Message of 1-7-11
Published: Sun, 01/02/11
- resources for prayer and spiritual growth
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MESSAGE OF THE DAY
Who seeks for heaven alone to save his soul,
May keep the path, but will not reach the goal;
While he who walks in love may wander far,
But God will bring him where the Blessed are.
- Henry van Dyke (1852-1933)
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LECTIONARY READINGS FOR THE DAY
http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/
1 Jn 5:5-13; Ps 147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20; Lk 5:12-16
R. (12a) Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
Glorify the LORD, O Jerusalem;
praise your God, O Zion.
For he has strengthened the bars of your gates;
he has blessed your children within you.
He has granted peace in your borders;
with the best of wheat he fills you.
He sends forth his command to the earth;
swiftly runs his word!
He has proclaimed his word to Jacob,
his statutes and his ordinances to Israel.
He has not done thus for any other nation;
his ordinances he has not made known to them. Alleluia.
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MEDITATION ON THE SCRIPTURES
- from
http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html
When Jesus healed the leper of his disease, did he heal him also of
his dis-ease? In other words, what if Jesus' healing took care of
the physical symptoms without dealing with the inner processes that
were connected to leprosy?
So, what's it like for a leper to be reintroduced into his/her
community? That's the upshot of Jesus' command that sent him to the
priests to "show himself." The proof of healing opened the door for
his reentry into relationship with family and friends.
What if this healed leper was very much at the same time still
wounded in his spirit? How would that play out when moving back
into relationship with others? What sort of havoc would resentment,
fear, embarrassment, shame, and the like wreak back in
relationships?
Physical healing seems to be the prelude that incites the community
to enter into the healing process of receiving a member back who
won't fit in right away. Thus the community will have to undergo
soul searching for it to see what its own needs for healing are and
how all can respond to this turn of events.
That seem sneaky? Perhaps the hope many of us hold out for healing
is actually a prelude to deeper healing as old relationships
struggle to become new.
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SPIRITUAL READING
- Fenelon's "Maxims of the Saints"
Christ is " the way, and the truth, and the life." The grace which
sanctifies as well as that which justifies, is by Him and through
Him. He is the true and living way; and no man can gain the
victory over sin, and be brought into union with God, without
Christ. And when, in some mitigated sense, we may be said to have
arrived at the end of the way by being brought home to the Divine
fold and reinstated in the Divine image, it would be sad indeed if
we should forget the way itself, as Christ is sometimes called. At
every period of our progress, however advanced it may be, our life
is derived from God through Him and for Him. The most advanced
souls are those which are most possessed with the thoughts and the
presence of Christ.
Any other view would be extremely pernicious. It would be to
snatch from the faithful eternal life, which consists in knowing
the only true God and Jesus Christ His Son, whom he has sent.
- Artilce 28
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