Message of 4-23-12

Published: Mon, 04/23/12


A Daily Spiritual Seed
- resources for prayer and spiritual growth


Message of the Day

For all the vigour of his polemic, St. Paul does not content himself with the denunciation of error, but finds the best defense against its insidious approaches in a closer adherence to the love of God and faith in Christ.
  - F. F. Bruce (1910-1990/1), The Apostolic Defense of the Gospel

(Truth and love must go together, else either becomes impotent.)

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

Acts 6:8-15;    Ps 119:23-24, 26-27, 29-30;    Jn 6:22-29

R. (1ab) Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!

Though princes meet and talk against me,
your servant meditates on your statutes.
Yes, your decrees are my delight;
they are my counselors.

I declared my ways, and you answered me;
teach me your statutes.
Make me understand the way of your precepts,
and I will meditate on your wondrous deeds.

Remove from me the way of falsehood,
and favor me with your law.
The way of truth I have chosen;
I have set your ordinances before me.

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Reflection on the Gospel
  - from Daily Bread
    http://www.preacherexchange.com/daily_bread.htm

You are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. The day after feeding the five thousand, Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. The crowd followed him. They wanted bread, and they knew from experience that Jesus could deliver. But Jesus urged them to work for food that endures. Jesus knew they were physically hungry; he also wanted them to acknowledge a deeper, spiritual hunger. "What can we do?" they asked. "This is the work of God," Jesus said, "that you believe in the one God sent." According to John, Jesus himself is the work of God. We are called to believe in him -- and to continue his work. Holy God, we praise you for your gift of Jesus, the bread of life.

Jeanne Lischer

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Spiritual Reading

The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage
   by St. John of Rusybroeck (1293-1381)

Now, through this touch, Christ says inwardly within the spirit: Go ye out with practices in conformity with this touch. For this deep touch draws and invites our spirit to the most inward practices which a creature is able to fulfil in a creaturely way in the created light. Here the spirit raises itself, through the power of love, above all works, into the unity where this life-giving spring or touch gushes forth. And this touch invites the understanding to know God in His brightness, and it draws and invites the power of love to enjoy God without intermediary. And this the loving spirit desires to do, both in a natural and a supernatural way, above all other things. By means of the enlightened reason the spirit lifts itself up in inward observation, and it beholds and observes the most inward part of itself, where this touch lives. Here reason and every created light fail and can go no further. For the Supernal Brightness brooding over all, which gives rise to this touch, blinds in its coming every created sight; for it is abysmal. And all understanding in the created light is here like the eyes of a bat in the light of the sun. Yet the spirit is continually invited and urged anew by God and by itself to sound and to know that which is stirring these deeps, and what God is, and what this touch is. And the enlightened reason ever asks anew, whence this comes, and ever seeks to explore further, that it may follow back this stream of honey to its source. But in this it is, on the first day, as wise as it shall ever be. And this is why reason and all observation say: "I know not what it is," for the Supernal Brightness brooding over all, strikes back all understanding and blinds it whenever they meet.

- Chapter 52: Showing how the Spirit goes out through the divine stirring.

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