Message of 7-30-15

Published: Thu, 07/30/15

A Daily Spiritual Seed
Thursday: July 30, 2015
Message of the Day

Gratitude is the most passionate transformative force in the cosmos. When we offer thanks to God or to another human being, gratitude gifts us with renewal, reflection, reconnection.
    - Sarah Ban Breathnach

(. . . the most passionate transformative force in the cosmos." You don't want to pass that up, do you? How will you express gratitude today?)
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Lectionary Readings

EX 40:16-21, 34-38;    PS 84:3-6, 8A, 11;    MT 13:47-53

R. How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord, mighty God!

My soul yearns and pines 
for the courts of the LORD.
My heart and my flesh
cry out for the living God.

Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest
in which she puts her young–
Your altars, O LORD of hosts,
my king and my God!

Blessed they who dwell in your house!
continually they praise you.
Blessed the men whose strength you are!
They go from strength to strength.

I had rather one day in your courts
than a thousand elsewhere;
I had rather lie at the threshold of the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

USCCB Lectionary
Reflection on the Gospel

There is a profound unity between the Old and New Testaments. Both are divinely inspired by one and the same Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16). The Old Testament prepares for the New and the New Testament fulfills the Old - the two shed light on each other. The Old Testament prepared the way for the coming of Jesus Christ as the redeemer of all who would be saved through his sacrifice on the cross. The New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New. That is why Jesus interpreted the Old Testament Scriptures for his disciples and explained how he came to fulfill what was promised and foreshadowed in the Old (Luke 24:27). That is why we read the Old Testament in the light of Christ’s saving death and resurrection. Do you revere the word of God in the Scriptures - both old and new - and see their fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ?

"Lord Jesus, may your word take deep root in my heart and transform my way of thinking, discerning, and acting. May your Spirit open my ears to hear and understand the word of God in the Scriptures that I may revere and treasure both the Old and the New Testaments which God has prepared for all who desire to enter his kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy. Help me to be a diligent student and faithful disciple of your word."

DailyScripture.Net
Spiritual Reading


The Cloud of Unknowing, by Anonymous


How they be deceived that follow the fervour of spirit in condemning of some without discretion.

Therefore it is that I say, and have said, that evermore when the devil taketh any body, he figureth in some quality of his body what his servants be in spirit. For he enflameth so the imagination of his contemplatives with the fire of hell, that suddenly without discretion they shoot out their curious conceits, and without any advisement they will take upon them to blame other men’s defaults over soon: and this is because they have but one nostril ghostly. For that division that is in a man’s nose bodily, and the which departeth the one nostril from the tother, betokeneth that a man should have discretion ghostly; and can dissever the good from the evil, and the evil from the worse, and the good from the better, ere that he gave any full doom of anything that he heard or saw done or spoken about him. And by a man’s brain is ghostly understood imagination; for by nature it dwelleth and worketh in the head.


- Chapter 55
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