Prayer is not a matter of getting what we want the most. Prayer is a matter of giving ourselves to God and learning His laws, so that He can do through us what He wants the most.
- Agnes Sanford
(Pray the grace to be an instrument of God's love this day.)
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IS 7:1-9; PS 48:2-3A, 3B-4, 5-6, 7-8
MT 11:20-24
Jesus began to reproach the towns
where most of his mighty deeds had been done,
since they had not repented.
“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!
For if the mighty deeds done in your midst
had been done in Tyre and Sidon,
they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes.
But I tell you, it will be more tolerable
for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.
And as for you, Capernaum:
Will you be exalted to heaven?
You will go down to the nether world.
For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Sodom,
it would have remained until this day.
But I tell you, it will be more tolerable
for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”
Reflection on the Scriptures
In today’s Gospel, you can almost feel the very human frustration of Jesus because things are not going according to plan in some of the towns where he preaches. People in Bethsaida and other towns aren’t listening. Or if they are listening, they are not moved to repent despite the mighty deeds they have been able to witness. This glimpse of
Jesus and the frustration born of his humanness and his love for the people in spite of the lack of listening is repeated in our own lives. We can see the scenario played out in our spiritual lives and in our everyday existence. Parents asking their kids again and again to clean their rooms, to stop arguing with their siblings. Teachers who know if the students do the reading, the students would do better in assignments. Medical professionals who offer advice to help us be healthy, yet we don’t
follow it.
In our own lives, we know better, but still we repeat patterns of actions, whether by commission or omission, that hurt those around us. Jesus wants us to follow the commandments, especially to love one another as he has loved us. The message can fall on ears that are too preoccupied with our things, with our place in the world, in competing with those very people we are to love. Can the message from Jesus be any
more clear? Yet, we look for loopholes. We make excuses. I will be better tomorrow. She deserves it. I need to look out for myself. It’s easier for those people in Tyre and Sidon. I have plenty of time to make all of this right.
But why am I wasting time mired in my own misdeeds? Why do I not repent and realize that path is the one I need to take? We have seen and read Jesus’ mighty deeds. We know he became human to make that ultimate sacrifice for us. Let me gain strength from that love and compassion and use that strength to show love and compassion in my own life. Let me hear the entreaty from Jesus and take that first step on the path
to repentance.
- by Carol Zuegner
The Existence of God
by Francois Fenelon
SECTION XVIII. Of the Stars
It may be said that the motion of the stars is settled and regulated by unchangeable laws. I suppose it is; but this very supposition proves what I labour to evince. Who is it that has given to all nature laws at once so constant and so wholesome, laws so very simple, that one is tempted to believe they establish themselves of their own accord,
and so productive of beneficial and useful effects that one cannot avoid acknowledging a marvellous art in them? Whence proceeds the government of that universal machine which incessantly works for us without so much as our thinking upon it? To whom shall we ascribe the choice and gathering of so many deep and so well conceited springs, and of so many bodies, great and small, visible and invisible, which equally concur to serve us? The least atom of this machine that should
happen to be out of order would unhinge all nature. For the springs and movements of a watch are not put together with so much art and niceness as those of the universe. What then must be a design so extensive, so coherent, so excellent, so beneficial? The necessity of those laws, instead of deterring me from inquiring into their author, does but heighten my curiosity and admiration. Certainly, it required a hand equally artful and powerful to put in His work an order
equally simple and teeming, constant and useful. Wherefore I will not scruple to say with the Scripture, "Let every star haste to go whither the Lord sends it; and when He speaks let them answer with trembling, Here we are."
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