Message of 1-28-13

Published: Mon, 01/28/13

A Daily Spiritual Seed
Monday: January 28, 2013


Message of the Day

Human work and the acquisition of earthly goods are necessary to preserve our lives. However, if the interior life of the soul is  damaged in the process, such a loss cannot be compensated for even by the whole world with all its wealth and values.
- Rev. Bede Naegele, O.C.D. -

(Intentions and actions produce consequences in the soul and this is why "right lifestyle" is so important. What does this say to you at  this time in life?)




Readings of the Day

HEB 9:15, 24-28;    PS 98:1-6;    MK 3:22-30

R. Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous deeds.

Sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done wondrous deeds;
His right hand has won victory for him,
his holy arm.

The LORD has made his salvation known:
in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.
He has remembered his kindness and his faithfulness
toward the house of Israel.
ends of the earth have seen
the salvation by our God.
Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands;
break into song; sing praise.

Sing praise to the LORD with the harp,
with the harp and melodious song.
With trumpets and the sound of the horn
sing joyfully before the King, the LORD.

USCCB lectionary




Reflection on the Gospel

If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 

So much competes for our attention and loyalties; there's bitter division in our nation, world, religion and politics. These chasms don't even come close, however, to the rift in our own hearts as we war with who we are and who God calls us to be. It's easy to say we need unity, but getting there is difficult. The first steps are constant prayer, selfless service to those who are different from us, and building genuine friendships with those we may normally disregard. Once our hearts and purpose are unified, divisions will cease. 

For a singular focus on you, O Lord, we pray.

- by Patricia Russell

My Daily Bread




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Spiritual Reading

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

Now if the spirit would see God with God in this Divine light without means, there needs must be on the part of man three things.

The first is that he must be perfectly ordered from without in all the virtues, and within must be unencumbered, and as empty of every outward work as if he did not work at all: for if his emptiness is troubled within by some work of virtue, he has an image; and as long as this endures within him, he cannot contemplate.

Secondly, he must inwardly cleave to God, with adhering intention and love, even as a burning and glowing fire which can never more be quenched. As long as he feels himself to be in this state, he is able to contemplate.

Thirdly, he must have lost himself in a Waylessness and in a Darkness, in which all contemplative men wander in fruition and wherein they never again can find themselves in a creaturely way. In the abyss of this darkness, in which the loving spirit has died to itself, there begin the manifestation of God and eternal life. For in this darkness there shines and is born an incomprehensible Light, which is the Son of God, in Whom we behold eternal life. And in this Light one becomes seeing; and this Divine Light is given to the simple sight of the spirit, where the spirit receives the brightness which is God Himself, above all gifts and every creaturely activity, in the idle emptiness in which the spirit has lost itself through fruitive love, and where it receives without means the brightness of God, and is changed without interruption into that brightness which it receives. Behold, this mysterious brightness, in which one sees everything that one can desire according to the emptiness of the spirit: this brightness is so great that the loving contemplative, in his ground wherein he rests, sees and feels nothing but an incomprehensible Light; and through that Simple Nudity which enfolds all things, he finds himself, and feels himself, to be that same Light by which he sees, and nothing else. And this is the first condition by which one becomes seeing in the Divine Light. Blessed are the eyes which are thus seeing, for they possess eternal life.

- Third Book, Chapter 1: Showing the three ways by which one enters the God-seeing life.

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