Message of the Day
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The real mission of the Church is to transform men (and women) into God, into Christ, or more accurately, to create and foster such a likely, human atmosphere, a climate so pregnantly divine, so significantly related to the Wholly Other, that the same Spirit of God who erupted in Jesus and turned him into Christ the Lord will rise in us and form the contemporary Christ in us. The Church has lots of jobs to do, but one mission: the formation of saints.
- William McNamara [20th C.], The Human Adventure -
(This is a good description of the mission of the Church. How does it compare with your experience of Church?)
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Readings of the Day
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1 THES 4:13-18; PS 96:1, 3-5, 11-13; LK 4:16-30 R. The Lord comes to judge the earth. Sing to the LORD a new song;
sing to the LORD, all you lands.
Tell his glory among the nations;
among all peoples, his wondrous deeds.
For great is the LORD and highly to be praised;
awesome is he, beyond all gods.
For all the gods of the nations are things of nought,
but the LORD made the heavens.
Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice;
let the sea and what fills it resound;
let the plains be joyful and all that is in them!
Then shall all the trees of the forest exult.
Before the LORD, for he comes;
for he comes to rule the earth.
He shall rule the world with justice
and the peoples with his constancy.
USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Gospel
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The Lord ... has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.
I don't much like the poor. Some of them smell. Most are not interesting conversationalists. Many are not all that grateful for my attentions. I'm not alone -- the poor don't much like the poor either. When it comes to anger about their plight, who do they blame? Other poor people mostly. So the next wave of immigrants are the targets of the last wave. Folks just a little higher on the ladder are vilified while those at the top of the ladder are admired and envied from afar. Well, there is good news. God loves us all, even those who don't much like the poor. But if the scriptures are to be believed, if Jesus' words are the words we live by, then there is a special place in God's heart for the poor and if we want to live in that special place, we must love the poor, too, and do what we can to make a fair, just world for all.
For employers and those who labor; for those who have no work; for those who work to make a difference.
- by Paige Byrne Shortal
My Daily Bread
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Spiritual Reading
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The Sparkling Stone, by St. John of Rusybroeck (1293-1381)
In the ordinary state of grace, when we are born of God into a ghostly and virtuous life, we carry our works before us, as an offering to God; but in the wayless state, where we die back into God in an eternal and blessed life, there our good works follow us, for they are one life with us. When we go towards God by means of the virtues, God dwells in us; but when we go out from ourselves and from all else, then we dwell in God. So soon as we have faith, hope and charity, we have received God, and He dwells in us with His grace, and He sends us out as His faithful servants, to keep His commandments. And He calls us in again as His secret friends, so soon as we are willing to follow His counsels; and He names us openly as His sons so soon as we live in opposition to the world. But if above all things we would taste God, and feel eternal life in ourselves, we must go forth into God with our feeling, above reason; and there we must abide, onefold, empty of ourselves, and free from images, lifted up by love into the simple bareness of our intelligence. For when we go out in love beyond and above all things, and die to all observation in ignorance and in darkness, then we are wrought and transformed through the Eternal Word, Who is the Image of the Father. In this idleness of our spirit, we receive the Incomprehensible Light, which enwraps us and penetrates us, as the air is penetrated by the light of the sun. And this Light is nothing else than a fathomless staring and seeing.
- Chapter 9: "How we may become hidden sons of God and attain to the God-seeing life."
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