Weekend Edition - A Daily Spiritual Seed
Published: Fri, 04/13/12
A Daily Spiritual Seed
Weekend Edition:
April 13-15, 2012
| Contents: - Weekend Scripture Readings - Spiritual Guidance - Discussion Board highlights - Affiliate Web Sites - Theology Note of the Week - Spiritual Growth Resources. - Book of the Week - Saint of the Week - Joke of the Week - Web Resource of the Week - - - Sunday: Acts 4:32-35; Ps 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24; 1 Jn 5:1-6; Jn 20:19-31 R. (1) Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, his love is everlasting.  Let the house of Israel say,"His mercy endures forever." Let the house of Aaron say, "His mercy endures forever." Let those who fear the LORD say, "His mercy endures forever." I was hard pressed and was falling, but the LORD helped me. My strength and my courage is the LORD, and he has been my savior. The joyful shout of victory in the tents of the just: The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. By the LORD has this been done; it is wonderful in our eyes. This is the day the LORD has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it. - - - Amazon
Gift Cards - - - Spiritual Guidance Theology Note of the
Week The new atheism is an agressive form of atheism where religion is openly attacked and science and reason are used to determine truth and ethics. |
Featured Spiritual
Growth Resources
Jesus is Risen - Free! This e-pamphlet emphasizes that the cutting edge of a Christian's attitude is belief in the resurrection of Jesus. We examine the evidence for the resurrection and show how we can encounter the risen Christ today--how we can make sense of pain and problems, and learn to live the risen life. - for a more in-depth reflection - Jesus Alive in our Lives, by Philip St. Romain  This work bundles together
three related works previously published for different purposes. Part One - "The Meaning of the Resurrection," examines the evidence of the Resurrection and then treats its implications for the life of the believer. Part Two - "Encountering the Risen Christ," reflects on meeting the risen Christ in his four modes of present to us: personal/historical, communal, sacramental and cosmic. Part Three - "The Gift of the Spirit," notes the decisive role of the Holy Spirit in the lives of early Christian believers, and in our own as well. The theme running through these three parts is that Jesus of Nazareth is risen, and that we can come to know him and give evidence of his life and love in our own as well. Available in paperback and several eBook formats. - see http://shalomplace.com/psrbks.html for purchase options. - - - Book (movie, CD) of the Week The Resurrection of the Son of God, by N. T. Wright. Fortress Press, 2003. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0800626796/ref=noism/christianspiritu/ - Kindle edition also available. This book, third is Wright's series Christian Origins and the Question of God, sketches a map of ancient beliefs about life after death, in both the Greco-Roman and Jewish worlds. It then highlights the fact that the early Christians' belief about the afterlife belonged firmly on the Jewish spectrum, while introducing several new mutations and sharper definitions. This, together with other features of early Christianity, forces the historian to read the Easter narratives in the gospels, not simply as late rationalizations of early Christian spirituality, but as accounts of two actual events: the empty tomb of Jesus and his "appearances." How do we explain these phenomena? The early Christians' answer was that Jesus had indeed been bodily raised from the dead; that was why they hailed him as the messianic "son of God." No modern historian has come up with a more convincing explanation. Facing this question, we are confronted to this day with the most central issues of the Christian worldview and theology. - Amazon.com book descriptor Make the Christian Spirituality Bookstore your starting point for online shopping at Amazon.com. You can buy books, cds, videotapes, software, appliances and many other products at discount prices. As Amazon.com affiliate, we are paid a small fee for purchases originating from our web site. Every little bit helps! http://shalomplace.com/books/index.html - - - Saint of the Week - http://www.americancatholic.org/features/saints/saint.aspx?id=1355 - St. Bernadette Soubirous (1844-1879): April 16  Bernadette Soubirous was born in
1844, the first child of an extremely poor miller in the town of
Lourdes in southern France. The family was living in the basement of a
dilapidated building when on February 11,1858, the Blessed Virgin Mary
appeared to Bernadette in a cave above the banks of the Gave River near
Lourdes. Bernadette, 14 years old, was known as a virtuous girl though
a dull student who had not even made her first Holy Communion. In poor
health, she had suffered from asthma from an early age.There were 18 appearances in all, the final one occurring on the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, July 16. Although Bernadette's initial reports provoked skepticism, her daily visions of "the Lady" brought great crowds of the curious. The Lady, Bernadette explained, had instructed her to have a chapel built on the spot of the visions. There the people were to come to wash in and drink of the water of the spring that had welled up from the very spot where Bernadette had been instructed to dig. According to Bernadette, the Lady of her visions was a girl of 16 or 17 who wore a white robe with a blue sash. Yellow roses covered her feet, a large rosary was on her right arm. In the vision on March 25 she told Bernadette, "I am the Immaculate Conception." It was only when the words were explained to her that Bernadette came to realize who the Lady was. Few visions have ever undergone the scrutiny that these appearances of the Immaculate Virgin were subject to. Lourdes became one of the most popular Marian shrines in the world, attracting millions of visitors. Miracles were reported at the shrine and in the waters of the spring. After thorough investigation Church authorities confirmed the authenticity of the apparitions in 1862. During her life Bernadette suffered much. She was hounded by the public as well as by civic officials until at last she was protected in a convent of nuns. Five years later she petitioned to enter the Sisters of Notre Dame. After a period of illness she was able to make the journey from Lourdes and enter the novitiate. But within four months of her arrival she was given the last rites of the Church and allowed to profess her vows. She recovered enough to become infirmarian and then sacristan, but chronic health problems persisted. She died on April 16, 1879, at the age of 35. She was canonized in 1933. - - - Joke of the Week - Fat free.... I stopped at a fast-food restaurant recently. I was fascinated by a sign which offered Fat-Free French Fries. I decided to give them a try. I was dismayed when the clerk pulled a basket of fries from the fryer, which was dripping with fat. He filled a bag with these fries and put them in my order. "Just a minute!" I said. "Those aren't fat-free." "Yes, they are. We only charge for the potatoes . . . the fat is free!" - - - Web
Resource of the Week
N. T. Wright on the Resurrection of Jesus - youtube video segment - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fki5wq48fpc A book by Wright on this topic is recommended above, but you can get a sense of where he's coming from in this 10 min. segment, which will certainly be worth your time. |
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