Message of 5-8-12

Published: Tue, 05/08/12


A Daily Spiritual Seed
- resources for prayer and spiritual growth


Message of the Day

Christianity goes beyond theism. Its fundamental contribution is to conceive and coherently explain a bridge between the creator and the creature. Christianity envisages the union of God and human beings. It allows for human divinization . . . Divinization means a human participation in certain qualities that are proper to God alone. To be divinized implies that in some sense a human becomes divine.
- Daniel Helminiak, Spiritual Development: An Interdisciplinary Study

(How does this reading speak to your understanding of the meaning of Christianity and its ultimate goal? What is your response to it?)

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

Acts 14:19-28;    Ps 145:10-11, 12-13ab, 21;    Jn 14:27-31

R. (see 12) Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your kingdom.

Let all your works give you thanks, O LORD,
and let your faithful ones bless you.
Let them discourse of the glory of your kingdom
and speak of your might.

Making known to men your might
and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
Your kingdom is a kingdom for all ages,
and your dominion endures through all generations.

May my mouth speak the praise of the LORD,
and may all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.

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Reflection on the Gospel
- from http://www.dailyscripture.net/

Jesus went to the cross knowing that it would lead to victory over the powers of sin and of Satan. Jesus also knew that he would return to his Father in glory. The cross brought glory to Jesus and to the Father and it is our way to glory as well. In the Cross of Christ we find true peace and reconciliation with God. Do you live in the peace of Jesus Christ?

"Lord Jesus, may your peace be always with me. May no circumstance, trouble, or vexation rob me of the peace which passes all understanding. You, alone, O Lord, are my Peace. May I always reside in that peace by believing your word and by doing your will."

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Spiritual Reading
The Way of Perfection
  - by Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

(Continues to treat of mortification and explains how one must renounce the world's standards of wisdom in order to attain to true wisdom.)

This house is another Heaven, if it be possible to have Heaven upon earth. Anyone whose sole pleasure lies in pleasing God and who cares nothing for her own pleasure will find our life a very good one; if she wants anything more, she will lose everything, for there is nothing more that she can have. A discontented soul is like a person suffering from severe nausea, who rejects all food, however nice it may be; things which persons in good health delight in eating only cause her the greater loathing. Such a person will save her soul better elsewhere than here; she may even gradually reach a degree of perfection which she could not have attained here because we expected too much of her all at once. For although we allow time for the attainment of complete detachment and mortification in interior matters, in externals this has to be practised immediately, because of the harm which may otherwise befall the rest; and anyone who sees this being done, and spends all her time in such good company, and yet, at the end of six months or a year, has made no progress, will, I fear, make none over a great many years, and will even go backward. I do not say that such a nun must be as perfect as the rest, but she must be sure that her soul is gradually growing healthier -- and it will soon become clear if her disease is mortal.

- Chapter 13

(Keep in mind that she is writing to sisters in a cloistered contemplative order.)

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