Message of 7-18-07

Published: Wed, 07/18/07



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

The human spirit abides in the body very much as the chicken in the shell. If it were possible for the bird within the shell to be told that outside of it was a great widespread world, with all kinds of fruit and flowers, with rivers and grand mountains, that its mother also was there, and that it would see all this when set free from its shell, it could not understand or believe it.... In the same way there are many who are uncertain about the future life and the existence of God, because they cannot see beyond this shell-like body of flesh, and their thoughts, like delicate wings, cannot carry them beyond the narrow confines of the brain. Their weak eyes cannot discover those eternal and unfading treasures which God has prepared for those who love Him.
- Sadhu Sundar Singh

("Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered into the heart, the things which God has prepared for those who live him."  1 Cor. 2: 9)

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

Ex 3:1-6, 9-12;   Ps 103:1b-2, 3-4, 6-7;   Mt 11:25-27

R.    (8a) The Lord is kind and merciful.

Bless the LORD, O my soul;
and all my being, bless his holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits.

He pardons all your iniquities,
he heals all your ills.
He redeems your life from destruction,
he crowns you with kindness and compassion.

The LORD secures justice
and the rights of all the oppressed.
He has made known his ways to Moses,
and his deeds to the children of Israel.

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

- Matthew 11:  25-27 (Good News for the simple)

Accepting the Good News of Jesus Christ is less a matter of intellectual sophistication and more a matter of faith.  In today’s reading, Jesus warns us of the danger of intellectual snobbery.

• How do you respond to people who say, "How can you believe all that religious stuff? There’s no proof for any of it!"

• Pray for the grace to accept Jesus in simplicity of heart.

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MYSTICISM
   - by Evelyn Underhill -

“The essence of purgation,” says Richard of St. Victor, “is self-simplification.” Nothing can happen until this has proceeded a certain distance: till the involved interests and tangled motives of the self are simplified, and the false complications of temporal life are recognized and cast away.

------ 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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