Message of 9-10-12

Published: Mon, 09/10/12


A Daily Spiritual Seed
- resources for prayer and spiritual growth


Message of the Day


The difficulty, stated in its simplest terms, is not to hold on (to cling to passing things)! Not to hold on to the fleeting years, for example. People at seventy tell themselves that they are as old as they feel they are, and therefore that they're still young. Whereas the true self tells us to 'be our age,' or, more profoundly, that NOW, since it is on the only point at which we make contact with God, is the best age for us to be."
- Dom Aelred Graham, Zen Catholicism

(The "real you" is the one who is here, now. That's the one whom God loves, and who will be out and about today. "Be here now in love" with God, then with everyone.)

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

1 Cor 5:1-8;    Ps 5:5-6, 7, 12;    Lk 6:6-11

R. (9) Lead me in your justice, Lord.

For you, O God, delight not in wickedness;
no evil man remains with you;
the arrogant may not stand in your sight.
You hate all evildoers.

You destroy all who speak falsehood;
The bloodthirsty and the deceitful
the LORD abhors.

But let all who take refuge in you
be glad and exult forever.
Protect them, that you may be the joy
of those who love your name.

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

Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?

One Sabbath, Jesus' disciples picked some grain and ate it. The Pharisees jumped on them: "Why are you doing what is not allowed on the Sabbath?" Jesus defended his followers because they were hungry, recalling a time when King David ate the sacred bread of the Presence. Another time, it was Jesus himself who violated the Sabbath. Jewish law prohibited any kind of medical treatment on the Sabbath except in life-threatening cases. A crippled hand was not life-threatening; it wouldn't be any more critical tomorrow. But Jesus acted, confronting the scribes and Pharisees with a question: What is God's purpose -- to do good or harm, to save or destroy?

Grant us your courage to confront hypocrisy, Lord Jesus.

- Jeanne Lischer

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Spiritual Reading

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

- The Gift of Counsel (continued)

Now mark this: although God knows all hearts, yet such a person is often tempted and tried of Him, whether he is able to renounce himself in freedom: and by this, he may then become enlightened, and may live for the glory of God and also for his own salvation. And that is why God sometimes takes him from His right hand to His left, from heaven into hell, from all blessedness into great misery; so that it seems to him as though he were forsaken and despised of God and of all creatures. If, then, he has formerly renounced himself and his own will in love and in joy, so that he sought not himself but the good pleasure of God, he will easily renounce himself also in pains and misery, so that in these too he will seek not himself but always the glory of God. He who is willing to work great things is willing also to suffer great things; but to bear and to suffer in resignation is nobler and more pleasing to God, and more satisfying to our spirit, than to work great things in a like resignation, for it is more contrary to our nature. And this is why our spirit is more exalted and our nature more cast down by grievous suffering than by great works done with equal love. When a man maintains himself in this resignation, without any other preference, right as one who neither wills nor knows anything else, then he possesses the spirit of Counsel in two ways; for he satisfies the will and the counsel of God in his working and his suffering, by self-surrender, and by submissive obedience. And his nature is adorned most gloriously.

- Chapter 63: Of the ordering of all the virtues through the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.

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