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“If you want to pray, you need God, who gives prayer to the one who prays.”
- - -
“If you are a theologian you will pray truly; and if
you pray truly you are a theologian. - Evagrius of Pontus, “On Prayer”
(Prayer is God’s idea.
We come to know things about God from prayer that we just can’t learn from study. How is this true for you?)
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JER 23:5-8; PS 72:1-2, 12-13, 18-19; MT 1:18-25
R. Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace for ever.
O God, with your judgment endow the
king,
and with your justice, the king’s son; He shall govern your people with justice and your
afflicted ones with judgment.
For he shall rescue the poor when he cries out, and the afflicted
when he has no one to help him. He shall have pity for the lowly and the poor; the lives of the poor he shall save.
Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous deeds. And blessed
forever be his glorious name; may the whole earth be filled with his glory.
USCCB Lectionary
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Joseph believed the angel's message "that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit"
Joseph, a just and God-fearing man, did not wish to embarrass or punish his espoused wife, Mary when he discovered that she was pregnant. To all appearances she had broken their solemn pledge to be faithful and chaste to one another. Joseph, no doubt took this troubling matter to God in prayer. He was not hasty to judge or to react with hurt and anger. God rewarded him not only with guidance and consolation, but with the divine assurance that he had indeed called
Joseph to be the husband of Mary and to assume a mission that would require the utmost faith, confidence, and trust in Almighty God. Joseph believed in the divine message to take Mary as his wife and to accept the child in her womb as the promised Messiah.
A model of faith for us
Like Mary, Joseph is a model of faith for us. He is a faithful witness and servant of God's unfolding plan of redemption. Are you ready to believe in the promises of God, even when faced with perplexing circumstances and what seems like insurmountable problems? God has not left us alone, but has
brought us his only begotten Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let us celebrate Christmas, the feast of the Incarnation, with joyful hearts and let us renew our faith and hope in God and in his redeeming work.
"Lord Jesus,
you came to save us from sin and the power of death. May I always rejoice in your salvation and trust in your divine plan for my life."
DailyScripture.Net
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The Cloud of Unknowing, by Anonymous That in all other works beneath this, men should keep discretion; but in this none.
AND furthermore, if thou ask me what discretion thou shalt have in this work, then I answer thee and say, right none! For in all thine other doings thou shalt have discretion, as in eating and in drinking, and in sleeping and in keeping of thy body from outrageous cold or heat, and in long praying or reading, or in communing in speech with thine even-christian. In all these shalt thou keep discretion, that they be neither too much nor
too little. But in this work shalt thou hold no measure: for I would that thou shouldest never cease of this work the whiles thou livest.
I say not that thou shalt continue ever therein alike fresh, for that may not be. For
sometime sickness and other unordained dispositions in body and in soul, with many other needfulness to nature, will let thee full much, and ofttimes draw thee down from the height of this working. But I say that thou shouldest evermore have it either in earnest or in game; that is to say, either in work or in will. And therefore for God’s love be wary with sickness as much as thou mayest goodly, so that thou be not the cause of thy feebleness, as far as thou mayest. For I tell thee truly, that
this work asketh a full great restfulness, and a full whole and clean disposition, as well in body as in soul.
And therefore for God’s love govern thee discreetly in body and in soul, and get thee thine health as much as thou
mayest. And if sickness come against thy power, have patience and abide meekly God’s mercy: and all is then good enough. For I tell thee truly, that ofttimes patience in sickness and in other diverse tribulations pleaseth God much more than any liking devotion that thou mayest have in thy health.
- Chapter 41
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