Message of the Day
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If there be anything that is capable of setting the soul in a large place it is absolute abandonment to God. It diffuses in the soul a peace that flows like a river and the righteousness which is as the waves of the sea.
- Francois Fenelon (Let go into God . . . completely . . . let go . . . ) |
Readings of the Day
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EZR 1:1-6; PS 126:1-66; LK 8:16-18 R. The Lord has done marvels for us. When the LORD brought back the captives of Zion,
we were like men dreaming.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with rejoicing.
Then they said among the nations,
"The LORD has done great things for them."
The LORD has done great things for us;
we are glad indeed.
Restore our fortunes, O LORD,
like the torrents in the southern desert.
Those that sow in tears
shall reap rejoicing.
Although they go forth weeping,
carrying the seed to be sown,
They shall come back rejoicing,
carrying their sheaves.
USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Gospel
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No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel or sets it under a bed.
By its very nature, and in order to serve its purpose, light must be visible. What is the purpose of light? Light gives us warmth and illuminates our world. Light guides our way. Plants, animals and human beings depend on light to produce heat and food; most adapt to variations in the amount of light throughout the year. It only takes a thunderstorm and a loss of power to realize how much we crave -- and need -- light. Occasionally, however, the light will shine in the dark corners of the world we'd rather not see. Then it's up to us to let God's light shine in and through us. May our lives shine with the light of your love, O God.
- by Jeanne Lischer
My Daily Bread
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Spiritual Reading
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The Sparkling Stone, by St. John of Rusybroeck (1293-1381)
Did we, however, remain wholly in ourselves, sundered from God, we should be miserable and unblest. And therefore we should feel ourselves living wholly in God and wholly in ourselves; and between these two feelings we should find nothing else but the grace of God and the exercise of our love. For out of our highest feeling, the brightness of God shines into us, which teaches us truth, and moves us towards every virtue and in eternal love towards God. If we follow this brightness without pause, back into that Source from whence it comes forth, there we feel nothing but a quenching of our spirit and an irretrievable down-sinking into simple and fathomless love. Could we continue to dwell there with our simple gaze, we should always so feel it; for our immersion and transformation in God continues without ceasing in eternity, if we have gone forth from ourselves, and God is ours in the immersion of love. For if we possess God in the immersion of love -- that is, if we are lost to ourselves -- God is our own and we are His own: and we sink ourselves eternally and irretrievably in our own possession, which is God. This immersion is essential, and is closely bound up with the state of love: and so it continues whether we sleep or whether we wake, whether we know it or whether we know it not. And so it does not earn for us any new degree of reward; but it maintains us in the possession of God and of all that good which we have received. And this down-sinking is like a river, which without pause or turning back ever pours into the sea; since this is its proper resting-place.
- Chapter 9: "How we may become hidden sons of God and attain to the God-seeing life."
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