Two monologues do not make a dialogue.
~ Jeff Daly ~
We feel troubled not only when bad things happen, but when unexpected good things happen as well. In other words, we feel troubled when something ---- good or bad ---- upsets our set ways of living and leaves us confused. Many of the intellectual difficulties we have with Faith come from the fact that we bring the wrong kind of mind to it. The modern world has largely lost the power of symbolic thinking and replaced it with analysis. Analysis in itself is a powerful mode of thought, but it is not the whole of thought. Even people whose conscious minds are fixed in an analytical mode are still moved unconsciously by symbolism. Our world is filled with symbols of contentment, pleasure, fulfillment, happiness ---- and these work on us all, no matter how analytical we may be. We are all manipulated by symbolism when we do not recognize its reality. Our Faith can withstand analysis, but you cannot live on analysis. "The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life." ♥
They have come up with a perfect understanding. He won't try to run her life, and he won't try to run his, either. And beautifully their love wakes with the morning, unafraid to meet the little worries of the day and thus sleeps when evening comes delighted to see the darkness of the night.♥
A quitter never wins, a winner never quits. Winners never quit but when they do, they do it for the right reason. Right? Right! Okay let's hear something from, C. S. Lewis : *Do not dare not to dare.* ---- Right!♥
FALLING STARS : Do you remember still the falling stars
that like swift horses through the heavens raced
and suddenly leaped across the hurdles
of our wishes ---- do you recall? And we
did make so many! For there were countless numbers
of stars : each time we looked above we were
astounded by the swiftness of their daring play,
while in our hearts we felt safe and secure
watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,
knowing somehow we had survived their fall.
A billion stars go spinning through the night,
glittering above your head,
But in you is the presence that will be
when all the stars are dead.♥
~ Rephrase, Rainer Maria Rilke ~
For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
"I am the bread of life." I am what satisfies the deepest and most elemental needs of humanity. I am the most intimate reality in your life : As intimate to you, as sustaining as the food in your mouth. I am the one who keeps your awareness bright like a lamp, your heart warm, your will healthy, strong and gentle. I am the one who enables you to raise your eyes, to see beauty and glory in the world, and to open the eye of your spirit till you see God.♥
1 Pt 5:5-14 / 1 Cor 1:23, 24 / Mk 16:15-20
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease ---- where there are tongues, they will be stilled ---- where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror ---- then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part ; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain : faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.♥
~ 1 Corinthians 13 ~
Lord, Thank You.
If you never felt pain, then how would you know that He is a healer?
If you never had to pray, how would you know that He is a deliverer?
If you never had a trial, how could He help you overcome it?
If you never felt sadness, how would you know that He is a comforter?
If you never made a mistake, how would you know that He is a forgiver?
If you knew all, how would you know that He will answer all your questions?
If you never were in trouble, how would you know that He will come to your rescue?
If you never were broken, then how would you know that He can make you whole?
If you never had a problem, how would you know that He can solve them?
If you never had any suffering, then how would you know what He went through?
If you never went through the fire, then how would you become pure?
If He gave you all things, how would you appreciate them?
If He never corrected you, how would you know that He loves you?
If you had all power, then how would you learn to depend on Him?
If your life was perfect, then how would you need Jesus for?♥
~ Author Unknown To Me ~
Not to us, O Lord, but to your name give the glory.
We sometimes wonder why God does not reveal himself more obviously in the world. Why does he hide his face from so many people? He could easily display his presence and power, and, it seems to us, this would move more people to believe in him.
We are all aware o f the names and faces of famous celebrities ---- movie stars, entertainers, and sports heroes. They have been "revealed" to us by the media. We can see and hear them everyday if we want to. But do we love them? We may admire them, or be grateful for what they have done. We may even idolize them. But we do not really have a relationship of love with them. In fact, we do not even really know them in a personal way. Something more than media exposure is necessary ; we need a more personal encounter. The same is true of our relationship with God.
God shows us more than beauty and vastness of creation. He reveals himself to us in his Son, and in his name sends us the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit. This God alone is worthy of our worship and adoration. We cannot make an idol of him because he is true and living God. He reveals that he wants a relationship of love with us, for he himself is an infinite communion of love. so Jesus tells us : "Anyone who loves me will be true to my word, and my Father will love him ; we will come to him and make our dwelling place with him." God wants to share his very life to us, to dwell within us. Together we form one living communion of love. "The image of the vine and the branches."
Memory is a mysterious part of our being. We see or hear or smell something that takes us right back to our childhood, and we remember something that had lain for many years in our memory. It is important to remember the right thing! And imagine what you would become if you remembered all the things you should forget! Two people can grow together in one home and one of them remembers goodness while the other recalls only misery. In some measure you are what you remember. The Holy Spirit is God's Reminder. This spirit can heal your memories, working deeply in your past, rearranging, freeing, healing everything there. It is the continuation of Christ work in us. "God has come to us in the form of men!" but as a true man, in Jesus Christ : "Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father"♥
Acts 14:5-18 / Jn 14:22 / Jn 14:21-26
Into your hands, O lord, I entrust my spirit.
It is the ordinariness of the bread that is so astonishing! Jesus wants to be ordinary for us. "A very precious relic," wrote Meister Eckhart, "is not willingly allowed to be touched to be touched or seen. Therefore He clothed Himself in the cloak of the likeness of bread, just as my bodily food is transformed by my soul, so that no corner of my nature is not united with it . . . . There is not so much as a needle's point that is not united with it. What I ate a fortnight ago is as much one with my soul as what I received in my mother's womb. So it is that whoever receives this food purely becomes as truly one with it as my flesh and blood are one with my soul."
Jesus' patient responses continue to draw us further into the real meaning of the bread from heaven. The manna, as great as it was, was still only a sign of "the real heavenly bread" which the Father gives for the life of the world. With the request, "Sir, give us this bread always," Jesus reveals even more : "I myself am the bread of life." . . . . He has not come simply to give us loaves, but to give us himself.♥
Acts 7:51, 8:1 / Jn 6:35 / Jn 6:30-35
What return can I make to the Lord for all that He to me?
We have been asking him to open our minds to understand his words, for he says, his words are "spirit and life"! However, Jesus' words of life concerning the Eucharist are also a challenge, a "hard saying," like his teaching on the necessity of the cross. "Does it shake your faith?" The same challenge is placed before us. And because many are shaken by the truth about the Eucharist, a sad division remains among Christians to this day. "Do you want to leave me too?" He will not change his teaching in order to accommodate our limitations. The truth cannot change ; we must change. To remain with him, we must accept the truth in all its fullness.
Through the Eucharist, the Bread of Life, we share in the same divine life and power as Peter and the apostles. This does not mean we need to perform dramatic signs, but we are called to live a deeply Eucharistic life, full of confidence in Jesus Christ, whose life is in us. The more we abandon ourselves to him in faith, the more powerfully he can work through us to give spiritual life and health to others.♥
Acts 9:31-42 / Jn 6:63, 68 / Jn 6: 60-69
