Message of 0-13-10
Published: Sun, 09/12/10
- resources for prayer and spiritual growth
- - -
MESSAGE OF THE DAY
The great thing with unhappy times is to take them bit by bit, hour
by hour, like an illness. It is seldom the present, the exact
present, that is unbearable.
- C. S. Lewis
(You can always handle the present moment.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
LECTIONARY READINGS FOR THE DAY
http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/
1 Cor 11:17-26, 33; Ps 40:7-8a, 8b-9, 10, 17; Lk 7:1-10
R. (1 Cor 11:26b) Proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes
again.
Sacrifice or oblation you wished not,
but ears open to obedience you gave me.
Burnt offerings or sin‑offerings you sought not;
then said I, "Behold I come."
"In the written scroll it is prescribed for me,
To do your will, O my God, is my delight,
and your law is within my heart!"
I announced your justice in the vast assembly;
I did not restrain my lips, as you, O Lord, know.
May all who seek you
exult and be glad in you
And may those who love your salvation
say ever, "The LORD be glorified."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL
- from "Daily Bread"
http://www.preacherexchange.com/daily_bread.htm
"Therefore, I did not consider myself worthy to come to you."
The centurion seeking healing for his slave models Jesus' own
impartial ministry. In this company, neither the slave nor the
centurion holds much societal value, and the centurion has no sense
of entitlement, just faith. He doesn't see the worth of the dying
man as merely his slave. He acknowledges the man's love of his
nation and his service in building the synagogue -- attributes that
credit both men and serve the greater good. The centurion also
doesn't separate himself from his slave when he recognizes how he,
as a gentile, is deemed unclean to host a Jew. The centurion puts
himself in a socially awkward position to advocate for another with
even less "right" to seek the Lord's healing. In his modest
request, he shows that seeking the Lord and trusting in his healing
power are what make us worthy -- not wealth, position or nationality.
"Lord, may we minister to all your children with equal compassion,
we pray."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
SPIRITUAL READING
The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage
by St. John of Rusybroeck (1293-1381)
A Man who lives this life in its perfection, as it has here been
shown, and who is offering up his whole life, and all his works, to
the worship and praise of God, and who wills and loves God above
all things, is often stirred by a desire to see, to know, and to
prove what, in Himself, this Bridegroom Christ is; Who for man's
sake became man and labored in love unto death, and delivered us
from sin and the devil, and has given us Himself and His grace, and
left us His sacraments, and has promised us His kingdom and Himself
as an eternal wage; Who also gives us all that is needful for the
body, and inward consolation and sweetness, and innumerable gifts
of all kinds, according to the needs of each.
When a man beholds all this, he feels an unmeasured impulse to see
Christ his Bridegroom, and to know Him as He is in Himself. Though
he knows Him in His works, this does not seem to him enough. Then
he must do as the publican Zaccheus did, who longed to see Jesus,
who He was. He must run before the crowd, that is the multiplicity
of creatures; for these make us so little and so low that we cannot
see God. And he must climb up into the tree of faith, which grows
from above downwards, for its roots are in the Godhead. This tree
has twelve branches, which are the twelve articles of faith. The
lower speak of the Divine Humanity, and of those things which
belong to our salvation of soul and of body. The upper part of the
tree tells of the Godhead, of the Trinity of Persons, and of the
Unity of the Nature of God. And the man must cling to that unity,
in the highest part of the tree; for there it is that Jesus must
pass with all His gifts.
Here comes Jesus, and sees the man, and shows to him, in the light
of faith, that He is according to His Godhead immeasurable and
incomprehensible and inaccessible and abysmal, transcending every
created light and every finite conception. And this is the highest
knowledge of God which any man may have in the active life: that he
should confess in this light of faith that God is incomprehensible
and unknowable. And in this light Christ says to man's desire: Make
haste and come down, for to-day I must abide at thy house. This
hasty descent, to which he is summoned by God, is nothing else than
a descent through desire and through love into the abyss of the
Godhead, which no intelligence can reach in the created light. But
where intelligence remains without, desire and love go in. When the
soul is thus stretched towards God, by intention and by love, above
everything that it can understand, then it rests and dwells in God,
and God in it. When the soul climbs with desire above the
multiplicity of creatures, and above the works of the senses, and
above the light of nature, then it meets Christ in the light of
faith, and becomes enlightened, and confesses that God is
unknowable and incomprehensible. When it stretches itself with
longing towards this incomprehensible God, then it meets Christ,
and is filled with His gifts. And when it loves and rests above all
gifts, and above itself, and above all creatures, then it dwells in
God, and God dwells in it.
This is the way in which we shall meet Christ on the summit of the
active life. When you have laid the foundation of righteousness,
charity, and humility; and have established on it a dwelling-place,
that is, those virtues which have been named heretofore; and have
met Christ through faith, by intention and by love; then you dwell
in God and God dwells in you, and you possess the true active life.
And this was the first of which we would speak.
- Chapter 26: On the desire to know the Bridegroom in his nature.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Amazon.com gift cards - good for any occasion
- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00067L6TQ/?tag=christianspiritu
- - - -
Please help support Heartland Center's Internet ministries:
- For more info on tax-deductible donations, see
http://shalomplace.com/seed/donations.html.
Thanks for your consideration!
_________________________________________________
* Web Archive: http://www.aweber.com/z/article/?dailyseed
* RSS: http://www.aweber.com/z/rss/?dailyseed