Message of 1-27-12

Published: Fri, 01/27/12


A Daily Spiritual Seed
- resources for prayer and spiritual growth


Message of the Day

When we won't let ourselves be held in the midst of our messes by God who loves us and made us, we miss the unspeakable joy of knowing that we are truly His beloved.
  - Deborah Newman

(What kind of "messes" do you struggle with at this time in your life?  Invite God in, to be with you, support you, and guide you.)
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Lectionary Readings of the Day
   http://www.usccb.org/calendar/index.cfm?showLit=1&action=month

2 Sm 1:1-4a, 5-10a, 13-17;    Ps 51:3-4, 5-6a, 6bcd-7, 10-11;    Mk 4:26-34

R. (see 3a) Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.

Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness;
in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt
and of my sin cleanse me.

For I acknowledge my offense,
and my sin is before me always:
"Against you only have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight."

I have done such evil in your sight
that you are just in your sentence,
blameless when you condemn.
True, I was born guilty,
a sinner, even as my mother conceived me.

Let me hear the sounds of joy and gladness;
the bones you have crushed shall rejoice.
Turn away your face from my sins,
and blot out all my guilt.

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

In the first reading, King David, who is the epitome of the rightful use of power, succumbs to lust.  Death of innocents quickly follows.  In short, King David performs one evil act after another as he schemes to cover up an initial transgression with other transgressions even more hideous than the first.  Can you hear that little voice inside you that says, "Yes, but I wouldn't call it evil, per se.  This is King David we're talking about.  Sin?  Yes.  Evil?  Well, we've all lusted in one way or another, so to say that King David did evil with his initial act would basically say that we all do evil when we give in to lustful thoughts . . . "

Indeed!  Perhaps a more correct view of evil is that it perpetuates itself among humanity because it is an innate part of being human.  With free choice comes the capability of succumbing to temptation, and therefore to doing evil.  And that is true for ALL of us.  Not "certain other people."

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Spiritual Reading

On Cleaving to God
     by St. Albert the Great

This is the true union of spirit and love by which a man is made compliant to all the impulses of the supreme and eternal will, so that he becomes by grace what God is by nature.                                   

At the same time it should be noted that in the very moment in which one is able, by God's help, to overcome one's own will, that is to cast away from oneself inordinate love or strong feeling, in other words so as to dare simply to trust God completely in all one's needs, by this very fact one becomes so pleasing to God that his grace is imparted to one, and through that very grace one experiences that true love and devotion which drives out all uncertainty and fear and has full confidence in God. What is more, there can be no greater happiness than to place one's all in him who lacks nothing.    

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

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