Message of the Day
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(Disciple) "What action
shall I perform to attain God?"
(Master) "If you wish to attain God, there are two things you must know. the first is that all efforts to attain him are of no avail."
(Disciple) "And the second?"
(Master) "You must act as if you did not know the
first."
- Anthony de Mello: One Minute Wisdom
(Effort opens us to receive God's grace. What
spiritual disciplines do you need to spend more time doing these days?)
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Readings of the Day
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2 KGS 5:1-15; PS 42:2, 3; 43:3, 4; LK 4:24-30
R. Athirst is my soul for the living God.
When shall I go and behold the face of God?
As the hind longs for the running waters,
so my soul longs for you, O
God.
When shall I go and behold the face of God?
Athirst is my soul for God, the living God.
When shall I go and behold the face of God?
When shall I go and behold the face of God?
Send forth your light and your fidelity;
they shall lead me on
And bring me to your holy mountain,
to your dwelling-place.
When shall I go and behold the face of God?
Then will I go in to the altar of God,
the God of my gladness and
joy;
Then will I give you thanks upon the harp,
O God, my God!
USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Gospel
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No prophet is accepted in his own native place.
The hostile treatment Jesus receives in his hometown is indicative of future events. First he's accepted, even loved. He's a familiar face, someone they've nurtured and watched grow. But he challenges their thinking and sense of entitlement. They see his focus on the downtrodden and foreigners as excluding them.
They react with selfishness and violence, rejecting Jesus and his uncomfortable words. They expect Jesus to do something for them. Instead he takes his message to those who are willing to do something for others. Open our hearts
to your truth, O Lord, we pray.
Patricia Russell
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 remember that I showed heretofore how all saints and all good men are united with God through means. Now I will further show to you how they are all united with God without means. But in this life there are but few who are meet for
this, and sufficiently enlightened to feel and understand it. And therefore, whosoever wishes to find and to feel within himself those three unions of which I am going to speak, he must live entirely and wholly in God, so that he may satisfy and be amenable to the grace and the stirring of God, in all virtues and inward exercises. And he must be lifted up through love, and die in God to himself and all his works; so that he yields himself up with all his powers, and submits to the
transformation through the incomprehensible Truth which is God Himself. And to that end it is needful that living he should go forth in the virtues, and dying should enter into God. And in these two things his perfect life consists; and these two are joined together within him like matter and form, like body and soul. And as he exercises himself in them so he becomes clear in understanding, and rich and overflowing in feeling; for he has joined himself to God with uplifted powers, with true
intention, with his heart's¸ desire, with ceaseless craving, with the living ardour of his spirit and of his nature. And since he thus exercises himself and keeps himself in the Presence of God, love overpowers him: in whatsoever manner he moves, he is ever growing in love and in all virtues. But love always moves each man according to the profit and the ability of each.
- Chapter 5: Of the union without means. Amazon.com link
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