The secret of life is to let every segment of it produce its own yield at its own pace. Every period has something new to teach us. The harvest of youth is achievement; the harvest of middle-age is perspective; the harvest of age is wisdom; the harvest of life is serenity.
- Joan Chittister
(How would you describe the period of life you are in? What are you harvesting?)
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Col 2:6-15; Psalm 145:1b-2, 8-9, 10-11
Lk 6:12-19
Jesus departed to the mountain to pray,
and he spent the night in prayer to God.
When day came, he called his disciples to himself,
and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named Apostles:
Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew,
James, John, Philip, Bartholomew,
Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus,
Simon who was called a Zealot,
and Judas the son of James,
and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
And he came down with them and stood on a stretch of level ground.
A great crowd of his disciples and a large number of the people
from all Judea and Jerusalem
and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon
came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases;
and even those who were tormented by unclean spirits were cured.
Everyone in the crowd sought to touch him
because power came forth from him and healed them all.
Reflection on the Scriptures
In prayer, I sit alone in the stillness of silence and listen with my heart, with my entire body, noticing the interior nudges that alert me to God’s approach, to God’s presence. My name? I will know it. Maybe I have heard/noticed/felt it before, maybe now for the first time, maybe it will take a bit of noticing in the solitude of prayer before I hear it. I listen. I notice.
Alone, in silent solitude I listen for my own God-given name. Initially, I experience a slight interior feeling, movement, rather than hearing or certainty. Words don’t come readily.
Lord, what is my name today? What is my name that reflects our intimacy right now?
Lord, today, in intimacy I call you….
- by Joan Howard
The Son of God Became Human
From The Catechism of the Catholic Church
Part One, Section Two, Chapter Three
Article 8: I Believe in the Holy Spirit
III. GOD'S SPIRIT AND WORD IN THE TIME OF THE PROMISES
Expectation of the Messiah and his Spirit
713 The Messiah's characteristics are revealed above all in the "Servant songs."82 These songs proclaim the meaning of Jesus' Passion and show how he will pour out the Holy Spirit to give life to the many: not as an outsider, but by embracing our "form as slave."83 Taking our death upon himself, he can communicate to us his own Spirit of life.
714 This is why Christ inaugurates the proclamation of the Good News by making his own the following passage from Isaiah:84
The Spirit of the LORD God is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to bring good tidings to the afflicted;
he has sent me to bind up the broken hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor.
(Footnote references in the Catechism.)
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