Message of the Day
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"We are not asked to tear out or annihilate the natural activities of the soul but to purify them. That means we have to rid it of the defilements and impurities with which our negligence
has covered it, so that it may be restored to its natural youthful brightness with the native vigour that belongs to it."
- Origen, "Sermons on Joshua"
(What "defilements and impurities" do you need to attend to? Invite the Spirit to help you let go of these that you may radiate the beauty that God has created you to
be.)
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Readings of the Day
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1 KGS 21:1-16; PS 5:2-7; MT
5:38-42
R. Lord, listen to my groaning.
Hearken to my words, O LORD,
attend to my sighing.
Heed
my call for help,
my king and my God!
At dawn I bring my plea expectantly before you.
For you, O God, delight not in wickedness;
no evil man remains with you;
the arrogant may not stand in your sight.
You hate all evildoers.
You destroy all who speak falsehood;
The bloodthirsty and the deceitful
the LORD abhors.
USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Gospel
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Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles.
Two opposite mindsets are presented today when people are confronted with a conflict of interest. On the one hand, there is no limit to the depraved selfishness exhibited by Jezebel and King Ahab. On the other, Jesus asks his disciples to place no limits on the generosity they give to those who may confront them. Most of us live our lives somewhere in between these two
extremes. While I may give generously to causes from which I gain no benefit, I also find myself justifying my waste of natural resources (our ancestral inheritance for future generations) or in staying silent when the most vulnerable in my world are not treated with dignity.
Lord, help me to emulate the generosity you have shown to me, and to give beyond the minimum requirement.
-
Mary Joshi
Daily Bread
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Spiritual Reading
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The Book of Supreme Truth, by St. John of Rusybroeck (1293-1381)
Thus the
Unity is ever drawing to itself and inviting to itself everything that has been born of It, either by nature or by grace. And therefore, too, such enlightened men are, with a free spirit, lifted up above reason into a bare and imageless vision, wherein lives the eternal indrawing summons of the Divine Unity; and, with an imageless and bare understanding, they pass through all works, and all exercises, and all things, until they reach the summit of their spirits. There, their bare understanding
is drenched through by the Eternal Brightness, even as the air is drenched through by the sunshine. And the bare, uplifted will is transformed and drenched through by abysmal love, even as iron is by fire. And the bare, uplifted memory feels itself enwrapped and established in an abysmal Absence of Image. And thereby the created image is united above reason in a threefold way with its Eternal Image, which is the origin of its being and its life; and this origin is preserved and possessed,
essentially and eternally, through a simple seeing in an imageless void: and so a man is lifted up above reason in a threefold manner into the Unity, and in a onefold manner into the Trinity. Yet the creature does not become God, for the union takes place in God through grace and our homeward-turning love: and therefore the creature in its inward contemplation feels a distinction and an otherness between itself and God. And though the union is without means, yet the manifold works which God
works in heaven and on earth are nevertheless hidden from the spirit. For though God gives Himself as He is, with clear discernment, He gives Himself in the essence of the soul, where the powers of the soul are simplified above reason, and where, in simplicity, they suffer the transformation of God. There all is full and overflowing, for the spirit feels itself to be one truth and one richness and one unity with God. Yet even here there is an essential tending forward, and therein is an
essential distinction between the being of the soul and the Being of God; and this is the highest and finest distinction which we are able to feel.
- Chapter 10: How good men in their contemplation have the love of God before them, and how they are lifted up into God. Amazon.com link
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