Message of 12-12-07
Published: Sat, 12/08/07
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
We're all in winter's grip,
but even more caught is the person who loves
because they're held by Love's power.
- Hadewijch, "Poems in Stanzas"
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SCRIPTURE READINGS
http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/
Zec 2:14-17; Judith 13:18bcde, 19; Matthew 11:28-30
R. (15:9d) You are the highest honor of our race.
Blessed are you, daughter, by the Most High God,
above all the women on earth;
and blessed be the LORD God,
the creator of heaven and earth.
Your deed of hope will never be forgotten
by those who tell of the might of God.
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ADVENT REFLECTIONS
Psalm 103:1-4,8,10
Matthew 11:28-30 (The gentle Christ)
We sometimes hear people sharing their confusion and struggle as
they try to discover what God's will is for them. Today's reading
reminds us that God's will is meant to be refreshing, not
burdensome. God is a loving support, not a judgmental taskmaster.
- What does Jesus mean when he says his yoke is easy, his
burden light? How do you experience this?
- Spend some time with the words "Come to me." Let yourself feel
God's desire for you to he with him.
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MYSTICISM
- by Evelyn Underhill -
During the years of inward stress, of penance and growing knowledge
of the Infinite, which she spent in the Convent of the Incarnation,
and which accompanied this slow remaking of character, Teresa's
only self-indulgence--as it seems, a sufficiently innocent one--was
talking to the friends who came down from Avila to the
convent-parlour, and spoke to her through the grille. Her
confessors, unaccustomed to the education of mystical genius, saw
nothing incompatible between this practice and the pursuit of a
high contemplative life. But as her transcendental consciousness,
her states of orison grew stronger, Teresa felt more and more the
distracting influence of these glimpses of the outer world. They
were a drain upon the energy which ought to be wholly given to that
new, deep, more real life which she felt stirring within her, and
which could only hope to achieve its mighty destiny by complete
concentration upon the business in hand. No genius can afford to
dissipate his energies: the mystic genius least of all. Teresa knew
that so long as she retained these personal satisfactions, her life
had more than one focus; she was not whole-hearted in her surrender
to the Absolute. But though her inward voices, her deepest
instincts, urged her to give them up, for years she felt herself
incapable of such a sacrifice. It was round the question of their
retention or surrender that the decisive battle of her life was
fought.
------ 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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