Ruth – Ch. 3 I am not sure what to write for my reflection on this chapter. There were many statements that I underlines including “The saving Gospel of Christ is confused and clouded by the divisions among those who profess “one Lord, one faith, one baptism. (Eph. 4:5) p.61. Sadly we can see Scripture as a uniting and dividing agent in the Body of Christ today even within my siblings. …. Continuing to review some of the statements that I highlighted I suddenly thought of my sister Rita. Rita has a lot of faith struggles and is in a mixed marriage. When living in the same city that I live in she started to attend a bible study with my husband. Most members of the group were quite advance in their spiritual journey. This was intimidating to Rita and she ended up dropping the study and joining an interdenominational beginners study. Rita had a hunger and an openness that was not met so she looked elsewhere. To me this shows the need for spiritual direction even for the beginner and a need for parishes to be aware of and to meet the needs of people at all three stages of the spiritual journey. This showed me one of the values of understanding the stages of the spiritual journey…. On a personal level, the one thing that I personally need to continually be attentive to is to not just read books that quote scripture but to continually spend prayer time in scripture. … “we must be present to Him; we must listen to the Word. In opening the Bible, we are approaching God. We begin from a distance, but we must persevere. We must want closeness to Him. We must listen to His words in order to begin to hear His word.” (p.74). Lord help me (us) to spend more and more quality time with you in your Word and in Eucharistic Adoration. Help us to listen with faith, within the Church and help us to share your Word fruitfully with others.