution from Jews and Romans alike. In today’s reading Jesus speaks of the revelation that is to come when he is lifted up, or crucified.
• Spend some time with the passage, "The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone.” Become aware of God’s nearness and love for you.
• Make a resolution to let a special person in your life know that you care about him or her.
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 12: That in these two portions of the soul there are four different degrees of reason
There were three courts in Solomon's temple. One was for the Gentiles and strangers who, wishing to have recourse to God, went to adore in Jerusalem; the second for the Israelites, men and women (the separation of men from women not being made by Solomon); the third for the priests and Levites; and in fine, besides all this, there was the sanctuary or
sacred house, which was open to the high priest only, and that but once a year. Our reason, or, to speak better, our soul in so far as it is reasonable, is the true temple of the great God, who there takes up his chief residence. "I sought thee," says S. Augustine, "outside myself, but I found thee not, because thou art within me." In this mystical temple there are also three courts, which are three different degrees of reason; in the first we reason according to the experience of sense, in the
second according to human sciences, in the third according to faith: and in fine, beyond this, there is a certain eminence or supreme point of the reason and spiritual faculty, which is not guided by the light of argument or reasoning, but by a simple view of the understanding and a simple movement of the will, by which the spirit bends and submits to the truth and the will of God.
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