Message of 4-21-15

Published: Tue, 04/21/15

Focusing as a Way to Inner Wisdom and Wholeness
- Webinar by Nick Morale
- April 23, 2015. 7:00 - 8:30 p.m., CST
- No registration fee; free-will donation requested.

Learn more about Focusing practice from an experienced guide and teacher. Live webcast with interactive opportunities.

See http://shalomplace.com/inetmin/webinars/focusing.html for more information and registration.

Message of the Day

We must not be unjust and require from ourselves what is not in ourselves... Do not desire not to be what you are, but desire to be very well what you are.
- François de Sales (1567-1622), Spiritual Maxims

(Doing God's will and being who you are go hand-in-hand. What might this mean for you today?)

Daily Readings

ACTS 7:51—8:1; PS 31:3-4, 6, 7B, 8A, 17, 21AB; JN 6:30-35

R. (6a) Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.

Be my rock of refuge,

a stronghold to give me safety.

You are my rock and my fortress;

for your name’s sake you will lead and guide me.

Into your hands I commend my spirit;

you will redeem me, O LORD, O faithful God.

My trust is in the LORD;

I will rejoice and be glad of your mercy.

Let your face shine upon your servant;

save me in your kindness.

You hide them in the shelter of your presence

from the plottings of men.

USCCB Lectionary

Reflection on the Scriptures

This chapter from John is not at all primarily about the Eucharist; that is strictly an interpretation that only came to us once we had seen, accepted, and come to cherish that Eucharistic miracle of God's love. Seeing this chapter only in that manner has obscured for us what the whole chapter is actually about, which is whether people can accept Christ's divinity or not.

The last lines of today's Gospel are either vain and empty hyperbole on Christ's part or a fairly clear claim to a power and a love that only God can have, and so He is asking the people whom He had just miraculously fed --- and is asking us as well --- to take Him seriously, but it would not have been easy for a people who had struggled long, hard, and painfully to reach monotheism to even grasp what Christ was trying to say, that He was not only fully human but was also the God who lived so carefully hidden in the inner depths of the Temple --- and both of them at the same time!

In the end most people can't do that, not then, as the end of John's sixth chapter shows, and certainly not today. Even the apostles had no idea what Christ actually meant --- but at least they were willing to stick around to find out.

We need to join them in their trust, for as Oswald Chambers, a Protestant pastor of the nineteenth century, once said, “Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One who is leading.”

- by Chas Kestermeier, S.J.

Creighton Online Ministries

SPIRITUAL READING

On Spiritual Direction
- by Philip St. Romain, M.S., D. Min.
Excerpted from Handbook for Spiritual Directees

http://shalomplace.com/view/handbook.html

Introduction

It is helpful to have a companion with whom you can share your joys and struggles in living the Christian life. This companion may be your spouse, another family member, or a close friend.

When we speak of spiritual direction, however, we are referring to a relationship that is more specifically focused on helping you live in faith. A spiritual director listens and gives feedback about what he or she is hearing and sensing about the movement of the Holy Spirit in your life. This feedback is for your consideration only; the spiritual director is not a guru who tells you what to do.

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