Message of 8-1-11
Published: Tue, 07/26/11
- resources for prayer and spiritual growth
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MESSAGE OF THE DAY
Devotion is not a passing emotion--it is a fixed, enduring habit of
mind, permeating the whole life, and shaping every action. It rests
upon a conviction that God is the Sole Source of Holiness, and that
our part is to lean upon Him and be absolutely guided and governed
by Him; and it necessitates an abiding hold on Him, a perpetual
habit of listening for His Voice within the heart, as of readiness
to obey the dictates of that Voice.
- Jean Nicolas Grou (1731-1803), "The Hidden Life of the Soul"
(" . . . a perpetual habit of listening for His Voice within the
heart . . . Listen.)
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LECTIONARY READINGS FOR THE DAY
http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/
Nm 11:4b-15; Ps. 81:12-13, 14-15, 16-17; Mt 14:22-36
R. (2a) Sing with joy to God our help.
"My people heard not my voice,
and Israel obeyed me not;
So I gave them up to the hardness of their hearts;
they walked according to their own counsels."
"If only my people would hear me,
and Israel walk in my ways,
Quickly would I humble their enemies;
against their foes I would turn my hand."
"Those who hated the LORD would seek to flatter me,
but their fate would endure forever,
While Israel I would feed with the best of wheat,
and with honey from the rock I would fill them."
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REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL
- from "Daily Bread"
http://www.preacherexchange.com/daily_bread.htm
"There is no need for them to go away; give them some food
yourselves."
The solution to the problem of feeding the multitudes seems so
obvious to the disciples: Send everyone off to fend for themselves.
This solution gets the disciples off the hook. If some people find
no food or have no money to buy it, tough luck! Jesus' solution
seems impossible, yet, with his blessing, it happens. We may think
we don't have time for someone in need, the funds to contribute to
yet another charity, the energy to volunteer in our parish. Let us
ask Jesus to bless what we have to give to others, and then see if
it doesn't become more.
"For the compassion and generosity of Christ, we pray."
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SPIRITUAL READING
The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage
by St. John of Rusybroeck (1293-1381)
The other fever of fickleness, which comes from cold, all those men
have who love God indeed, but at the same time seek and
inordinately love some other thing. This fever comes from cold, for
the heat of charity is poor indeed where not God alone, but foreign
things besides and with God, urge and excite us towards the works
of virtue. Such men are fickle of heart; for in all the things
which they do, nature is secretly seeking its own, often without
their knowledge, for they know not themselves. Such men choose and
abandon, first one way of life, then another. To-day they choose
one priest, to whom they would go for confession and for counsel
their whole life long; and to-morrow they will choose another. On
all things they will ask advice, but hardly ever do they act upon
it. All things for which they are blamed and rebuked they like to
excuse and to justify. Of fine words they have plenty, but little
is in them. They like well to have a reputation for virtue, but
without great effort. They wish their virtues to be known, and
these are therefore empty, and have no savour either of God nor of
themselves. Others they teach, but will themselves hardly be taught
or reproved. A natural self-love and a hidden pride make them thus
fickle. Such people walk on the verge of hell: one false step, and
into it they fall.
In some men this fever of fickleness may produce the quartan fever;
that is, an estrangement from God and from themselves and from
truth and from all virtues. And then they fall into such confusion
that they are at their wit's end and know not what to do. This
illness is more dangerous than either of the others.
- Chapter 32: Of four kinds of fevers wherewith a person can be
tormented.
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