Message of 1-1-15

Published: Thu, 01/01/15

A Daily Spiritual Seed
Thursday: January 1, 2015
Message of the Day

- Happy New Year!

"Only the Peace of God, a constant turning in our prayers to His abiding tranquility is going to . . . make us realize that patience with ourselves is a duty for Christians and the only real humanity.  For it means patience with a growing creature whom God has taken in hand and whose completion He will effect in His own time and His own way."
- Evelyn Underhill

(May the peace and patience of Christ keep you during the coming year.)
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Lectionary Readings

NM 6:22-27;    PS 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8.;    HEB 1:1-2;    LK 2:16-21

R. May God bless us in his mercy.

May God have pity on us and bless us;
may he let his face shine upon us.
So may your way be known upon earth;
among all nations, your salvation.

May the nations be glad and exult
because you rule the peoples in equity;
the nations on the earth you guide.

May the peoples praise you, O God;
may all the peoples praise you!
May God bless us,
and may all the ends of the earth fear him!

USCCB Lectionary
Reflection on the Gospel

In the birth and naming of this child we see the wondrous design and plan of God in giving us a Savior who would bring us grace (the gift of God's favor), mercy, and freedom from the power of sin and the fear of death. The name Jesus signifies that the very name of God is present in the person of his Son who became man for our salvation. Peter the Apostle exclaimed that there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved (Acts 2:12). In the name of Jesus demons flee, cripples walk, the blind see, the deaf hear, and the dead are raised. His name is exalted far above every other name (Philippians 2:9-11).

The name Jesus is at the heart of all Christian prayer. It is through and in Jesus that we pray to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. Many Christians have died with one word on their lips, the name of Jesus. Do you exalt the name of Jesus and pray with confidence in his name?

"Lord Jesus Christ, I exalt your name above every other name. For in you I have pardon, mercy, grace and victory over sin and death. You humbled yourself for my sake and for the sake of all sinners by sharing in our humanity and by dying on the cross. Help me to always praise your holy name and to live for your greater glory."

DailyScripture.Net
Spiritual Reading

The Cloud of Unknowing, by Anonymous

That all witting and feeling of a man’s own being must needs be lost if the perfection of this word shall verily be felt in any soul in this life.

LOOK that nought work in thy wit nor in thy will but only God. And try for to fell all witting and feeling of ought under God, and tread all down full far under the cloud of forgetting. And thou shalt understand, that thou shalt not only in this work forget all other creatures than thyself, or their deeds or thine, but also thou shalt in this work forget both thyself and also thy deeds for God, as well as all other creatures and their deeds. For it is the condition of a perfect lover, not only to love that thing that he loveth more than himself; but also in a manner for to hate himself for that thing that he loveth.

Thus shalt thou do with thyself: thou shalt loathe and be weary with all that thing that worketh in thy wit and in thy will unless it be only God. For why, surely else, whatsoever that it be, it is betwixt thee and thy God. And no wonder though thou loathe and hate for to think on thyself, when thou shalt always feel sin, a foul stinking lump thou wottest never what, betwixt thee and thy God: the which lump is none other thing than thyself. For thou shalt think it oned and congealed with the substance of thy being: yea, as it were without departing.

- Chapter 43
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