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Lord's Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

Ancient Prayer - For Support of the Holy Spirit

O  Educator, be gracious to thy children, O Educator, Father, Guide of Israel, Son and Father, both one, Lord. Give to us, who follow thy command, to fulfill the likeness of thy image, and to see, according to our strength, the God who is both a good God and a Judge who is not harsh.

Do thou thyself bestow all things on us who dwell in thy peace, who have been placed in thy city, who sail the sea of sin unruffled, that we may be made tranquil and supported by the Holy Spirit, the unutterable Wisdom, by night and day, unto the perfect day, to sing eternal thanksgiving to the one only Father and Son, Son and Father, Educator and Teacher with the Holy Spirit.

by Clement of Alexandria (150–215 A.D.)

Heal My Spirit

Heal me, oh Lord. Heal me in my body, for it is broken and pained from the afflictions of sin.
Heal me in my mind, for it is filled with love for the things of the world, and I suffer for my disobedience to you.
Heal me in my words, for they escape my lips in vain.
Heal me in my heart, for I too often judge others, resent others, grow angry and nurse my grievances.
Heal me in my life. Like a stupid and headstrong sheep, I have wandered from your path until I became lost in the desert of pride.
And above all, I implore you: Heal me in my spirit.
I am battle-ravaged by my sin, sick by my own will. The pure spirit you gave me is wreckage and rubble. I regret every abuse of your gifts. Forgive me, dear Christ, and replenish me with your infinite mercy, with your pure, clear, perfect love, until I am restored to the perfect beauty and peace of soul that can be found only by your grace.

Mason Barge 8/11/2015

Meditation

[I am sick by my own will.]

Community of Prayer

I  pray to you, dearest Jesus, for all the graces I need to know you, to love you and serve you faithfully unto death, and to save my soul. Give me a tender and fervent devotion to your sacred passion by which I was redeemed, venerating you each day in prayer, and teach me how to unite sorrows and sufferings of my life with your own.

Think of the day ahead in terms of God with you, and visualize health, strength, guidance, purity, calm confidence, and victory as the gifts of His presence.

Proverbs 16:4 (NKJV)

1 Corinthians 10:1-12 (JBP)

Spiritual experience does not guarantee infallibility

For I should like to remind you, my brothers, that our ancestors all had the experience of being guided by the cloud in the desert and of crossing the sea dry-shod. They were all, so to speak, “baptized” into Moses by these experiences. They all shared the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink (for they drank from the spiritual rock which followed them, and that rock was Christ).

Yet in spite of all these wonderful experiences many of them failed to please God, and left their bones in the desert. Now in these events our ancestors stand as examples to us, warning us not to crave after evil things as they did. Nor are you to worship false gods as they did. The scripture says — ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.’

Neither should we give way to sexual immorality as did some of them, for we read that twenty-three thousand fell in a single day! Nor should we dare to exploit the goodness of God as some of them did, and fell victims to poisonous snakes. Nor yet must you curse the lot that God has appointed to you as they did, and met their end at the hand of the angel of death.

Now these things which happened to our ancestors are illustrations of the way in which God works, and they were written down to be a warning to us who are the heirs of the ages which have gone before us.

So let the man who feels sure of his standing today be careful that he does not fall tomorrow.

Notes on the Scripture

Paul describes the eternal war between God and the temptations of the human mind, using the Exodus as the framework for showing how powerful temptation may be. We sometimes hear people with a difficult decision say that they wish they had “a sign from God”, but they are kidding themselves. The enemy is always with us, and does not lose his power simply because we are baptized, or witness a miracle.

f there was ever a group of people who got a sign from God, it was the Hebrews leaving Egypt. Aside from the florid account of the Exodus itself, the Hebrews in the desert were given a miracle every day, for they were fed in a place with no source of food, and water was given to them in a place that was, by definition, utterly dry. God rose before them as a pillar of smoke to show them their path.

Paul’s assertion that “many of them left their bones in the desert” because they failed to follow God’s law, even in the direct vision of daily miracles, is an understatement. Of the men who left Egypt, only Aaron and Caleb reached the Promised Land. Even in the direct face of repeated miracles, the tribe devolved into lechery, idolatry, and who-knows-what-all. And the Corinthians, similarly, had let themselves slip into pride, lust, greed, and idolatry.

But how about us? Where are our miracles? We don’t wander in a desert with God raining food down upon us. Except, of course, we do. Did we make the soil, the rain, the sun, the air, or the corn and wheat? But even so, we do not have a pillar of smoke leading our way. Except, again, we do. God is not leading our bodies to a place, as he did with the Hebrews. He is leading our hearts, minds and souls to a place where we can love Him and be saved, and our pillar of smoke is the Bible, which will guide our way every day and night.

Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh, artist unknown, ca. 1537.

Daily Inspiration

“ The Flood ”

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