Message of 12-30-11

Published: Fri, 12/30/11


A Daily Spiritual Seed
- resources for prayer and spiritual growth


Message of the Day

Love ... is very noticeable as fervour and devotion and jubilation, and is yet not always the best thing; for sometimes it is not from love but is caused by nature that one has such taste and sweetness; or it may be a heavenly impression or it may be produced by the senses, and those who have most of this are not always the best. For even if it should be from God, our Lord gives this to such men in order to attract and charm them, and also to detach them from others. But if these same people later grow in love, they may not have so many feelings, and then it will become clear that they have love, if they remain wholly faithful to God without any such support.
   - Meister Eckhart (1260?-1327?), Works of Meister Eckhart
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Lectionary Readings of the Day
   http://www.usccb.org/calendar/index.cfm?showLit=1&action=month

Gn 15:1-6; 21:1-3;    Ps 128:1-2, 3, 4-5;    Lk 2:22-40

R. (cf. 1)Blessed are those who fear the Lord and walk in his ways.

Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD,
who walks in his ways!
For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork;
blessed shall you be, and favored.

Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine
in the recesses of your home;
your children like olive plants around your table.

Behold, thus is the man blessed
who fears the LORD.
The LORD bless you from Zion:
may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem
all the days of your life.

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

Legend has it that Joseph died sometime in Jesus' youth. Think he learned something about grief? And what was it like for Mary as a single mother with a precocious son?
 
I just wonder whether seeing the Holy Family as a very human family that did their best, learned to pray and forgive together, and make the world a bit better place for having been in it... I wonder if we might relate to them as friends and confidants and 'prayer partners'.
 
However we look at them, may the love that inspired, upheld, surrounded, and blest the Holy Family lead us and guide us in 2012!

- by Roc O'Connor, S.J.

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Spiritual Reading

On Cleaving to God
     by St. Albert the Great

If your desire and aim is to reach the destination of the path and home of true happiness, of grace and glory, by a straight and safe way then earnestly apply your mind to seek constant purity of heart, clarity of mind and calm of the senses. Gather up your heart's desire and fix it continually on the Lord God above.

- Chapter 5. On purity of heart, which is to be sought above all things.

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