Message of 12-16-11

Published: Fri, 12/16/11


A Daily Spiritual Seed
- resources for prayer and spiritual growth


Message of the Day

"So love is the way to Christian enlightenment and there is no other.  This love has a twofold thrust: love of God and love of neighbour.  In either case it is ecstatic.  That is to say, my consciousness expands and I go out of myself--I go out to all men and women who have ever lived or ever will love, to the whole material universe of moons and stars and planets, to every blade of grass and every grain of sand, to every living creature, and to the great mystery at the centre of all, the great mystery we call God--and God is love."
   - William Johnston, Letters to Contemplatives

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

Is 56:1-3a, 6-8;    Ps 67:2-3, 5, 7-8;    Jn 5:33-36

R. (4) O God, let all the nations praise you!

May God have pity on us and bless us;
may he let his face shine upon us.
So may your way be known upon earth;
among all nations, your salvation.

May the nations be glad and exult
because you rule the peoples in equity;
the nations on the earth you guide.

The earth has yielded its fruits;
God, our God, has blessed us.
May God bless us,
and may all the ends of the earth fear him!

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

Isaiah proclaims that there is hope for those who have sought to yearn and hunger honestly, a theme that Jesus develops in the Beatitudes, and we must empty ourselves of depending on these insufficient substitutes for the salvation we seek.  That can amount to emptying ourselves completely even of a desire for good things, such as health and long life, and we can then receive the salvation that our God, in His infinite love and wisdom, wishes to give us and in whatever way He thinks best.

And John makes it clear that the salvation that the Father sends is His Son, His Jesus.  We must yearn for that Word of love from the Father, must hunger deeply and pray constantly for His coming to us as individuals and as a world, and we must do His works as we wait.

Pray for the gift of honest and deep hunger, for only those who hunger and thirst will be filled with the Lord.  Only those who desire honestly and deeply, who accept an uncomfortable salvation, can truly find life in a Crucified Lord.

- by Chas Kestermeier, S.J.

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Spiritual Reading

On Cleaving to God
     by St. Albert the Great

So commit yourself confidently and without hesitation, all that you are, and everything else, individually and in general, to the unfailing and totally reliable providence of God, in silence and in peace, and he will fight for you. He will liberate you and comfort you more fully, more effectively and more satisfactorily than if you were to dream about it all the time, day and night, and were to cast around frantically all over the place with the futile and confused thoughts of your mind in bondage, nor will you wear out your mind and body, wasting your time, and stupidly and pointlessly exhausting your strength.

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

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