It is impossible for two people to live together without being a source of mutual suffering, and as we cause others to suffer, it is but just that we should bear with their failings also and such a burden is light since Jesus Christ helps us to carry it.

Do not therefore be so lacking in sense, so unreasonable and so unchristian as to pretend that you should not have to suffer anything from your Brothers and Sisters. This would be truly asking a most unheard of and extraordinary miracle. Do not expect to see such a thing during the whole of your life."
- St. John Baptist de La Salle

(How do you put up relationship trials? Pray for the people you struggle to love. Ask the Spirit to show you how to love them this day.)

1 TM 6:2-12;    PS 49:6-10, 17-20;    LK 8:1-3

R. Blessed the poor in spirit; the Kingdom of heaven is theirs!

Why should I fear in evil days
when my wicked ensnarers ring me round?
They trust in their wealth;
the abundance of their riches is their boast.

Yet in no way can a man redeem himself,
or pay his own ransom to God;
Too high is the price to redeem one's life; he would never have enough
to remain alive always and not see destruction.

Fear not when a man grows rich,
when the wealth of his house becomes great,
For when he dies, he shall take none of it;
his wealth shall not follow him down.

Though in his lifetime he counted himself blessed,
"They will praise you for doing well for yourself,"
He shall join the circle of his forebears
who shall never more see light.







In the first reading we are told that it is important that people are taught correctly regarding religion. It is devastating for the people to learn wrong information, but it is also bad for the teacher - who should know better. Religion, for the teacher and the learner, is about spiritual, not material gain.  I've heard televangelists talk about giving to charity (usually their own church), not as a spiritual gift but as an investment strategy.  If the good we do is returned tenfold, then for every dollar you give to charity (perhaps to this preacher's megachurch) you would get ten back.  That's a way better rate than you could get at the bank or in the stock market.  But almsgiving is not about return on investment.  The spiritual gain is the point, not the monetary gain.

We can't take it with us, and we can't buy our way to heaven. We need to do good works because it's the right thing to do, not because we expect to be handsomely paid for them. Money can't buy you love. Money can't buy you God. And anyone who tells you otherwise is a bad teacher.

- by Tami Whitney

Selected Quotes from St. John of the Cross on the Journey of the Soul to God by Contemplation

- from Dark Night of the Soul

Bk 1, Ch. 13. #3. The soul loses the strength of its passions and concupiscence and it becomes sterile because it no longer consults its likings. 

#5. It practices patience and long-suffering. 

#6. Four benefits of the dark night: delight of peace, habitual remembrance and thought of God, cleanness and purity of soul, and the practice of the virtues. 

#10. Often God communicates to the soul, when it is least expecting it, the purest spiritual sweetness and love, together with a spiritual knowledge which is sometimes very delicate (and cannot be perceived by sense).

- compiled by James and Tyra Arraj