Message of 10-3-11

Published: Mon, 10/03/11


A Daily Spiritual Seed
- resources for prayer and spiritual growth

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Message of the Day

The holy and most glorious God invites us to come to Him, to converse with Him, to ask from Him such things as we need, and to experience what a blessing there is in fellowship with Him. He has created us in His own image and has redeemed us by His own Son, so that in prayer with Him we might find our highest glory and salvation.
   - Andrew Murray

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Lectionary Readings of the Day
   http://www.usccb.org/calendar/index.cfm?showLit=1&action=month

Jon 1:1:2:1-2, 11;    Jon 2:3, 4, 5, 8;    Lk 10:25-37

R. You will rescue my life from the pit, O Lord.

Out of my distress I called to the LORD,
and he answered me;
From the midst of the nether world I cried for help,
and you heard my voice.

For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the sea,
and the flood enveloped me;
All your breakers and your billows
passed over me.

Then I said, "I am banished from your sight!
yet would I again look upon your holy temple."

When my soul fainted within me,
I remembered the LORD;
My prayer reached you
in your holy temple.

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Reflection on the Gospel
  - from Daily Bread
    http://www.preacherexchange.com/daily_bread.htm

What is written in the law? How do you read it?

The scholar knows well what is written in the law. Yet we suspect that for him, the word "neighbor" represents a loophole, a way of allowing us to withhold or limit love, perhaps exempting certain persons from its duties. Jesus gives the scholar's question context with a parable that suggests better questions: How can I be a good neighbor to others?  What does it look like to be neighborly and loving? In the end, Jesus charges his listeners to determine not who should receive the love prescribed by the law, but who has given it, and the legalistic religious authorities are exposed as people who miss the spirit by clinging to the letter of the law.

For the grace to love as we ought, we pray.

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Spiritual Reading

The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage
   by St. John of Rusybroeck (1293-1381)

Through inward charity and loving inclination and the faithfulness of God, there arises the second rill from the fulness of grace within the unity of the spirit; and it is a ghostly light which flows forth and shines into the understanding, discerning diverse things. For this light shows and proves in truth the distinctions between all the virtues; but this does not lie wholly in our power. For, even if we always had this light within our souls, it is God Who makes it to be silent and to speak, and He may show it and hide it, give it and take it away, in any time and place; for this light is His. And He therefore works in this light when He wills, and where He wills, and for whom He wills, and what He wills. These men have no need of revelations, neither of being caught up above the senses; for their life, and dwelling-place, their way, and their being, are in the spirit, above the senses and above sensibility. And there God shows to such men what is His good pleasure, and what is needful for them or for other men. Nevertheless God could, were such His will, deprive such men of their outward senses, and show them from within unknown similitudes and future things in many ways.

- Chapter 37: The second rill enlightens understanding

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