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Q. "What do you do when you realize you have been dozing?" (during prayer}
A. "If you doze off, don't give it a second thought. A child in the arms of a parent drops off to sleep occasionally, but the parent isn't disturbed by that as long as the child is happily resting there and opens its eyes once in a while."
- Thomas Keating
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Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone, by Brene Brown
Led By: Ann Axman and Pattie McGurk, on Zoom
Dates: Wednesday October 14, 21, 28 and November 4
Time: 12:05 – 12:55 p.m. CST (Feel free to eat your lunch while on the zoom meeting)
Fee: $20 (Participants will need to provide their own book for the study)
“True belonging doesn’t require us to change who we are. It requires us to be who we are.” Social scientist Brené Brown, PhD, LMSW, has sparked a global conversation about the experiences that bring meaning to our lives—experiences of courage, vulnerability, love, belonging, shame, and empathy. In Braving the Wilderness, Brown redefines what it means to truly belong in an age of increased polarization. With her trademark mix of research, storytelling, and
honesty, Brown will again change the cultural conversation while mapping a clear path to true belonging.
God and I: Exploring the Connections Between God, Self and Ego, by Philip St. Romain
Led By: Philip St. Romain, on Zoom
Dates: Thursday October 22,29 November 5,12 and 19
Time: 12:05 – 12:55 p.m. CST (Feel free to eat your lunch while on the zoom meeting)
Fee: $20.00
This book explores the meaning of these terms and relationships between them, pointing to a foundational understanding for Christian spirituality. There are 9 chapters in the book, each with questions for discussion as well as spiritual exercises to help provide clarifying experience of the material, which participants will have an opportunity to share if they’d like. We used this book as a text for spiritual directors in our training program at Heartland
Center for Spirituality and participants found it very helpful.
– participants will receive a free PDF version of the book, paperback and other purchase options can be found via the link below:
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GAL 1:13-24; PS 139:1B-3, 13-14AB, 14C-15
LK 10:38-42
Jesus entered a village
where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.
She had a sister named Mary
who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak.
Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said,
“Lord, do you not care
that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving?
Tell her to help me.”
The Lord said to her in reply,
“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.
There is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part
and it will not be taken from her.”
USCCB Lectionary
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Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain,
2018 (3rd ed.)
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Luke 10:38-42 (Mary and Martha)
We are constantly required to make decisions; at any moment we can direct our attention to many concerns. In the story of Mary and Martha, Jesus affirms Mary because she has chosen wisely in setting her priorities. The dishes can be done later Martha's fretting over the "details of hospitality" are less important than being present to the Son of God.
* How do you make value decisions concerning the focus of your attention during each clay? What happens to your attention when you do not consciously direct it toward a specific matter, either external or internal?
* "God does not want our presents; he wants our presence" is an old aphorism. Spend some time simply being present to the Lord, basking in the rays of his love.
Paperback, Kindle and eBook
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Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
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BOOK II: THE HISTORY OF THE GENERATION AND HEAVENLY BIRTH OF DIVINE LOVE
Chapter 1: That the divine perfections are only a single but infinite perfection
Now to assign a perfect name to this supreme excellence, which in its most singular unity comprehends, yea surmounts, all excellence, is not within the reach of the creature, whether human or angelic; for as is said in the Apocalypse: Our Lord has a name which no man knoweth but himself: because as he only perfectly knows his own infinite perfection
he also alone can express it by a suitable name. Whence the ancients have said that no one but God is a true theologian, as none but he can reach the full knowledge of the infinite greatness of the divine perfection, nor, consequently, represent it in words. And for this cause, God, answering by the angel Samson's father who demanded his name, said: Why asketh thou my name which is wonderful? As though he had said: My name may be admired, but never pronounced by creatures; it must be
adored, but cannot be comprehended save by me, who alone can pronounce the proper name by which truly and to the life I express my excellence. Our thoughts are too feeble to form a conception which should represent an excellence so immense, which comprehends in its most simple and most sole perfection, distinctly and perfectly, all other perfections in a manner infinitely excellent and eminent, to which our thoughts cannot raise themselves. We are forced, then, in order to speak in some way of
God, to use a great number of names, saying that he is good, wise, omnipotent, true, just, holy, infinite, immortal, invisible;--and certainly we speak truly; God is all this together, because he is more than all this, that is to say, he is all this in so pure, so excellent and so exalted a way, that in one most simple perfection he contains the virtue, vigour and excellence of all perfection.
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