From: your-daily-tripod+noreply@googlegroups.com
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2010 05:03:08 +0000
Subject: [Your Daily Tripod] Digest for
your-daily-tripod@googlegroups.com - 2 Messages in 2 Topics
To: Digest Recipients <your-daily-tripod+digest@googlegroups.com>
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Today's Topic Summary
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Group: your-daily-tripod@googlegroups.com
Url: http://groups.google.com/group/your-daily-tripod/topics
- Love Never Fails (September 15, 2010) [1 Update]
http://groups.google.com/group/your-daily-tripod/t/136859fe4a949682
- The Son of Man Gives Eternal Life (September 14) [1 Update]
http://groups.google.com/group/your-daily-tripod/t/333064969d9a2c19
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Topic: Love Never Fails (September 15, 2010)
Url: http://groups.google.com/group/your-daily-tripod/t/136859fe4a949682
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From: The Lighthouse Keeper <dxfaro@cox.net>
Date: Sep 14 06:49PM -0700
Url: http://groups.google.com/group/your-daily-tripod/msg/f267f35c19ed63be
Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows
Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts. But I shall show you
a still more excellent way. 1 Corinthians 12:31
"Behold, your mother." John 19:27b
Piety
Give thanks to the LORD on the harp; on the ten-stringed lyre offer
praise. Sing to God a new song; skillfully play with joyful chant. For
the LORD'S word is true; all his works are trustworthy. The LORD loves
justice and right and fills the earth with goodness. Psalm 33:2-5
Study
Today is the feast day for our home parish: St. Mary of Sorrows,
Fairfax, VA. The parish has been a fixture in this wealthy and growing
and diverse region for more than 150 years.
As we enter the Worship Center, we have numerous chances to behold our
mother walking past the statue of her which graces the walls there and
another which stands beside the altar and another with Joseph and
Jesus stands sentinel as we come and go to the parking lot. A
reproduction of the Pieta also rests inside the sanctuary. At the
Historic Church, a grotto like that in Lourdes, stands in front of the
church building.
Beholding our Mother means more than just meditating on the various
statues throughout the parish grounds. Mary showed us the more
excellent way of obedience and action. First, she agreed to
participate in God's plan for salvation. Before the Lord could send
His son into the world, Jesus needed to find the love of a mother to
nurture him and help him grow into the man who would become our
savior.
Today's Psalm echoes one of the central passages from Mark's Gospel.
Psalm 33 teaches us that "Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be
his own." God has chosen Mary to be his own and our Mother of Sorrows
and we see why in this passage:
But he said to them in reply, "Who are my mother and (my) brothers?"
And looking around at those seated in the circle he said, "Here are my
mother and my brothers. (For) whoever does the will of God is my
brother and sister and mother." Mark 3:33-35
The key lies in doing the will of God. Mary accepted that will and
acted upon it. If we are to behold the more excellent way that she
leads us toward, then we must follow her example and do the will of
God.
Action
This week, the state of Virginia has plans to continue the long
tradition of state-sponsored murder with the execution of Teresa
Lewis. Lewis is accused of planning the murder-for-hire of her husband
and son in order to collect insurance money and run away with another
man. We have the choice to follow the more excellent way of love and
mercy.
According to an article in The Washington Post: "If neither the U.S.
Supreme Court nor Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) intervenes, Lewis will
become the first woman executed in Virginia in nearly 100 years and
the 12th nationwide since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.
Both of her co-conspirators, the men who fired the deadly shots,
received life terms. Lewis's execution is scheduled for Sept. 23." She
did not pull the trigger yet she is the one person on death row.
Church teaching is unequivocal about this. If a reliable alternative
to the death penalty (like life in prison with parole) exists, then as
Catholics, we should ask our leaders to halt this execution.
Please consider contacting the Governor to ask him to change her
sentence. You may contact Governor McDonnell directly (1) by phone at
804-786-2211, (2) by mail at Office of the Governor, Patrick Henry
Building, 3rd Floor 1111 East Broad Street Richmond, Virginia 23219,
or (3) through the governor's web page, at
http://www.governor.virginia.gov/Contact.cfm.
Or consider signing this petition http://www.saveteresalewis.org/petition.html
which seeks to have her sentence commuted to life in prison.
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Topic: The Son of Man Gives Eternal Life (September 14)
Url: http://groups.google.com/group/your-daily-tripod/t/333064969d9a2c19
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From: The Lighthouse Keeper <dxfaro@cox.net>
Date: Sep 14 03:05AM -0700
Url: http://groups.google.com/group/your-daily-tripod/msg/1d62dac49480a9eb
Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
By Beth DeCristofaro
Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and
whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze
serpent, he lived. (Numbers 21:9)
They remembered that God was their rock, God Most High, their
redeemer. But they deceived him with their mouths, lied to him with
their tongues. Their hearts were not constant toward him; they were
not faithful to his covenant. But God is merciful and forgave their
sin; he did not utterly destroy them. Time and again he turned back
his anger, unwilling to unleash all his rage. (Psalm 78:36-38)
Jesus said to Nicodemus: "No one has gone up to heaven except the one
who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted
up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life." … For
God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that
the world might be saved through him. (John 3:13-15, 19)
Piety
"How splendid the cross of Christ! It brings life, not death; light,
not darkness; Paradise, not its loss. It is the wood on which the
Lord, like a great warrior, was wounded in hands and feet and side,
but healed thereby our wounds. A tree has destroyed us, a tree now
brought us life" (Theodore of Studios).
Study
Veneration of the Cross began in the Eastern church in the fourth
century and came to the West during the seventh. Theodore's words:
"How splendid the cross of Christ!" rings true for us today but we
tend to forget that in Jesus' day and even into the early church, the
cross was a symbol of cruel punishment and oppression. Crosses, laden
with the dead or dying, were places of despair.
With Jesus acceptance of death upon this instrument of torture,
succumbing even unto death, his resurrection into new life transforms
the symbol into a sign of freedom from sin and death. The Israelites
had only to look upon the bronze serpent to be healed of the serpents'
poison. We can choose to look upon the cross, and see more than
suffering, see beyond despair. The death symbol for the oppressed
peoples of the Roman empire is now the life-symbol for Christians.
Action
What is a place of suffering in your life right now? Can you stand at
the foot of the cross with that suffering? Can you accept that Jesus
suffered for you and suffers with you now. Pray for strength. Pray for
the Spirit to sustain and guide you. Pray for life. Pray for freedom
not only from your suffering but from the bonds which suffering puts
upon you such as resentment, hopelessness, confusion, the desire to
lash out against those who have caused your suffering. You are not
alone. God loves you even as he loved his Son who chose suffering in
order to offer freedom.
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