Message of the Day
|
Variety may be the spice of life, but it is not life itself. It is that bread of life, that peace of God which is the very staff of life itself, for which the souls of many are starving in these days.... - G. A. Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929),
The Wicket Gate, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1923.
(How do you experience your longing for God these days?)
|
Readings of the Day
|
IS 42:1-7; PS 27:1, 2, 3, 13-14; JN 12:1-11 R. The Lord is my light and my salvation. The LORD is my light and my salvation;
whom should I fear?
The LORD is my life's refuge;
of whom should I be afraid?
When evildoers come at me
to devour my flesh,
My foes and my enemies
themselves stumble and fall.
Though an army encamp against me,
my heart will not fear;
Though war be waged upon me,
even then will I trust.
I believe that I shall see the bounty of the LORD
in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD with courage;
be stouthearted, and wait for the LORD.
USCCB lectionary
|
Reflection on the Gospel
|
Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus.
Mary anointed Jesus to demonstrate her love for him. Her gift was outrageous and far beyond her means, but by purchasing the expensive perfume, she was telling the Lord how much he meant to her. Jesus accepted Mary's gift -- not because it was practical, because it wasn't. Jesus accepted it because of the love with which it was given. Such is the extravagant, outrageous love of God shown to us in Jesus. As his body was broken and his blood was spilled, the sweet aroma of grace filled the whole world. Forgive us, O God, when we refuse to accept your grace, when we cannot believe that you love us.
- by Jeanne Lischer
My Daily Bread
|
Spiritual Reading
|
The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, by St. John of Rusybroeck (1293-1381)
Now this active meeting and this loving embrace are in their ground fruitive and wayless; for the abysmal Waylessness of God is so dark and so unconditioned that it swallows up in itself every Divine way and activity, and all the attributes of the Persons, within the rich compass of the essential Unity, and it brings about a Divine fruition in the abyss of the Ineffable. And here there is a death in fruition, and a melting and dying into the Essential Nudity, where all the Divine names, and all conditions, and all the living images which are reflected in the mirror of Divine Truth, lapse in the Onefold and Ineffable, in waylessness and without reason. For in this unfathomable abyss of the Simplicity, all things are wrapped in fruitive bliss; and the abyss itself may not be comprehended, unless by the Essential Unity. To this the Persons, and all that lives in God, must give place; for here there is nought else but an eternal rest in the fruitive embrace of an outpouring Love. And this is that wayless being which all interior spirits have chosen above all other things. This is the dark silence in which all lovers lose themselves. But if we would prepare ourselves for it by means of the virtues, we should strip ourselves of all but our very bodies, and should flee forth into the wild Sea, whence no created thing can draw us back again.
- Third Book, Chapter 4: Of a divine meeting which takes place in the hiddenness of our spirit.
Paperback (kindle edition available)
|
|
|
