Message of 5-30-07
Published: Wed, 05/30/07
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MESSAGE OF THE DAY
God is looking for imperfect men and women who have learned to walk in moment-by-moment dependence on the Holy Spirit. Christians who have come to terms with their inadequacies, fears, and failures. Believers who have become discontent with 'surviving' and have taken the time to investigate everything God has to offer in this life.
- Charles Stanley
(Be open to what God has to offer you this day. Pray for the grace to see and know this in gratitude.)
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- Are you looking for an at-home summer retreat?
Silence, Solitude and Sabbath will be a four-week online series presented by Kathy Bence, M.Div., D. Min., beginning June 13, 2007. Retreat conferences will be sent to your email address and a private discussion forum will be created for participants to share experiences and interact with Kathy and one another.
- see http://shalomplace.
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SCRIPTURE READINGS
http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/
Sir 36:1, 4-5a, 10-17; Ps 79:8, 9, 11 and 13; Mk 10:32-45
R.
(Sirach 36:1b) Show us, O Lord, the light of your kindness.
Remember not against us the iniquities of the past;
may your compassion quickly come to us,
for we are brought very low.
Help us, O God our savior,
because of the glory of your name;
Deliver us and pardon our sins
for your name’s sake.
Let the prisoners’ sighing come before you;
with your great power free those doomed to death.
Then we, your people and the sheep of your pasture,
will give thanks to you forever;
through all generations we will declare your praise.
Remember not against us the iniquities of the past;
may your compassion quickly come to us,
for we are brought very low.
Help us, O God our savior,
because of the glory of your name;
Deliver us and pardon our sins
for your name’s sake.
Let the prisoners’ sighing come before you;
with your great power free those doomed to death.
Then we, your people and the sheep of your pasture,
will give thanks to you forever;
through all generations we will declare your praise.
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Praying the Daily Gospels
- by Philip St. Romain:
- http://www.liguori.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=6614
- Mark 10:32-45 (On servant leadership)
Mark again contrasts Jesus’ notion of the messiah as a suffering servant with the apostles’ ambitions and vanities. Jesus explains that a commitment to service is the only way to guarantee that leadership does not go to one’s head.
• Many have
written that the proper attitude for a Christian is expressed thus:
‘What can I do to help?” Do you agree? Does this
saying summarize your attitude toward people and circumstances?
• Review your day to come and anticipate times when you will need grace to be more loving. Ask for this grace.
• Review your day to come and anticipate times when you will need grace to be more loving. Ask for this grace.
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MYSTICISM
- by Evelyn Underhill -
“I saw full surely,” says Julian of Norwich, “that it behoveth needs to be that we should be in longing and in penance, until the time that we be led so deep into God that we verily and truly know our own soul.”
Dante’s whole journey up the Mount of Purgation is the dramatic presentation of this one truth. So, too, the celebrated description of Purgatory attributed to St. Catherine of Genoa is obviously founded upon its author’s inward experience of this Purgative Way. In it, she applies to the souls of the dead her personal consciousness of the necessity of purification . . . Thus the souls are covered by a rust—that is, by sin—which is gradually consumed away by the fire of purgatory. The more it is consumed, the more they respond to God their true Sun. Their happiness increases as the rust falls off and lays them open to the divine ray . . . the instinctive tendency to seek happiness in <pb n=‘203‘> God develops itself, and goes on increasing through the fire of love which draws it to its end with such impetuosity and vehemence that any obstacle seems intolerable; and the more clear its vision, the more extreme its pain.”
------ Part 2, Chapter 3
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