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To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. This is hard. It is perhaps not so hard to forgive a single injury. But to forgive the incessant provocations of daily life—to keep on forgiving the bossy mother-in-law, the bullying husband, the nagging wife, the selfish daughter, the deceitful son—how can we do it? Only, I think, by remembering where we stand, by meaning our words when we say in our prayers
each night, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We are offered forgiveness on no other terms. To refuse it means to refuse God’s mercy for ourselves. There is no hint of exceptions and God means what He says.
... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), “On Forgiveness,” in The Weight of Glory [1949]
(Of course, forgiveness doesn't mean we ought not set boundaries with the toxic people in our lives. How might you need to do so?
Resource: https://positivepsychology.com/great-self-care-setting-healthy-boundaries/ )
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Acts 8:1b-8; Psalm 66:1-3a, 4-5, 6-7a
Jn 6:35-40
Jesus said to the crowds,
“I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me will never hunger,
and whoever believes in me will never thirst.
But I told you that although you have seen me,
you do not believe.
Everything that the Father gives me will come to me,
and I will not reject anyone who comes to me,
because I came down from heaven not to do my own will
but the will of the one who sent me.
And this is the will of the one who sent me,
that I should not lose anything of what he gave me,
but that I should raise it on the last day.
For this is the will of my Father,
that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him
may have eternal life,
and I shall raise him on the last day.”
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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\ohn 6: 35-40 (We shall be raised up)
Today's reading teaches us a tremendous lesson. Jesus' Resurrection demonstrated the power of God over the forces of evil and guaranteed that those who are with Jesus shall themselves be raised up. This shall be true for us as long as we strive to do the will of the one who has sent Jesus.
* Grace refers to all those unearned blessings that help make us who we are. Reflect on some of the graces from your early life and family that have helped form you (parents, teachers, place of birth. for example). List these in your journal and give thanks to God for them.
* Spend some time with the passage I have come not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
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 8: How much God desires we should love Him.
Good God! Theotimus, how amorous the divine heart is of our love. Would it not have sufficed to publish a permission giving us leave to love him, as Laban permitted Jacob to love his fair Rachel, and to gain her by services? Ah no! he makes a stronger declaration of his passionate love of us, and commands us to love him with all our power, lest the consideration of his
majesty and our misery, which make so great a distance and inequality between us, or some other pretext, might divert us from his love. In this, Theotimus, he well shows that he did not leave in us for nothing the natural inclination to love him, for to the end it may not be idle, he urges us by this general commandment to employ it, and that this commandment may be effected, he leaves no living man without furnishing him abundantly with all means requisite thereto. The visible sun touches
everything with its vivifying heat, and as the universal lover of inferior things, imparts to them the vigour requisite to produce, and even so the divine goodness animates all souls and encourages all hearts to its love, none being excluded from its heat. Eternal wisdom, says Solomon, preacheth abroad, she uttereth her voice in the streets: At the head of multitudes she crieth out, in the entrance of the gates of the city she uttereth her words, saying: O children, how long will you love
childishness, and fools covet those things which are hurtful to themselves, and the unwise hate knowledge? Turn ye at my reproof: behold I will utter my spirit to you, and will show you my words. [80] And the same wisdom continues in Ezechiel saying: Our iniquities and our sins are upon us, and we pine away in them: how then can we live? Say to them: As I live, saith the Lord God, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live. Now to live according to God
is to love, and he that loveth not abideth in death. See now, Theotimus, whether God does not desire we should love him!
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