Message of 7-2-12

Published: Mon, 07/02/12


A Daily Spiritual Seed
- resources for prayer and spiritual growth


Message of the Day

One who has come to the earthshaking realization of the true self can easily think that he or she has come to the realization of God. In other words one can mistake self-realization for God-realization. . . Never think that you have reached journey's end. Remember that the true self is opening out to the beyond, and that your journey goes on and on and on. It goes beyond the mystery of the self to the mystery of One Who knows no limits. Even in eternity we shall never arrive: we shall never exhaust the mystery of God.
- William Johnston, Being in Love -

(There is "always more" in God. Let this awareness sink in. What "more" do you desire from God today?)

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

Am 2:6-10, 13-16;    Ps 50:16bc-17-23;    Mt 8:18-22

R. (22a) Remember this, you who never think of God.

"Why do you recite my statutes,
and profess my covenant with your mouth,
Though you hate discipline
and cast my words behind you?"

"When you see a thief, you keep pace with him,
and with adulterers you throw in your lot.
To your mouth you give free rein for evil,
you harness your tongue to deceit."

"You sit speaking against your brother;
against your mother's son you spread rumors.
When you do these things, shall I be deaf to it?
Or do you think that I am like yourself?
I will correct you by drawing them up before your eyes."

"Consider this, you who forget God,
lest I rend you and there be no one to rescue you.
He that offers praise as a sacrifice glorifies me;
and to him that goes the right way I will show the salvation of God."

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

I will follow you wherever you go.

What do we get out of following Jesus? Let's face it: Lots of people check out Christianity and the church by asking, at some level, "What's in it for me?" In our culture, we've often made discipleship seem easy; being a Christian is squeezed into busy schedules, adapted to our culture's priorities. But following Jesus is not easy. We can expect to make difficult choices. We can expect to make sacrifices. What do we get when we follow Jesus? We get to share Christ's ministry on earth. We get freedom and grace and forgiveness, so we don't have to live by the dictates of our culture. We get the hope of resurrection that overcomes everything, even death.

Christ Jesus, help us to be mindful of the risks of following you.

Jeanne Lischer

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Spiritual Reading

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

This meeting and this union, which the loving spirit achieves in God and possesses without means, must take place in the essential intuition, deeply hidden from our understanding; unless it be an effective understanding according to the way of simplicity . In the fruition of this unity we shall rest evermore, above ourselves and above all things. From this unity, all gifts, both natural and supernatural, flow forth, and yet the loving spirit rests in this unity above all gifts; and here there is nothing but God, and the spirit united with God without means. In this unity we are taken possession of by the Holy Ghost, and we take possession of the Holy Ghost and the Father and the Son, and the whole Divine Nature: for God cannot be divided. And the fruitive tendency of the spirit, which seeks rest in God above all likeness, receives and possesses in a supernatural way, in its essential being, all that the spirit ever received in a natural way. All good men experience this; but how it is, this remains hidden from them all their life long if they do not become inward and empty of all creatures. In that very moment in which man turns away from sin, he is received by God in the essential unity of his own being, at the summit of his spirit, that he may rest in God, now and evermore. And he also receives grace, and likeness unto God, in the proper source of his powers, that he may evermore grow and increase in new virtues. And as long as this likeness endures in charity and in virtues, so long also endures the union in rest. And this cannot be lost save only by mortal sin.

- Chapter 59: Showing how one possesses God in union and rest, above all likeness through grace.

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