Message of the Day
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God is not "a person" in any human-sized sense, but I am sure that God is personal, in the sense that only up the highway of humanity's best can our thinking rightly travel toward the ultimate truth about the Eternal. And because humanity's best is so marvelously revealed in Jesus Christ, he is my picture, my symbol, my image of God - "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ."
- Harry Emerson Fodstick: Letters to a Person Perplexed about Religion
(What is your image of God? How does Jesus Christ relate to this image? How does this image influence your spirituality?)
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Readings of the Day
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1 TM 2:1-8; PS 28:2, 7-9; LK 7:1-10 R. Blessed be the Lord, for he has heard my prayer. Hear the sound of my pleading, when I cry to you,
lifting up my hands toward your holy shrine.
The LORD is my strength and my shield.
In him my heart trusts, and I find help;
then my heart exults, and with my song I give him thanks.
The LORD is the strength of his people,
the saving refuge of his anointed.
Save your people, and bless your inheritance;
feed them, and carry them forever!
USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Gospel
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Therefore, I did not consider myself worthy to come to you; but say the word and let my servant be healed.
Today's reading is the first of two healing stories presented this week in the Gospel. The emphasis of this account is on the amazing faith and utter humility of the Roman centurion who feels unworthy to ask Jesus for this favor himself, so sends Jewish elders to plead for him. He has absolute belief in the power even of Jesus' words, and Jesus is astonished at his faith. This man's statement has become a part of our liturgy so that his words are continually on our lips. Just as the servant returns to good health, we pray to be spiritually healed of any doubt.
Lord, for faith, we pray. - by Portia Clark
My Daily Bread
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Spiritual Reading
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The Sparkling Stone, by St. John of Rusybroeck (1293-1381)
This possession (divine love) is a simple and abysmal tasting of all good and of eternal life; and in this tasting we are swallowed up above reason and without reason, in the deep Quiet of the Godhead, which is never moved. That this is true we can only know by our own feeling, and in no other way. For how this is, or where, or what, neither reason nor practice can come to know: and therefore our ensuing exercise always remains wayless, that is, without manner. For that abysmal Good which we taste and possess, we can neither grasp nor understand; neither can we enter into it by ourselves or by means of our exercises. And so we are poor in ourselves, but rich in God; hungry and thirsty in ourselves, drunken and fulfilled in God; busy in ourselves, idle in God. And thus we shall remain throughout eternity. But without the exercise of love, we can never possess God; and whosoever thinks or feels otherwise is deceived. And thus we live wholly in God, where we possess our blessedness; and we live wholly in ourselves, where we exercise ourselves in love towards God. And though we live wholly in God and wholly in ourselves, yet it is but one life; but it is twofold and opposite according to our feeling, for poor and rich, hungry and satisfied, busy and idle, these things are wholly contrary to one another. Yet with this our highest honour is bound up, now and in eternity: for we cannot wholly become God and lose our created being, this is impossible.
- Chapter 9: "How we may become hidden sons of God and attain to the God-seeing life."
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