A Daily Spiritual Seed
- resources for prayer and spiritual growth
- blogcast from http://dailyspiritualseed.blogspot.com (comments option open)
Annual Appeal Week
It's that time of the year again, when I come to you requesting financial assistance for the support of Daily Spiritual Seed and the Internet Ministry of Heartland Center for Spirituality. It is also a time when I update you on what's happening with our Internet Ministry, and what plans we have for the future.
One thing you might have already noticed is that today's Daily Spiritual Seed is presented in a much simpler, cleaner format. After working with the templates provided by aweber.com (our listserve) this past year, I have come to the conclusion that this simpler format works better with mobile devices, and it's easier for printing (which a number of people have told me they do regularly). It's also considerably easier for me to set up; the Aweber templates were a "bear" to wrestle with!
You might have noticed, too, that today's newsletter was sent as a blogcast (see link above). This will not effect your subscription, as you will continue to receive the newsletter as before, with the same subscribe/unsubscribe options. This new feature will enable the compilation of another archive in addition to the ones already listed below, and render the material more accessible to the blogosphere. In short, this move is in the interest of expanding the reach of Daily Spiritual seed. It also opens the possibility for commenting on newsletters (via the blog link), which I hope you will consider doing sometime. Comment settings are now open to even anonymous posters, though that will probably change in time.
More news as the week unfolds. . .
Thank you for your support!
Phil St. Romain
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Message of the Day
As God created all things by His word, so do we by prayer obtain whatever God wills. Nothing has so great a power to obtain grace for us as prayer when rightly made; for it contains the motives by which God easily allows Himself to be appeased and to incline to mercy.
- Pope Leo XIII [19th C.], “Exeunte Jam Anno”
(Pray that God's will might be impressed upon your own, that you may know what God desires for you.)
Readings of the Day
- http://www.usccb.org/calendar/index.cfm?showLit=1&action=month
WIS 1:1-7; PS 139:1B-3, 4-6, 7-8, 9-10; LK 17:1-6
R. (24b) Guide me, Lord, along the everlasting way.
O LORD, you have probed me and you know me;
you know when I sit and when I stand;
you understand my thoughts from afar.
My journeys and my rest you scrutinize,
with all my ways you are familiar.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O LORD, you know the whole of it.
Behind me and before, you hem me in
and rest your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your spirit?
From your presence where can I flee?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I sink to the nether world, you are present there.
If I take the wings of the dawn,
if I settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
Even there your hand shall guide me,
and your right hand hold me fast.
Reflection on the Scriptures
- http://www.preacherexchange.com/daily_bread.htm
Love justice, you who judge the earth.
Wisdom speaks about justice today, especially to those in authority, who are counseled to base their decisions on justice, pure and simple. Profit cannot be the deciding factor when the environment or people’s health is at risk. Where is justice when a large corporation (which, understandably, has a responsibility to its investors and its workers) is allowed to pollute a lake that is the source of drinking water for hundreds of thousands? Profit, growth and expansion; or safety of water, vital to the health of everyone? These decisions can be tough, but if justice is the principle we use, the answer can’t be clearer.
Lord, in our decisions, may we love justice more than convenience or luxury, we pray.
by Portia Clark
Spiritual Reading
The Sparkling Stone, by St. John Rusybroeck (1293-1381)
And in this storm of love our activity is above reason and wayless; for love longs for that which is impossible to it, and reason teaches that love is in the right, but reason can neither counsel love nor dissuade her. For as long as we inwardly perceive that God would be ours, the goodness of God touches our eager craving: and therefrom springs the wildness of love, for the touch which pours forth from God stirs up this wildness, and demands our activity, that is, that we should love eternal love. But the inward-drawing touch draws us out of ourselves, and calls us to be melted and noughted in the Unity. And in this inward-drawing touch, we feel that God wills us to be His; and therefore, we must renounce ourselves and leave Him to work our blessedness. But where He touches us by the outpouring touch, He leaves us to ourselves, and makes us free, and sets us in His Presence, and teaches us to pray in the spirit and to ask in freedom, and shows us His incomprehensible riches in such manifold ways as we are able to grasp. For everything that we can conceive, wherein is consolation and joy, this we find in Him without measure. And therefore, when our feeling shows us that He with all these riches would be ours and dwell in us for ever more, then all the powers of the soul open themselves, and especially the desirous power; for all the rivers of the grace of God pour forth, and the more we taste of them, the more we long to taste; and the more we long to taste, the more deeply we press into contact with Him; and the more deeply we press into contact with God, the more the flood of His sweetness flows through us and over us; and the more we are thus drenched and flooded, the better we feel and know that the sweetness of God is incomprehensible and unfathomable. And therefore the prophet says: O taste, and see that the Lord is sweet. But he does not say how sweet He is, for God sweetness is without measure and therefore we can neither grasp it nor swallow it. And this is also testified by the bride of God in the Song of Songs, where she says: I sat down under his shadow, with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
- Chapter 10. How we, though one with God, must eternally remain other than God.
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