SPIRITUALITY 101
SPIRITUAL REFLECTION- 104
Deacon Jim Breazile o.c.d.s.

Princess Galitzin was a charming lady that graced the courts of Russia and Holland in the latter half of the eighteenth century. In the year 1800 her saintly son, Father Galitzin was the pioneer missionary who established the first Catholic settlement in Loretta, Pennsylvania. While in St. Petersburg, princess Galitzin was one day passing over a bridge when she saw an old man sitting there, begging alms. She gave the beggar some money and continued on her way. As soon as he received the money the crippled beggar started off as fast as his feeble limbs could carry him. He went to a blind man who sat a distance away and gave him half of what the princess had given him. Seeing this, the princess was much moved and returned to the lame man. She asked him, "Who is that poor old man with whom you have shared the alms? Is he your father or your brother?" "He is not related to me by blood," replied the lame man, "but he is my brother in Jesus Christ. He is indeed more to be pitied than I, because he cannot see. Is it not, therefore, justice that I should beg for him as well as for myself? " Moved by such a noble spirit, the princess increased many times the original gift. She later told her friends that she had never in all her life experienced so much pleasure as when she gave to the poor lame man. "Man does not live by bread alone...!"

DEVOTION - Growth in love- 3rd stage 
DEVOTIONALS- MEDITATION-SACRAMENTALS-THE ROSARY-31 
OUR FATHER-7

"Give us this day our daily bread," the fourth petition of Our Lord's Prayer, represents our recognition of our dependence upon our Father for all that is necessary for our sustenance. Most often this petition is interpreted to be a plea for the bread that is necessary for our physical sustenance. This is true, but it is not the primary purpose of the petition. Recall the reply of Jesus to the temptation in the desert by Satan to turn the rocks into bread to slake his hunger. Jesus, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3 said, "One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." Jesus also gives us a clue to the meaning of our daily bread when he said to his disciples to eat. He said to them, "I have food to eat of which you do not know. The disciples wondered who had brought him something to eat. Then Jesus said, "My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work" (John 4:31-34). Our most substantial "Bread," is none other than the Lord Himself, who offers His flesh and blood as the "Bread from heaven," for our nourishment. In a lesser sense, however, our bread includes our daily prayers, our spiritual formation and our engagement in spiritual and corporal works of mercy. All these sustain and nourish our soul for eternal life.

The second Vatican council provides some insight into this petition in its document Gaudium et Spes Article 19. It states, "The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists, it is because God has created him through live, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his creator."

Our need for such sustenance has a direct relationship to God's providence. God's providence is everything that He does in this world that promotes the building of His kingdom. Each of us are created and sustained in life by His providence. We are not just created and then left to ourselves to find our way in this world. By His grace, God sustains every breath, every heartbeat as we live from moment to moment. (Psalm 104:27-30) He sustains us with His will that represents the fullness of all love and He sustains us with His intellect, as He reflects on the knowledge He has of us. In this knowledge He contemplates even the smallest details of our nature and character. (Psalm 139) He knows today how many hairs are on our heads, and every thought that is our mind. There is nothing that occurs in His creation that escapes His recognition. He sustains us in his memory, as He has held us there throughout all time, since His first conception of the soul that He would create for us in time.

When God created our soul, he created it in the image of the person He meant for us to be in this world. His purpose in this was that we could in our special way best reflect His glory within His created universe. It is his purpose that the our body be conformed to our soul. After we are born, He leaves us free to decide whether or not to cooperate with the formational influence of our soul. If, however, we do not train our body to conformation to the soul, the soul will become conformed to the body. It is in this way that seeking sensual pleasures of the world over the pleasure of God, results in a distortion of God's plan for us. It is due to this change that we become unrecognizable by the Lord. Jesus makes this clear as He states "Many will say to me on that day, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name? Then I will declare to them solemnly, "I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers." ( Matt. 7:22-23)

How can we respond to Gods will except through His grace? In our petition, "give us this day our daily bread," we are asking God to provide us with whatever grace is necessary to overcome the triple concupiscence described by John. "For all that is in the world, sensual lust, enticement of the eyes and a pretentious life, is not from the Father but is from the world."? (1 John 2:16) In following the ways of the world we distort our soul, so that we are no longer recognized as children of the Father who created us. We become children of the world. Without his grace, this is the way of all men. With His grace we are perfected so that when God looks at us, He sees the person He meant for us to be and says, "This is my most beloved child. I am very pleased."

NEW CATHOLIC CATECHISM 
ARTICLE NO. 1076 

The Church was made manifest to the world on the day of Pentecost by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Spirit ushers in a new era in the "dispensation of the mystery"-the age of the church, during which Christ manifests, makes present and communicates his work of salvation through the liturgy of his church, "until he comes." In this age of the Church Christ now lives and acts in and with his church, in a new way appropriate to this new age. He acts through the sacraments in what the common Tradition of the East and the West calls "the sacramental economy"; this is the communication (or "dispensation") of the fruits of Christ's Paschal mystery in the celebration of the church's "sacramental" liturgy.

WE CELEBRATE
Deacon Jim Breazile o.c.d.s.

Born through Holy Spirit and sanctified
In Truth the Holy Church is deified
Through it the Son of God is reified
It was on Pentecost  vivified
And through spiritual merger unified
Through which Father is glorified

The Church celebrates until He return again
The sacramental presence of the Savior of men
Manifested in Holy Paschal mystery
Celebrated on altars of  sacramental liturgy

Ó2001 DR. JAMES E. BREAZILE, deacon 
JOHN PAUL EVANGELIST OCDS