Thursday, February 14, 2008

Thurs, 14 Feb (Matt 7:7)

* Welcome God every day by reading the Living Faith devotional before work (~1 min). Order at http://www.livingfaith.com/.

Ask and it will be given to you. Matthew 7:7

Devotion snippets: "I firmly believe in the necessity of prayer; it is as essential as breathing [staying connected to God]. I believe in its power; I've personally witnessed God's astonishing response to prayer." by Mary Marrocco

Pat's Nuggests:
* Prayer: Joe Levisky's granddaughter Laney had another bout of seizures yesterday. Let's join in prayer today for Laney, Joe, and family. Sharon Carlson sent this great prayer perspective yesterday, "If you pray that God will move a mountain and He doesn’t, assume Christ wants you to climb it instead & see Him."

* Shroud of Turin: Last night, I attended a wonderful talk on the Shroud of Turin. The Shroud is believed to be the burial cloth of Christ and bears the highly distinct image of a crucified man. I did a report on the Shroud in ~1987 and found the faith/science surrounding the Shroud to be incredibly interesting. The presenter, Dr. John Jackson, is a former Academy physics professor who led the 1978, thirty-person plus, scientific expedition that studied the Shroud first-hand. Dr. Jackson showed us a replica of the Shroud. He believes the Shroud was also possibly the table cloth for the Last Supper based on: the Passover meal uses a tablecloth (separate leavened from unleavened), sets of possible wine drips spaced around one side of the Shroud, tablecloth was a quick solution for short notice burial. Furthermore, Dr. Jackson proposed that the apostles may have literally used the Shroud to "do this in memory of me" (The Last Supper), perhaps leading to the tradition of placing a small cloth under the bread/wine before the consecration. More at http://www.shroudofturin.com/Science1.html.

Saints: Today is the feast day of St. Cyril and St. Methodius, brothers who are the patron saints of Europe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Cyril and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Methodius. I'm sure our German friends Lutz and Thomas find this particularly interesting :)!

Happy St. Valentine's Day, especially to Angi :)! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Valentine

Through Christ Our Lord,
Pat
Phil 4:13

* Daily Bible readings: www.usccb.org/nab/today.shtml
* LIFE Devotions blog: Sign up at LIFE Devotions. Please fill in your profile. If inspired, add a comment and fwd it to the distro at LIFE-Group-Devotions-distro@googlegroups.com.
* LIFE Prayers blog: Sign up at LIFE Prayers. Prayer changes things, so let's pray daily. Please "post" prayer requests (update with a "comment", send to distro).
* Sr. Francelle Devotions: Let me know if you (and others) would like to be on the distro to receive her wonderful weekly faith-application devotions.
* Let's joyfully live out the Good News and gladly tell others about it (Mark 16:15)!

2 comments:

Jon M said...

Pat,

I liked your theory that the Apostles and Jesus served each other during the Last Supper. All in the spirit of serving each other, true to the new way that Jesus preached, and contrary to the old way, where certain people had a more prominent role and were always "served".

Also the idea that the linen used at the Last Supper, might be the actual linen that shrouded the precious Body of Christ in the tomb, is nothing other than inspiring. To think that when Jesus turned the bread and wine into His true Body and Blood at the Last Supper, not one of the Apostles realized that Jesus' Body and Blood (in Human form) would be laid to rest on the same linen.

The talk really got me excited about signs of our faith.

Jon

Rich Reich said...

I heard an acronym for prayer today that helps remind you of the elements of prayer. The acronym is ACTS: Adoration (praising God), Contrition (repentance of sins), Thanksgiving (thank God for our blessings), and Supplication (asking for our needs).