Message of 4-18-13

Published: Thu, 04/18/13

A Daily Spiritual Seed
Thursday: April 18, 2013
Message of the Day

O heavenly Father, who has filled the world with beauty: Open our eyes to behold your gracious hand in all your works; that, rejoicing in your whole creation, we may learn to serve you with gladness; for the sake of him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
- Book of Common Prayer (US), p. 814

(Pray this prayer attentively and reverently. Let its intentions move you to gratitude.)

Lectionary Readings

ACTS 8:26-40;    PS 66:8-9, 16-17, 20;    JN 6:44-51

R. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.

Bless our God, you peoples,
loudly sound his praise;
He has given life to our souls,
and has not let our feet slip.

Hear now, all you who fear God, while I declare
what he has done for me.
When I appealed to him in words,
praise was on the tip of my tongue.

Blessed be God who refused me not
my prayer or his kindness!

Reflection on the Gospel

Jesus offers us the abundant supernatural life of heaven itself - but we can miss it or even refuse it. To refuse Jesus is to refuse eternal life, unending life with the Heavenly Father. To accept Jesus as the bread of heaven  is not only life and spiritual nourishment for this world but glory in the world to come. When you approach the Table of the Lord, what do you expect to receive? Healing, pardon, comfort, and rest for your soul? The Lord has much more for us, more than we can ask or imagine. The principal fruit of receiving the Eucharist or Lord's Supper is an intimate union with Christ. As bodily nourishment restores lost strength, so the Eucharist strengthens us in charity and enables us to break with disordered attachments to creatures and to be more firmly rooted in the love of Christ. Do you hunger for the "bread of life"?

"Lord Jesus, you are the living bread  which sustains me in this life. May I always hunger for the bread which comes from heaven and find in it the nourishment and strength I need to love and serve you wholeheartedly. May I always live in the joy, peace, and unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, both now and in the age to come."

Spiritual Reading

The Cloud of Unknowing, by Anonymous

Of the shortness of this word, and how it may not be come to by curiosity of wit, nor by imagination.

And therefore take heed to this work, and to the marvellous manner of it within in thy soul. For if it be truly conceived, it is but a sudden stirring, and as it were unadvised, speedily springing unto God as a sparkle from the coal. And it is marvellous to number the stirrings that may be in one hour wrought in a soul that is disposed to this work. And yet in one stirring of all these, he may have suddenly and perfectly forgotten all created thing. But fast after each stirring, for corruption of the flesh, it falleth down again to some thought or to some done or undone deed. But what thereof? For fast after, it riseth again as suddenly as it did before.
- Chapter 4

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