Message of 9-24-12
Published: Mon, 09/24/12
A Daily Spiritual Seed
- resources for prayer and spiritual growth
Message of the Day
The inexhaustible nature of transcendence is expressed in the profusion of creatures. The universe is the first Bible. Each being manifests the creative word which gives it its identity and attracts it. Each being manifests a dynamic idea, something willed by God. Ultimately each thing is a created name of Him who cannot be named.
- Olivier Clement, "The Roots of Christian Mysticism" -
(All creation manifests God! Be open to encountering God in everything around you this day.)
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Lectionary Readings of the Day
http://www.usccb.org/calendar/index.cfm?showLit=1&action=month
Prv 30:5-9; Ps 119:29, 72, 89, 101, 104, 163; Lk 9:1-6
R. (105) Your word, O Lord, is a lamp for my feet.
Remove from me the way of falsehood,
and favor me with your law.
The law of your mouth is to me more precious
than thousands of gold and silver pieces.
Your word, O LORD, endures forever;
it is firm as the heavens.
From every evil way I withhold my feet,
that I may keep your words.
Through your precepts I gain discernment;
therefore I hate every false way.
Falsehood I hate and abhor;
your law I love.
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Reflection on the Gospel
- from Daily Bread
http://www.preacherexchange.com/daily_bread.htm
No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel or sets it under a bed.
If we don't reflect the light of our Christian faith, then how are we to lead others to the light of Christ? If we know the truth of Christ and live our lives as witnesses to his teachings, it's impossible not to radiate his glory. We need to light the way, not add to the darkness. Emphasizing "thou shalt nots" wasn't Jesus' way. Ours is a can-do faith -- we can do anything through the grace and strength and example of our Savior. He came to offer us hope, life and joy. That good news should make us glow.
Lord, let our lives be a dazzling beacon that guides your children to the light of your joy, we pray.
Patricia Russell
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Spiritual Reading
The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage
by St. John of Rusybroeck (1293-1381)
- The Gift of Understanding
When the air is fulfilled with the brightness of the sun, the beauty and the wealth of the whole world are revealed, and the eyes of men become enlightened and rejoice in the manifold diversity of colours. And so it is, when we are onefold within ourselves, and our power of understanding is enlightened and the Spirit of Understanding shines through it. Then we can become aware of the high attributes which are in God, and which are the causes of all the works which flow forth from Him. Although all men may understand the works, and God through His works; yet no one can truly understand, neither in their appearance nor in their reality, the attributes of the works of God as they are in their ground, save by means of this gift. For this teaches us to seek out and to recognise our own nobleness, and it gives us the power to discern the virtues and all practices, and the way in which we should live without error in accordance with eternal Truth: and he who is enlightened by it can dwell in the spirit, and can, with enlightened reason, rightly apprehend and understand all things in heaven and on earth. And therefore such a one walks in heaven, and beholds and apprehends with all saints the nobility of his Beloved, His incomprehensible height, His abysmal depth, length and breadth, wisdom and truth, His bounty and His unspeakable generosity, and all those loveworthy attributes which are in God our Lover without number, and without limit in His most high nature: for all this is He Himself. Then that enlightened man lowers his eyes, and beholds himself and all other men and all creatures, and observes how God in His free generosity has created them in nature and endowed them in many ways, and how, above nature, it is His pleasure to endow them and to enrich them with Himself, if they will but seek and desire Him. All such reasoning observation of the manifold diversities of the Divine riches rejoices our spirit, if, through Divine love, we have died unto ourselves in God, and if we live and walk in the spirit, and taste of the things which are eternal. This gift of Understanding shows us the unity which we possess in God through the fruitive immersion of love, and also the likeness to God which we have in ourselves through charity and the works of virtue. And it gives to us light and brightness in which we can walk with discernment in the ways of the spirit, and can seek out and recognise God in ghostly similitudes, and also ourselves, and all things according to the mode and the measure of that light and according to the will of God and the greater nobility of our understanding. This is the second degree in which the man who is common to all may be enlightened.
- Chapter 63: Of the ordering of all the virtues through the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.
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