Message of 6-13-07

Published: Wed, 06/13/07



SHALOM PLACE PREMIUM GROUPS
- Life-long learning and formation in Christian spirituality.

Groups now open include the following:
A. Psychological Types and Spirituality
B. The Way of Christian Spirituality
C. Freedom from Codependency
D. Christian Spirituality Resources
E. Wonderfully Made (Christian Metaphysics)
F. Growing in Christ
G. Spiral Dynamics®
H. Discerning God's Will
I.  Dark Night of the Soul
J.  Silence, Solitude and Sabbath
K. Alpha Group -- includes all the above and all to come.

- see http://shalomplace.org/groups.html

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MESSAGE OF THE DAY

We seldom realize fully that we are sent to fulfill God-given tasks. We act as if we were simply dropped down in creation and have to decide to entertain ourselves until we die. But we were sent into the world by God, just as Jesus was. Once we start living our lives with that conviction, we will soon know what we were sent to do.
   - Henri J. M. Nouwen

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SCRIPTURE READINGS
     http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/

2 Cor 3:4-11;   Ps 99:5, 6, 7, 8, 9;   Mt 5:17-19

R.    (see 9c) Holy is the Lord our God.

Extol the LORD, our God,
and worship at his footstool;
holy is he!

Moses and Aaron were among his priests,
and Samuel, among those who called upon his name;
they called upon the LORD, and he answered them.

From the pillar of cloud he spoke to them;
they heard his decrees and the law he gave them.

O LORD, our God, you answered them;
a forgiving God you were to them,
though requiting their misdeeds.

Extol the LORD, our God,
and worship at his holy mountain;
for holy is the LORD, our God.

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Praying the Daily Gospels
 - by Philip St. Romain:
 - http://www.liguori.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=6614

- Matthew 5:17-19 (Jesus and the Law)

Today’s reading summarizes much of what the Gospel of Matthew is attempting to articulate: Jesus is the fulfillment of Jewish expectations. Matthew constantly affirms the value of Jewish tradition and portrays Jesus as one who loved, rather than despised, Judaism.

• How do we teach one another to respect (or despise) the laws of God?  Are you a model of most of these laws to your family?  To those with whom you work?

• Who are the models to whom you look for inspiration in living out your faith? Why do these people inspire you?

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MYSTICISM
   - by Evelyn Underhill -

“We must be filled with a burning fervour full of anguish.” Only this deep and ardent passion for a perceived Object of Love can persuade the mystic to those unnatural acts of abnegation by which he kills his lesser love of the world of sense, frees himself from the “remora of desire,” unifies all his energies about the new and higher centre of his life. His business, I have said, is transcendence: a mounting up, an attainment of a higher order of reality. Once his eyes have been opened on Eternity, his instinct for the Absolute roused from its sleep, he sees union with that Reality as his duty no less than his joy: sees too, that this union can only be consummated on a plane where illusion and selfhood have no place.
     - Part 2, Chapter 3

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MEDITATING ON SCRIPTURE (Method of St. Francis de Sales)

A. Settling in: call to mind God's presence; address oneself to God in vocal prayer.

B. Reading the Scripture passage slowly, prayerfully.

C. Exercise of the will and intellect in considering the message: what is this passage saying?  what is it calling forth from me?

D. Conclusion: acts of thanksgiving, remorse and intercessions awakened by the meditation.

E. Application: Immediate follow-through on resolutions made.

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