Message of 8-29-07

Published: Wed, 08/29/07



SHALOM PLACE PREMIUM GROUPS
- Life-long learning and formation in Christian spirituality.

Groups now open include the following:
A. Psychological Types and Spirituality
B. The Way of Christian Spirituality
C. Freedom from Codependency
D. Christian Spirituality Resources
E. Wonderfully Made (Christian Metaphysics)
F. Growing in Christ
G. Spiral Dynamics®
H. Discerning God's Will
I.  Dark Night of the Soul
J.  Silence, Solitude and Sabbath
K. Alpha Group -- includes all the above and all to come.

- see http://shalomplace.org/groups.html

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MESSAGE OF THE DAY

Prayer is a wine which makes glad the hearts of people... it moistens the dry soil of the conscience, it brings about the perfect absorption of the food of good actions, and distributes them into all the members of the soul; strengthening faith, giving vigour to hope, rendering charity active and yet well ordered, and shedding an unction over the whole character.
    - Bernard of Clairvaux

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SCRIPTURE READINGS
     http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/

1 Thes 2:9-1;   Ps 139:7-8, 9-10, 11-12ab;   Mt 23: 27-32

R.    (1) You have searched me and you know me, Lord.

Where can I go from your spirit?
From your presence where can I flee?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I sink to the nether world, you are present there.

If I take the wings of the dawn,
if I settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
Even there your hand shall guide me,
and your right hand hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall hide me,
and night shall be my light”–
For you darkness itself is not dark,
and night shines as the day.

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Praying the Daily Gospels
 - by Philip St. Romain:
 - http://www.liguori.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=6614

- Matthew 23:27-32 (Jesus denounces hypocrisy)

It is unlikely that anyone has ever confronted a group of people with more fire and sting than Jesus did the scribes and Pharisees of his day. For a Jew to come into contact with a tomb was to become unclean and, hence, unable to share in the Passover feast. By calling the scribes and l~harisees whitewashed tombs,” Jesus is saying that their hypocrisy makes them and those they contact spiritually unclean.

•  How do you feel about the way Jesus confronted the Jewish authorities? Are his actions in keeping with a God of love?

•  Write out a set of guidelines for confronting other people in a loving way. Make a resolution to practice these principles with someone you are concerned about during the next day.

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MYSTICISM
   - by Evelyn Underhill -

“To it all creatures are pure to enjoy!” This is hardly the popular concept of the mystic; which credits him, in the teeth of such examples as St. Francis, St. Mechthild of Magdeburg, Rolle, Suso, and countless others, with a hearty dread of natural things. Too many examples of an exaggerated asceticism—such as the unfortunate story told of the holy Curé d’Ars, who refused to smell a rose for fear of sin—have supported in this respect the vulgar belief; for it is generally forgotten that though most mystics have practised asceticism as a means to an end, all ascetics are not mystics. Whatever may be the case with other deniers of the senses, it is true that the soul of the great mystic, dwelling on high levels of reality, his eyes set on the Transcendental World, is capable of combining with the perfection of detachment that intense and innocent joy in natural things, as veils and vessels of the divine, which results from seeing “all creatures in God and God in all creatures.” “Whoso knows and loves the nobleness of My Freedom,” said the voice of God to Mechthild of Magdeburg, “cannot bear to love Me alone, he must love also Me in the creatures.” That all-embracing love is characteristic of the illumination which results from a faithful endurance of the Purgative Way; for the corollary of “blessed are the pure in heart” is not merely a poetic statement. The annals of mysticism prove it to be a psychological law.

------ Part 2, Chapter 3

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MEDITATING ON SCRIPTURE (Method of St. Francis de Sales)

A. Settling in: call to mind God's presence; address oneself to God in vocal prayer.

B. Reading the Scripture passage slowly, prayerfully.

C. Exercise of the will and intellect in considering the message: what is this passage saying?  what is it calling forth from me?

D. Conclusion: acts of thanksgiving, remorse and intercessions awakened by the meditation.

E. Application: Immediate follow-through on resolutions made.

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