Message of 7-20-12

Published: Fri, 07/20/12


A Daily Spiritual Seed
- resources for prayer and spiritual growth


Message of the Day

The Word both hides and reveals himself in visible forms as much as in the words of Scripture. The visible is the invisible written down. The divine idea, the logos, which produces, develops and attracts to itself every creature, is both silent and self-revelatory in it."
- Olivier Clement, "The Roots of Christian Mysticism" -

(God is present in everything that exists, and everything that exists reveals God in some manner. Be open to meeting God in new ways today through the medium of creation.)

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

Is 38:1-6, 21-22, 7-8;    Is 38:10-12, 16;    Mt 12:1-8

R. (see 17b) You saved my life, O Lord; I shall not die.

Once I said,
"In the noontime of life I must depart!
To the gates of the nether world I shall be consigned
for the rest of my years."

I said, "I shall see the LORD no more
in the land of the living.
No longer shall I behold my fellow men
among those who dwell in the world."

My dwelling, like a shepherd's tent,
is struck down and borne away from me;
You have folded up my life, like a weaver
who severs the last thread.

Those live whom the LORD protects;
yours is the life of my spirit.
You have given me health and life.

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Reflection on the Scriptures
-  http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html

Is today's story mainly just an incident in Jesus' ongoing conflict with the religious purists of His day, or does it tell us something about how law fits into God's scheme for humankind? I think it's the latter. Law is important, and we owe it respect. All social organizations require rules, some arbitrary, but nevertheless useful. We follow them not so much to avoid penalty as because of what we have already been given - by society, by the Covenant, by the Church. Much of the body of Jewish law - of which the Sabbath observance was a key feature - described how a people chosen by God should behave - not so that they would thereby earn God's favor, but because they had already received that favor. It's how a grateful people responds. And that's precisely the point for us, who are the new Israel, to whom God's Spirit has been given.

- by Dr. Robert P. Heaney
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Spiritual Reading

On Cleaving to God
     by St. Albert the Great

Indeed this One Thing is very much present with you if you have made yourself bare of imaginations and all other entanglements, and you will soon experience that this is so - namely when you can be empty and cleave to God with a naked and resolute mind. In this way you will remain unconquered in whatever may be inflicted on you, like the holy martyrs, fathers, the elect, and indeed all the saints who despised everything and only thought of their souls' security and eternity in God. Armed in this way within, and united to God through a good will, they spurned everything of the world as if their souls were already separated from their bodies.   

- Chapter 10. That one should not be concerned about feeling tangible devotion so much as about cleaving to God with one's will.

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