Message of 4-27-12
Published: Fri, 04/27/12
A Daily Spiritual Seed
- resources for prayer and spiritual growth
Message of the Day
What people turn to is more important than what they turn from, even if that to which they turn is only a higher moral truth; but to turn to Christ is far more important than to turn to higher moral truth: it is to turn the face towards Him in whom is all moral truth; it is to turn to Him in whom is not only the virtue which corresponds to the known vice from which the penitent desires to flee, but all virtue; it is to turn the face to all holiness, all purity, all grace. It was this repentance which the apostles preached after Pentecost.
- Roland Allen (1869-1947), Pentecost and the World, London: Oxford University Press, 1917
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Lectionary Readings of the Day
http://www.usccb.org/calendar/index.cfm?showLit=1&action=month
Acts 9:1-20; Ps 117:1, 2; Jn 6:52-59
R. (Mark 16:15) Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.
Praise the LORD, all you nations;
glorify him, all you peoples!
For steadfast is his kindness toward us,
and the fidelity of the LORD endures forever.
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Reflection on the Scriptures
- http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html
Jesus' statement about giving us His flesh - His life - has two levels of meaning. First His earthly life - up to and including His death - are given to us (and for us) by God. And yes, He literally gave His life for us on the cross. Jesus is, in that sense, God for us and not just God with us ("Emmanuel", as we proclaim at Christmas). Yes, as believing Christians, we do accept the incredible truth of this gift. But what is almost too astounding to believe is that Jesus goes much further: He gives His life to us, His life becoming our life. That's precisely what happens in Baptism. . . Christ literally, not just figuratively, lives, not just within us but as us and through us - each one of us. Moreover, in parallel with physical food, that life is nourished by our participation in the Eucharist, which is what Jesus is speaking about in this gospel passage.
Just as physical food nourishes our physical bodies as fuel, just as its chemicals are incorporated into the very chemical stuff of our own tissues, continually replacing the original physical material so that we truly become what we eat, so the Eucharist nourishes the Christ life within us so that we become more and more fully what we "eat". We more and more live out who we are - who have been since our Baptisms. Thus those who "eat this bread" will never die - indeed! No wonder Jesus' hearers didn't get it. Do we get it? Do I? Do I act as if I understand?
- by Robert P. Heaney
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Spiritual Reading
On Cleaving to God
by St. Albert the Great
- Chapter 8. How to commit to God in all circumstances
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Amazon Gift Cards: Good for any occasion.
- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00067L6TQ/?tag=christianspiritu
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