Message of 5-21-12

Published: Mon, 05/21/12


A Daily Spiritual Seed
- resources for prayer and spiritual growth


Message of the Day

 "Only love overcomes the fragmentation of human nature."
- Maximus the Confessor -

(And perfect love does it best. Let God's love heal you and make you whole.)

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

Acts 19:1-8;    Ps 68:2-7;    Jn 16:29-33

R. (33a) Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth.

God arises; his enemies are scattered,
and those who hate him flee before him.
As smoke is driven away, so are they driven;
as wax melts before the fire.

But the just rejoice and exult before God;
they are glad and rejoice.
Sing to God, chant praise to his name;
whose name is the LORD.

The father of orphans and the defender of widows
is God in his holy dwelling.
God gives a home to the forsaken;
he leads forth prisoners to prosperity.

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

We have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.

These are the words of some early disciples. Many of us could say the same. Oh, we include the Spirit when we make the sign of the cross or when we sing a Trinitarian hymn (unless the presider has left the building and we stop after the second verse). But what role do we give the Holy Spirit in our personal lives or in the life of the community? There is a healthy tension between order and inspiration. Order shapes and monitors inspiration. Inspiration energizes and sometimes creates a new order. The Spirit-filled life can be scary, but isn’t it the only life worth living? Spirit of God, inspire and encourage us today.

- Paige Byrne Shortal

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Spiritual Reading

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

Now our spirit and this love are living and fruitful in virtues; and for this reason the powers can no longer remain idle in the unity of the spirit. For the incomprehensible brightness of God and His boundless love brood above the spirit, and touch the loving power; and the spirit goes forth once more into its works, but with a more sublime and inward striving than ever before. And the more noble and inward it is, the more quickly it is spent and brought to nought in love, and goes forth once more into fresh works. And this is heavenly love. For ever does the craving spirit yearn to eat and to swallow God; but itself is swallowed up in the touch of God, and fails in all its works. For the highest powers are made one in the unity of the spirit. Here are grace and love in their essence, above all works; for here is the source of charity and every virtue. Here there is an eternal outflow into charity and the virtues, and an eternal return with inward hunger for the taste of God, and an eternal dwelling within in pure love. And all this is in a creaturely way and below God; it is the most inward exercise which one can perform in the created light, in heaven and on earth; and above it there is nothing but the God-seeing life in the Divine light and in the Godlike way. In this exercise one cannot go astray, nor can one be deceived; and it begins in grace, and shall for ever last in glory.

- Chapter 55: Of the fruitful works of the Spirit.

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