Message of 3-16-12
Published: Fri, 03/16/12
A Daily Spiritual Seed
- resources for prayer and spiritual growth
Message of the Day
It is quite possible to perform very ordinary actions with so high an intention, as to serve God therein better than in far more important things done with a less pure intention.
- Jean Nicolas Grou (1731-1803), The Hidden Life of the Soul
(Consecrate all that you do today to the glory of God.)
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Lectionary Readings of the Day
http://www.usccb.org/calendar/index.cfm?showLit=1&action=month
Hos 14:2-10; Ps 81:6c-8a, 8bc-9, 10-11ab, 14 and 17; Mk 12:28-34
R. (see 11 and 9a) I am the Lord your God: hear my voice.
An unfamiliar speech I hear:
"I relieved his shoulder of the burden;
his hands were freed from the basket.
In distress you called, and I rescued you."
"Unseen, I answered you in thunder;
I tested you at the waters of Meribah.
Hear, my people, and I will admonish you;
O Israel, will you not hear me?"
"There shall be no strange god among you
nor shall you worship any alien god.
I, the LORD, am your God
who led you forth from the land of Egypt."
"If only my people would hear me,
and Israel walk in my ways,
I would feed them with the best of wheat,
and with honey from the rock I would fill them."
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Reflection on the Scriptures
- http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html
Lent is a time for focus . . .
Today's readings ask us to focus on things that are primary: our relationship with God, and God's centrality in our existence.
The readings from Hosea and Psalms are pretty clear: "I am God. Most importantly, I am your God. Listen to Me. I will make your life worth living. If you've screwed up, we can fix that--return to Me."
These Bible passages sound authoritarian (and why not? It's God, after all...), but after some reflection, we can understand what's going on in a fundamental context. We are loved. That's the focus--we are loved consistently, constantly, completely.
And while we see the results of this love every day, all we must do to reap the complete benefit of this love is simple--to love in return.
- by Robert Whipple, Jr.
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Spiritual Reading
On Cleaving to God
by St. Albert the Great
But the reason why we are in so many ways hindered in the practical enjoyment of this matter and are unable to get into it is clearly because the human mind is so distracted by worries that it cannot bring its memory to turn within, is so clouded by its imaginations that it cannot return to itself with its understanding, and is so drawn away by its desires that it is quite unable to come back to itself by desire for inner sweetness and spiritual joy. Thus it is so prostrate among the sense objects presented to it that it cannot enter into itself as the image of God.
- Chapter 7. How the heart should be gathered within itself.
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