|
Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger people! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come in you by the grace of God....
- Phillip Brooks (1835-1893), Twenty Sermons
(Take a few moments to "wonder at yourself" and "the richness of life that has come in you by the grace of God." Give thanks.)
|
|
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:
|
GAL 5:1-6; PS 119:41, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48
LK 11:37-41
After Jesus had spoken,
a Pharisee invited him to dine at his home.
He entered and reclined at table to eat.
The Pharisee was amazed to see
that he did not observe the prescribed washing before the meal.
The Lord said to him, “Oh you Pharisees!
Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish,
inside you are filled with plunder and evil.
You fools!
Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside?
But as to what is within, give alms,
and behold, everything will be clean for you.”
USCCB Lectionary
|
|
|
|
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain,
2018 (3rd ed.)
____________
Luke 11: 37-41 (Confrontation at a Pharisee's home)
Some of the Pharisees must have been friendly toward Jesus' cause. Indeed, Paul often found them to be more sympathetic to the gospel than were the scribes or the Sadducees. When Jesus chooses to ignore certain rituals of cleanliness in a Pharisee's home, he is being deliberately provocative. This incident gives him an opportunity to confront the legalism of his host, calling the Pharisee to re-examine
his priorities.
* Many people believe that Jesus' criticism of the Pharisee in today's reading can be applied to society today. What do you think?
* Why would alms giving help transform the heart of the Pharisees? How does giving of your time and talent in the service of others transform you?
Paperback, Kindle and eBook
|
|
|
|
|
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
____________
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
In the same way, the manna was one meat, which, containing in itself the taste and virtue of all other meats, might have been said to have the taste of the lemon, the melon, the grape, the plum and the pear. Yet one might have said with still greater truth that it had not all these tastes, but one only, which was its own proper one, but which contained
in its unity all that was agreeable and desirable in all the diversity of other tastes: like the herb dodecatheos, which, says Pliny, while curing all diseases, is nor rhubarb, nor senna, nor rose, nor clove, nor bugloss, but one simple, which in its own proper simplicity contains as much virtue as all other medicaments together. O abyss of the divine perfections! How admirable art thou, to possess in one only perfection the excellence of all perfection in so excellent a manner that
none can comprehend it but thyself!
|
|
|
|
|
