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O plain, and easy, and simple way of salvation, wanting no subtleties of art or science, no borrowed learning, no refinements of reason, but all done by the simple natural motion of every heart, that truly longs after God. For no sooner is the finite desire of the creature in motion towards God, but the infinite desire of God is united with it, co-operates with it. And in this united desire of God, and the creature, is the salvation and life of the soul brought forth.
- William Law (1686-1761), The Spirit of Prayer
[1749]
(God meets us more than halfway in any prayer or spiritual longing. Rest in the awareness of God's longing for you.) |
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1 Jn 5:5-13; Ps 147:12-15, 19-20; Lk 5:12-16 R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
Glorify the LORD, O Jerusalem;
praise your God, O Zion.
For he has strengthened the bars of your gates;
he has blessed your children within you.
He has granted peace in your borders;
with the best of wheat he fills you.
He sends forth his command to the earth;
swiftly runs his word!
He has proclaimed his word to Jacob,
his statutes and his ordinances to Israel.
He has not done thus for any other nation;
his ordinances he has not made known to them. Alleluia.
USCCB Lectionary
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With our individualist mindset we tend to think of illness (and healing) as something that affects primarily the individual (though often the family as well). But the many stories of lepers and those suffering from convulsive disorders, for example, illustrate another feature of illness. The afflicted were literally marginalized. People couldn't have contact with them. Even to touch them made a person ritually impure. They were relegated to the outskirts of towns and villages, even to living in cemeteries. To some extent, we moderns do something similar. Think of how we have marginalized AIDS victims. In the not very distant past we sent people with tuberculosis to sanitaria. I do not question the motives behind such practices. Rather I ask us to think about the marginalizing that is a feature of illness - one we too easily overlook today. It is not just the person who is sick; it is the community that is, in a sense "broken" by the illness of one of its members. Ill people make us uncomfortable. We don't much like being with them, except perhaps for a perfunctory "visit the sick" (as in the corporal works of mercy). The healing of the afflicted individual restores the community to its wholeness. Jesus was healing
both. - by Robert P. Heaney Creighton Online Ministries
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On Cleaving to God, by St. Albert the Great
As our Lord himself said, "Do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?'" (Matthew 6.25) So whatever and however much we can hope from God, we shall undoubtedly receive, as Deuteronomy says, "Every place where you feet tread shall be yours." (Deuteronomy 11.24) For a man shall receive all that he is able to desire, and so far as he can reach with his foot of faith, even so much shall he possess. That is why Bernard says, "God, the maker of everything is so abounding in mercy that whatever size grace cup of faith we are able to hold out to him, we shall undoubtedly have it filled." And so Mark has it, All that you ask in prayer believing that you will receive it, will be given you. (Mark 11.24) - Chapter 16. How God's providence includes everything.
Paperback (Kindle edition available)
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