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What needs to be guarded is the life of the Spirit within us. Especially we who want to witness to the presence of God's Spirit in the world need to tend the fire within with utmost care. . . Our first and foremost task is faithfully to care for the inward fire so that when it is really needed it can offer warmth and light to lost travelers."
- Henri Nouwen [20th C.], The Way of the Heart -
(How bright and warm is the fire of the Spirit! How can you tend its Flame?)
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Fire of Love: Encountering the Holy Spirit, by Donald Goergen, OP.
Book available via Amazon.com and other sellers as paperback and digital.
Facilitated by Philip St. Romain
Dates: Thursdays October 7, 14, 21, 28 November 4 and 11
Time: 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. Central via Zoom
Fee: $25.00 - Registration
Reflects on the Spirit’s influence in our individual lives, in the Church, other world religions and the cosmos. Fr. Goergen brings a lifetime of theological study and practical ministry experience to help us become more aware of and open to the gifts of the Spirit.
Participants will need to obtain their own copy of this book in advance.
Zoom links will be sent weekly to participants.
Ezr 9:5-9; Psalm Tobit 13:2-4, 7-8
Lk 9:1-6
Jesus summoned the Twelve and gave them power and authority
over all demons and to cure diseases,
and he sent them to proclaim the Kingdom of God
and to heal the sick.
He said to them, “Take nothing for the journey,
neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money,
and let no one take a second tunic.
Whatever house you enter, stay there and leave from there.
And as for those who do not welcome you,
when you leave that town,
shake the dust from your feet in testimony against them.”
Then they set out and went from village to village
proclaiming the good news and curing diseases everywhere.
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.)
Luke 9:1-6 (The twelve emissaries)
To insure that the Twelve apostles not be judged as having a hidden agenda and ulterior motives, Jesus sends them among the people as poor, unassuming messengers. They are to extend God's gifts of healing and teaching in return for food and shelter. If rejected, they are to move along. This model of ministry is profound in its simplicity.
* Make a list of ulterior motives that seem to hamper the efforts of Christian ministers. Do any of these motives interfere with your own efforts at spreading the Good News?
* What does the virtue of simplicity mean to you?
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 13: Of the first sentiments of love that God causes in the soul before she has faith.
Methinks I see in this example a nightingale which, awaking at the peep of day, begins to stir, and to stretch itself, unfold its plumes, skip from branch to branch in its grove, and little by little warble out its delicious wood-music. For did you not note, how the good example of the charitable Christians excited and awakened with a sudden start the blessed Pachomius? Truly this astonished admiration he had
was nothing else than his awakening, in which God touched him, as the sun touches the earth, with a ray of his brightness, which filled him with a great feeling of spiritual pleasure. For which cause Pachomius shakes himself loose from distractions, to the end he may with more attention and facility gather together and relish the grace he has received, withdrawing himself to think thereupon. Then he extends his heart and hands towards heaven, whither the inspiration is drawing him, and beginning
to display the wings of his affections, flying between diffidence of himself, and confidence in God, he entones in a humbly amorous air the canticle of his conversion. He first testifies that he already knows one only God Creator of heaven and earth: but withal he knows that he does not yet know him sufficiently to serve him as he ought, and therefore he petitions that a more perfect knowledge may be imparted to him, that thereby he may come to the perfect service of his divine
majesty.
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