Even Socrates, who lived a very frugal and simple life, loved to go to the market. When his
students asked about this, he replied, “I love to go and see all the things I am happy without.”
- Jack Kornfield, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry
(What "things" would you be more happy
without?.) |
Acts 15:7-21; Ps. 96:1-3, 10; Jn 15:9-11
R. Proclaim God's marvelous deeds to all the nations.
Sing to the LORD a new song;
sing to the LORD, all you lands.
Sing to the LORD; bless his
name.
Announce his salvation, day after day.
Tell his glory among the nations;
among all peoples, his wondrous deeds.
Say among the nations: The LORD is king.
He has made the world firm, not to be moved;
he governs the peoples with equity.
Reflection on the Scriptures |
The early church gathers to figure out what is happening as the Spirit has sent apostles
and disciples to the ends of the earth to share the Good News. Now there is the matter of Jews and Greeks (Gentiles) forming the community of believers. “God, the Holy Spirit, made no distinction between them for by faith God purified their hearts.” As Paul and Barnabas recall the words of the prophets and the saving grace of the Christ, Jesus, silence fell and the assembly listened. How important it is to discern and recognize the presence of the Spirit in the voices that speak. Perhaps the
assembly remembers, too, the words of Jesus in the Gospel of today, to “remain in my love.” This decision is the matter of the heart, love, faith, and of trust. No longer are they Gentile or Jew, but one in the Christ.
Attending to the movements of the heart, and listening to the Spirit through prayer, is often referred to as discernment. We can experience this
through individual or communal discernment processes. It is a path for clarity, a process to help make decisions, but most essentially, it is a way of living. It is a daily consciousness of being aware that the Spirit is alive and active within us, and in life. All we need to do is to be attentive. To be silent and to listen!
- by Sr.
Candice Tucci, O.S.F.
Revelations of Divine Love - by Julian of Norwich
Eighth Revelation, Chapter 17 “How might any pain be more to
me than to see Him that is all my life, and all my bliss, and all my joy suffer?”
AND in this dying was brought to my mind the words of Christ: I thirst.
For I saw in Christ a double thirst: one bodily; another spiritual,
the which I shall speak of in the Thirty-first Chapter.
For this word was shewed for the bodily thirst: the which I understood was caused by failing of moisture. For the blessed flesh and bones was left all alone without blood and moisture. The blessed body dried alone long time with wringing of the nails and weight of
the body. For I understood that for tenderness of the sweet hands and of the sweet feet, by the greatness, hardness, and grievousness of the nails the wounds waxed wide and the body sagged, for weight by long time hanging. And [therewith was] piercing and pressing of the head, and binding of the Crown all baked with dry blood, with the sweet hair clinging, and the dry flesh, to the thorns, and the thorns to the flesh drying; and in the beginning while the flesh was fresh and bleeding, the
continual sitting of the thorns made the wounds wide. And furthermore I saw that the sweet skin and the tender flesh, with the hair and the blood, was all raised and loosed about from the bone, with the thorns wherethrough it were rent in many pieces, as a cloth that were sagging, as if it would hastily have fallen off, for heaviness and looseness, while it had natural moisture. And that was great sorrow and dread to me: for methought I would not for my life have seen it fall. How it was done I
saw not; but understood it was with the sharp thorns and the violent and grievous setting on of the Garland of Thorns, unsparingly and without pity. This continued awhile, and soon it began to change, and I beheld and marvelled how it might be. And then I saw it was because it began to dry, and stint a part of the weight, and set about the Garland. And thus it encircled all about, as it were garland upon garland. The Garland of the Thorns was dyed with the blood, and that other garland [of
Blood] and the head, all was one colour, as clotted blood when it is dry. The skin of the flesh that shewed (of the face and of the body), was small-rimpled [68] with a tanned colour, like a dry board when it is aged; and the face more brown than the body.
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