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By means of Christ who is human you proceed to Christ who is God. God is indeed beyond us. But God has become human. What was far from us has become, by the mediation of a man, very near. He is the God in whom you shall dwell. He is the man by way of whom you must reach him. Christ is at once the way you must follow and the goal you must reach."
- St. Augustine, "Sermons" 261, 6 -
(Christ as the way, the truth, the life. Take a few moments to thank God for the gift of Christ.)
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1 JN 2:12-17; PS 96:7-8A, 8B-9, 10
LK 2:36-40
There was a prophetess, Anna,
the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher.
She was advanced in years,
having lived seven years with her husband after her marriage,
and then as a widow until she was eighty-four.
She never left the temple,
but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer.
And coming forward at that very time,
she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child
to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem.
When they had fulfilled all the prescriptions
of the law of the Lord,
they returned to Galilee,
to their own town of Nazareth.
The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom;
and the favor of God was upon 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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Luke 2: 36-40 (More prophecies about Jesus)
The religious heroes of all traditions usually come to us replete with mysterious origins and wonderful prophecies; stories about Jesus are no exception. It is thought that Luke gathered much of the material for his infancy narratives from Mary, who had treasured the events of that time in her heart. Today's reading with Annas prophecy may be one such event.
* How do you feel about the notion that Jesus grew in strength, grace, and wisdom?
* What are you doing to keep growing in your appreciation of the Church?
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 II: THE HISTORY OF THE GENERATION AND HEAVENLY BIRTH OF DIVINE LOVE
Chapter 4: Of the supernatural providence which God uses towards reasonable creatures
All God's works are ordained to the salvation of men and angels; and the order of his providence is this, as far as, by attention to the Holy Scriptures and the doctrine of the Fathers, we are able to discover and our weakness permits us to describe it.
God knew from all eternity that he could make an innumerable multitude of creatures with divers perfections and qualities, to whom he might communicate himself, and considering that amongst all the different communications there was none so excellent as that of uniting himself to some created nature, in such sort that the creature might be engrafted and
implanted in the divinity, and become one single person with it, his infinite goodness, which of itself and by itself tends towards communication, resolved and determined to communicate himself in this manner. So that, as eternally there is an essential communication in God by which the Father communicates all his infinite and indivisible divinity to the Son in producing him, and the Father and the Son together producing the Holy Ghost communicate to him also their own singular divinity;--so
this sovereign sweetness was so perfectly communicated externally to a creature, that the created nature and the divinity, retaining each of them its own properties, were notwithstanding so united together that they were but one same person.
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