Author Description

This book is filled with brief moments of inspiration from the daily Gospel readings for the 2023 Liturgical Calendar.These inspirations come from reflection on the daily Gospel reading using the prayer of Lectio Divina .Lectio is an ancient prayer technique that originated with the church fathers and was further explored and adopted by the Benedictines and many others. Lectio is a way of allowing the Holy Spirit to illuminate and teach by way of personalizing Scripture. It consists of progressively reading and praying with a Scripture passage. Each time the Scripture is read there is an increase in personal "spiritual communication" with God. I hope that by sharing these Lectio vignettes, you will consider exploring your relationship with God for a few minutes each day using the daily gospels. Using prayers techniques such as Lectio Divina which include the profound contemplative prayer style that St. John of the Cross teaches can help us contribute to a realistic loving and peace filled world<br/><br/>In beautiful, prayerful poetry and writings St. John of the Cross, Doctor of Church, takes us on a journey into the depth of knowing God in faith and unconditional love. St. John of the Cross describes this concept of being with God as night, but not in an ordinary way of thinking about night. As a metaphor to explain this type of night, if we are in the light of day, all of our senses are engaged in the endless awe and wonder of consuming choices of things to look at, touch, and smell. This concept may seem odd, but if you think about your best prayer moments, you can probably recall that you were in God’s domain and everything else was not even in your thoughts. In these moments, you were in the night that St. John of the Cross describes.God desires that we learn from the light hidden inside this darkness to bring what we are given in love into the world.