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"Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest thing right and doing it all for love. . . Remember that nothing is small in the eyes of God. Do all that you do with love."
- St. Therese of Lisieux -
(Her "little way." Begin to practice it this moment, with whatever you're doing.)
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Ti 2:1-8, 11-14; Psalm 37:3-4, 18, 23, 27, 29
Lk 17:7-10
Jesus said to the Apostles:
“Who among you would say to your servant
who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field,
‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’?
Would he not rather say to him,
‘Prepare something for me to eat.
Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink.
You may eat and drink when I am finished’?
Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded?
So should it be with you.
When you have done all you have been commanded, say,
‘We are unprofitable servants;
we have done what we were obliged to do.’”
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 17: 7-10 (Christian duty)
There are many times when we feel that our ministries of service should entitle us to extraordinary recognition. This temptation to impress others with our goodness should be countered by an admission that what we have done is not extraordinary but rather our duty.
• What are some reasons why you fear reaching out? Resolve to work through at least one of these blocks to relationship.
• What are some of the ways you can affirm your loved ones for their love “duties” which you have recently taken for granted?
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 2: That in God there is but one act, which is his own divinity
This word then, Theotimus, whilst most simple and most single, produces all the distinction of things; being invariable produces all fit changes, and, in fine, being permanent in his eternity gives succession, vicissitude, order, rank and season to all things.
Let us imagine, I pray you, on the one hand, a painter making a picture of Our Saviour's birth (and I write this in the days dedicated to this holy mystery). Doubtless he will give a thousand and a thousand touches with his brush, and will take, not only days, but weeks and months, to perfect this picture, according to the variety of persons and other
things he wants to represent in it. But on the other hand, let us look at a printer of pictures, who having spread his sheet upon the plate which has the same mystery of the Nativity cut in it, gives but a single stroke of the press: in this one stroke, Theotimus, he will do all his work, and instantly he will draw off a picture representing in a fine engraving all that has been imagined, as sacred history records it. Now though with one movement he performed the work, yet it contains a great
number of personages, and other different things, each one well distinguished in its order, rank, place, distance and proportion: so that one not acquainted with the secret would be astonished to see proceed from one act so great a variety of effects. In the same way, Theotimus, nature as a painter multiplies and diversifies her acts according as the works she has in hand are various, and it takes her a great time to finish great effects, but God, like the printer, has given being to all the
diversity of creatures which have been, are, or shall be, by one only stroke of his omnipotent will. He draws from his idea as from a well cut plate, this admirable difference of persons and of things, which succeed one another in seasons, in ages, and in times, each one in its order, as they were to be. For this sovereign unity of the divine act is opposed to confusion and disorder, and not to distinction and variety; these on the contrary it purposely uses, to make beauty from them, by
reducing all differences and diversities to proportion, proportion to order, and order to the unity of the world, which comprises all things created, visible and invisible. All these together are called the universe, perhaps because all their diversity is reduced to unity as though one said "unidiverse," that is, one and diverse, one with diversity and diverse with unity.
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