Message of the Day
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The (early) Church knew
what the Psalmist knew: music praises God. Music is as well or better able to praise Him than the building of a church and all its decoration; it is the Church's greatest ornament.
... Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), Conversations with Igor Stravinsky
(Offer to God as "sacrifice of praise" [Heb. 13:15] in song this day.)
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Readings of the Day
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DN 9:4B-10; PS 79:8, 9, 11, 13; LK 6:36-38
R. Lord, do not deal with us according to our
sins.
Remember not against us the iniquities of the past;
may your compassion quickly come to us,
for we are brought very low.
Help us, O God our savior,
because of the glory of your
name;
Deliver us and pardon our sins
for your name's sake.
Let the prisoners' sighing come before you;
with your great power free those doomed to death.
Then we, your people and the sheep of your
pasture,
will give thanks to you forever;
through all generations we will declare your praise.
USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Gospel
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The measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.
Our attorney asked us to consider "the goal of our will." Recalling families torn apart by money and meanness, we agreed that, inasmuch as a will can effect this goal, ours is that our six children feel loved and love each other. But before the will is executed, that is before we pass on to the next world, how do we want to handle money? We would rather be known for how much we share than for how
much we accumulate or even how much we save. Be assured, I am writing only about how we try to be, not how we always are. The practice of living simply in order to share more with others requires mindfulness and discipline.
O God, forgive us our self-indulgence when others are in need.
Paige Byrne Shortal
Daily Bread
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Spiritual Reading
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The Book of Supreme Truth, by St. John of Rusybroeck (1293-1381) You may cross yourselves against the devil, but beware earnestly of these perverted men (who teach quietist practices), and take care lest you should not recognise them in their words and works. For they would teach, and be taught of none; they would reprove, and be reproved of none; they would command, and obey none. They would oppress others,
but no one may oppress them; they wish to say whatever they like, but will endure no contradiction; they recognise only their own self-will and are subject to no one; and this they take to be ghostly freedom. They practise the liberty of the flesh, for they give to the body whatsoever it lusts after; and this they take to be natural freedom. They have unified themselves in a blind and dark vacancy of their own being; and there, they think, they are one with God, and they take this for the Eternal
Blessedness. And they have entered into this, and have taken possession of it, through self-will and their natural tendency; and therefore they imagine themselves to be set above the law and above the commandments of God and Holy Church. For, above that essential rest which they possess, they feel neither God nor any otherness; for the Divine light has not shone into their dimness. And this is because they have neither sought after it through active love nor through supernatural freedom. And
thus they have lost truth and every virtue, and have fallen into a perverted unlikeness; for they make it a part of the highest holiness that a man should yield to all that concerns his nature, and be without restraint, so that he may abide, with an inclined spirit, in vacancy; and that as regards the lusts of the flesh whenever they move him, he should turn outwards, that the flesh being satisfied, he may quickly escape from the image and may return once more unencumbered into the bare vacancy of
his spirit. Lo! this is a fruit of hell, which grows from their unbelief; and therewith shall unbelief be nourished even in death. For, when the time has come and their nature is weighed down with bitter woe and the sorrow of death, then they are filled with images and unrest and inward fear; and they lose their vacant introversion in quietude, and fall into such despair that none can console them, and they die like mad dogs. And their vacancy shall bring them no reward, and those who worked
wicked works, and died in them shall go to the eternal flames, as our faith teaches.
I have shown to you the evil and the good side by side, so that you may so much the better understand the good and be able to guard against the evil. You shall abhor and fly from such folk, for, how holy soever they seem in their conduct, in works, in dress and demeanour, they are the mortal enemies of your soul. For they are the devil's ministers, and the most noxious of all who now live to simple and
unlearned men of good-will. But I will leave this subject, and go back again to the matter with which I first began.
- Chapter 4: Of those who practice a false vacancy. Amazon.com link
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