WATCHWORD:
“Thank Me for troublesome situations; the Peace they can produce far out-weighs the trials you endure. (From Jesus Calling for today)
And My God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus. Phil 4:19
Meditation:
Are we living in such a vital relationship with our fellow man? Consider our present circumstances, in our homes, with our neighbors, with our country. The present crisis (God DOES know when and how this will end, we don’t) as it touches us and others – are these things crushing us? Is our self-worry driving a wedge between us and Our Lord? Then let us call a stop! Resuscitate our relationship with God that our relationship to others may be maintained in prayer and active intercession, whereby God works His marvels through us.
–Stan
Romans 8, v.1: Therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. v. 34: Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died — more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God who is also interceding for us. v. 28: and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. v.38-39: For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Who is Your Neighbor?
John 13:34: Jesus says, A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. Amen.
From Stan Escott: (Something to think about when you are really, really bored!) Once, when I was struggling to write an essay entitled “My Fight with Faith”, I hit a wall at the half-way point trying to contrast Judaism and my walk with Christ, emphasis on peace or enlightenment. The essay is still unfinished, but now I have found that wall! I found it today while leafing through an old, yellowed, and massively highlighted copy, of Thomas Merton’s book, New Seeds of Contemplation. That wall was my inability to understand the power of all those Jewish laws and my singular relationship with Christ. (Snore!)
Here is what Merton wrote that solved it for me: “If you believe, if you make a simple act of submission to the authority of Christ (I believe!), proposing some article of faith externally (Act like you believe!) through His Church, you receive the gift of an interior light that is so simple that it baffles description and so pure that it would be coarse to call it an experience. But it is a true light, perfecting the intellect of man with a perfection far beyond knowledge. (Born again?)
“It is of course necessary to remember that faith implies the acceptance of truths proposed by authority. But this element of submission in faith must not be so over-emphasized that it seems to constitute the whole essence of faith: as if a mere unloving, unenlightened, dogged submission of the will to authority were enough make a ‘man of faith’. If this element of will is over-emphasized then the difference between faith in the intellect and simple obedience in the will becomes obscured. In certain cases, this can be very unhealthy, because actually if there is no light of faith, no interior illumination of the mind by grace by which one accepts the proposed truth from God and thereby attains to it, so to speak, in his divine assurance, then inevitably the mind lacks true peace, the supernatural support which is due to it. In that event, there is not real faith.”
My simplified version: Judaism – Know God by obeying the 613 laws. No enlightenment. Christianity – Have faith in and follow God, no laws, but enlightenment (interior light, peace).
(Tomorrow we shall see how Einstein’s Law of Relativity applies to our isolation. ?? What???)
Closing Prayer:
From St. Thomas Aquinas —
Grant me, O Lord my God,
a mind to know you,
a heart to seek you,
wisdom to find you,
conduct pleasing to you,
faithful perseverance in waiting for you,
and a hope of finally embracing you.
Amen.
