Message o 12-2-11

Published: Fri, 12/02/11


A Daily Spiritual Seed
- resources for prayer and spiritual growth


Message of the Day

   Unless we know the difference between flowers and weeds, we are not fit to take care of a garden.
   It is not enough to have truth planted in our minds. We must learn and labor to keep the ground clear of thorns and briars, follies and perversities, which have a wicked propensity to choke the word of life.
  -  Evan S. Coslett, Leaves of Gold

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

Is 29:17-24;    Ps 27:1, 4, 13-14;    Mt 9:27-31

R. (1a) The Lord is my light and my salvation.

The LORD is my light and my salvation;
whom should I fear?
The LORD is my life's refuge;
of whom should I be afraid?

One thing I ask of the LORD;
this I seek:
To dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
That I may gaze on the loveliness of the LORD
and contemplate his temple.

I believe that I shall see the bounty of the LORD
in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD with courage;
be stouthearted, and wait for the LORD.

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Reflection on the Scripture
   http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html

The Gospel lesson might as well be labeled "A Christmas Story." What do you want for Christmas? Two blind men ask Jesus for pity, for mercy. They want to see. As a child I always had faith that what I asked for would end up under the Christmas tree. But healing a person of their blindness? Isaiah said that this day would come but Jesus needed to know if the men truly believed that he could heal them. They said they believed him and he healed them. He then asked them to let their belief become trust when he sternly warned them not to tell anyone what he had done. How many Christmas gift givers have been treated the same way as these men treated Jesus? "But they went out and spread word of him through all that land."

Patience is a virtue, much to be desired. I need Advent because I need patience. I need to learn how to wait. I need to learn how to trust Jesus.

I believe. Lord, help my unbelief.

- by George Butterfield

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Spiritual Reading

On Cleaving to God
     by St. Albert the Great

For this reason the Devil tries eagerly and with all his power to hinder this practice so far as he can, being envious of this in humans, since it is a sort of prelude and initiation of eternal life. So he is always trying to draw one's mind away from the Lord God, now by temptations or passions, now by superfluous worries and pointless cares, now by restlessness and distracting conversation and senseless curiosity, now by the study of subtle books, irrelevant discussion, gossip and news, now by hardships, now by opposition, etc. Such matters may seem trivial enough and hardly sinful, but they are a great hindrance to this holy exercise and practice. Therefore, even if they may appear useful and necessary, they should be rejected, whether great or small, as harmful and dangerous, and put out of our minds. 

- Chapter 4. How one's activity should be purely in the intellect and not in the senses.

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