A Daily Spiritual Seed
- resources for prayer and spiritual growth
- blogcast from http://dailyspiritualseed.blogspot.com (comments option open)
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Message of the Day
This is the nature of love: to the extent that we distance ourselves from the center of the circle and do not love God, we distance ourselves from our neighbour; but if we love God, then the nearer we draw to him in love, the more we are united with our neighbour in love.
- Dorotheus of Gaza, “Instructions”
(Is there someone you're struggling to love these days? Ask God to supply the love needed.)
Readings of the Day
- http://www.usccb.org/calendar/index.cfm?showLit=1&action=month
1 MC 1:10-15, 41-43, 54-57, 62-63; PS 119:53, 61, 134, 150, 155, 158; LK 18:35-43
R.
Give me life, O Lord, and I will do your commands.Indignation seizes me because of the wicked
who forsake your law.
Though the snares of the wicked are twined about me,
your law I have not forgotten.
Redeem me from the oppression of men,
that I may keep your precepts.
I am attacked by malicious persecutors
who are far from your law.
Far from sinners is salvation,
because they seek not your statutes.
I beheld the apostates with loathing,
because they kept not to your promise.
Reflection on the Scriptures
- http://www.preacherexchange.com/daily_bread.htm
As Jesus approached Jericho a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging.
We know that disabled people were avoided -- even outcasts -- in Jesus’ day. When this blind man called out to Jesus, the crowd told him to be quiet. After all, he was one of the insignificant people in the world, someone who (they thought) did not merit Jesus’ attention. One of the important things we remember about Jesus is his remarkable openness and acceptance of all people. Age, gender, class, nationality, religion, ability — none of that mattered to Jesus. The blind man was a child of God who deserved to be treated with respect.
Loving God, help us to notice the people we’d just as soon avoid.
- by Jeanne Lischer
Spiritual Reading
The Sparkling Stone, by St. John Rusybroeck (1293-1381)
There is a great difference between the brightness of the saints and the highest brightness or enlightenment to which we may attain in this life. For it is only the shadow of God which enlightens our inward wilderness, but on the high mountains of the Promised Land there is no shadow: and yet it is one and the same Sun, and one radiance, which enlightens both our wilderness and the high mountains. But the state of the saints is transparent and shining, and therefore they receive the brightness without intermediary: but our state is still mortal and gross, and this sets up an obstacle which causes the shadow, which so darkens our understanding that we cannot know God and heavenly things so clearly as the saints can and do. For as long as we dwell in the shadow, we cannot see the sun in itself; but Now we see through a glass darkly, says St Paul. Yet the shadow is so enlightened by the sunshine that we can perceive the distinctions between all the virtues, and all the truth which is profitable to our mortal state. But if we would become one with the brightness of the Sun, we must follow love, and go out of ourselves into the Wayless, and then the Sun will draw us with our blinded eyes into Its own brightness, in which we shall possess unity with God. So soon we feel and understand ourselves thus, we are in that contemplative life which is within reach of our mortal state.
- Chapter 11. Of the great difference between the brightness of the Saints and the highest brightness to which we can attain in this life.
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