17 Jul
Wed
15th Week in Ordinary Time
Is. 10:5-7,13-16
Ps. 94:5-6,7-8,9-10, 14-15
Mt. 11:25-27
How To Pray With Shalom
Home Page of Shalom
Index of This Month
 

Biblical prophecy, like religious history, is to be understood in terms of the message it is intended to convey. If taken literally, as in the first reading, with human sentiments and emotions projected on God, God would appear as harsh and as vengeful as the Assyrian king.

The evil we often experience proceeds from the negligent lives we humans lead. Thus, evil is a violation of justice, love and even of hope in our lives. Nevertheless, God uses human instruments, even tyrants, to mete out justice, which He always tempers with mercy in His call to repentance.

As Isaiah indicates, tyrants too, and whole nations have justice meted out to them in due course. People of faith attribute the final outcome to God. As Jesus declares in His prayer, it is childlike faith in God that enables one to discern God's action in both the events of history and in the personal lives of individuals. When I, for example, accomplish a task successfully, my awareness of my own powerlessness tells me that the glory of it belongs to God who has brought it about.



Lord, help me to lead a life of God-awareness so as to be joyful in Your ways always. Amen.

DAILY OFFERING
Eternal Father, I offer You everything I do this day; my thoughts, words, joys and sufferings. Grant that, vivified by the Holy Spirit and united to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, my life this day may be of service to You and to others. I also pray that all those preparing for marriage discover in Sacrament the source of Christ's grace for living a fithful and fruitful love. Amen.

PRAYING WITH THE CHURCH
INTENTION
That artists may do all they can to help the men and women of today to discover the signs of God's providential love in creation.
Elaboration

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P R A Y I N G    W I T H    T H E    C H U R C H    

INTENTION : That artists may do all they can to help the men and women of today to discover the signs of God's providential love in creation.

The artist who can sculpt the stones of our heart to bring out the features of Christ is the Holy Spirit. However, he requires our responsiveness and docility. Conversion of heart is a work of an art jointly produced by the Spirit and our freedom.

Artists, accustomed to shaping the most diverse materials according to the inspiration of their genius, know well the daily effort required to improve their life that resembles artistic work. Through his artistic creativity the artist accomplishes the task of shaping the "material" of his own humanity and then having dominion over the universe. There is a remarkable similarity between the art of forming oneself and that which takes place in the transformation of matter.

God lets himself be glimpsed through the fascination of beauty. Artists can perceive a ray of supreme beauty among the many manifestations of the beautiful. It is then that art becomes a way to God and it spurs the artists to combine their creative talent with their commitment to a life of ever greater conformity to the divine law. Living profoundly their Christian faith, artists are encouraged to give birth to new "epiphanies" of the divine beauty reflected in creation.




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