Sunday, August 13, 2017

Week of August 13 Reflections

Sunday-Ps . 105 has different sections selected for today. V. 16-22 recalls the story of Joseph.He rises from nothing to a ruler, due to his words coming true,and he becomes a teacher of wisdom. Who has taught you wisdom?
Monday-Making judgments about other people is something we do naturally and often. It is so easy - we affix a label, and we respond accordingly. The challenge for us is to resist our tendency to label, to remain open to the one who stands before us, to look for the image of God in them. Every human being bears this image, without exception.-Br. David Vryhof


Tuesday-If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher it would be something like this: Listen to your life.

Wednesday-Nouwen's "Return of the Prodigal Son." This phrase really spoke to me, especially in light of the current national and world events. "...for God, numbers never seem to matter. Who knows whether the world is kept from destruction because of one, two, or three people who have continued to pray when the rest of humanity has lost hope and dissipated itself?"

Thursday-There is something of Mary and Martha inside each one of us: the active, busy, and distracted, as well as the reflective and contemplative. But our modern life so stresses the active virtues that we are more in danger of forgetting the need for spiritual replenishment, for practicing the presence of God, for sitting quietly and still at the feet of Jesus: just being with him in quietness and stillness, in order to renew our energy and our spirit.-Br. Geoffrey Tristram

Friday-Pope Francis-Irenaeus [taught] that the glory of God is seen in a living human being.  Let the light of that glory shine so brightly that everyone may come to recognize the inestimable value of all human life. Even the weakest and most vulnerable, the sick, the old, the unborn and the poor, are masterpieces of God’s creation, made in his own image, destined to live forever, and deserving of the utmost reverence and respect.

Saturday-Kathleen Norris-Worship grounds me again in the real world of God’s creation, dislodging me from whatever world I have imagined for myself. I have come to believe that when we despair of praise, when the wonder of creation and our place in it are lost to us, it’s often because we’ve lost sight of our true role as creatures – we have tried to do too much, pretending to be in such control of things that we are indispensable.




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