Message of the Day
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God is our true Friend, who always gives
us the counsel and comfort we need. Our danger lies in resisting Him; so it is essential that we acquire the habit of hearkening to His voice, of keeping silence within, and listening so as to lose nothing of what He says to us. We know well enough how to keep outward silence, and to hush our spoken words, but we know little of interior silence. It consists in hushing our idle, restless, wandering imagination, in quieting the promptings of our worldly minds, and in suppressing the crowd of
unprofitable thoughts which excite and disturb the soul.
- François Fénelon (1651-1715), Selections from Fénelon'
(Take time for silence today . . . to truly listen for the guidance of the Spirit deep within.)
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Readings of the Day
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HOS 2:16, 17C-18, 21-22; PS 145:2-9; MT 9:18-26
R. The Lord is gracious and merciful.
Every day will I bless you,
and I will praise your name forever and ever.
Great is the LORD and highly to be praised;
his greatness is
unsearchable.
Generation after generation praises your works
and proclaims your might.
They speak of the splendor of your glorious majesty
and tell of your wondrous works.
They discourse of the power of your terrible deeds
and declare your greatness.
They publish the fame of your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your justice.
The LORD is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and of great kindness.
The LORD is good to all
and compassionate toward all his works.
USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Gospel
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A woman suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind [Jesus] and touched the tassel on his cloak.
In Michelangelo's painting of the creation in the Sistine Chapel, the hand of God reaches out to touch the body of Adam to give him the spark of life. In this story, the action moves in the opposite direction: A woman who has been bleeding for years
reaches out to Jesus. It's a compelling image of faith -- a desperate woman making her way through the crowd, knowing she is unclean and shouldn't be there. But she touches Jesus' cloak, and knows she is healed. After 12 years of a living death, she is alive, she is whole.
God, grant us the faith that makes us whole; the faith that moves us from death to life.
Jeanne Lischer
Daily Bread
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Spiritual Reading
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The Book of Supreme Truth, by St. John of Rusybroeck
(1293-1381) But you should also observe that His prayer, as it has been written by St John in this same Gospel, was threefold. For He prayed that we might be with Him, that we might behold the glory which His Father had given Him. And therefore I said at the beginning that all good men are
united with God by means of Divine grace and their own virtuous life; for the love of God is always pouring into us with new gifts, and whosoever is aware of this is fulfilled with new virtues and holy exercises and with all good, in the way that I told you heretofore: and this union through the fulness of grace and glory, in body and soul, begins here below and shall endure throughout eternity.Yet all loving spirits are one fruition and one blessedness with God without distinction; for that beatific state, which is the fruition of God and of all
His beloved, is so simple and onefold that therein neither Father, nor Son, nor Holy Ghost, is distinct according to the Persons, neither is any creature. But all enlightened spirits are here lifted up above themselves into a wayless fruition, which is an abundance beyond all the fulness that any creature has ever received or shall ever receive. For there all uplifted spirits are, in their superessence, one fruition and one beatitude with God without distinction; and there this beatitude is so
onefold that no distinction can enter into it. And this was prayed for by Christ when He besought His Father in heaven that all His beloved might be made perfect in one, even as He is one with the Father through the Holy Ghost: even so He prayed and besought that He in us and we in Him and His heavenly Father might be one in fruition through the Holy Ghost. And this I think the most loving prayer which Christ ever made for our blessedness.Yet all loving spirits are one fruition and one
blessedness with God without distinction; for that beatific state, which is the fruition of God and of all His beloved, is so simple and onefold that therein neither Father, nor Son, nor Holy Ghost, is distinct according to the Persons, neither is any creature. But all enlightened spirits are here lifted up above themselves into a wayless fruition, which is an abundance beyond all the fulness that any creature has ever received or shall ever receive. For there all uplifted spirits are, in their
superessence, one fruition and one beatitude with God without distinction; and there this beatitude is so onefold that no distinction can enter into it. And this was prayed for by Christ when He besought His Father in heaven that all His beloved might be made perfect in one, even as He is one with the Father through the Holy Ghost: even so He prayed and besought that He in us and we in Him and His heavenly Father might be one in fruition through the Holy Ghost. And this I think the most loving
prayer which Christ ever made for our blessednes
- Chapter 13: Of the
threefold prayer of Christ: that we might be one with God. Amazon.com link
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