The sun that rises and illumines the world makes itself visible as well as the objects it illumines. It is the same with the Sun of righteousness. When he rises in a mind that has been purified, he makes himself seen in addition to the form of the objects he has created.
- Maximus the Confessor, Centuries on Charity, I, 95) (Shine, O Lord, in my life this day.
) |
Feast of the Immaculate Conception Gn 3:9-15, 20; Psalm
98:1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4; Eph 1:3-6, 11-12 Lk 1:26-38 The angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph,
of the house of
David,
and the virgin’s name was Mary.
And coming to her, he said,
“Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”
But she was greatly troubled at what was said
and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Then the angel said to her,
“Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God.
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his Kingdom there will be no end.”
But Mary said to the angel,
“How can this be,
since I have no relations with a man?”
And the angel said to her in reply,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore the child to be born
will be called holy, the Son of God.
And behold, Elizabeth, your relative,
has also conceived a son in her old age,
and
this is the sixth month for her who was called barren;
for nothing will be impossible for God.”
Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word.”
Then the angel departed from her. Reflection on the Scriptures
When the Archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary he refers to her as “full of grace.”
Although Origen said that he had not found this word anywhere else in Scripture, it is used once more in Ephesians 1:6, today’s second reading. Mary is highly favored by God and will be the bearer of the Son of God. St. Paul says that we, too, are highly favored by God. God granted his grace to the virgin, and he grants it to us. God is love. Flowing from his love is his grace and mercy. Mary received his grace from the moment of her conception. We receive that grace as adopted children of God. Today we celebrate the Blessed Virgin. Let us also celebrate that grace that was poured out upon us when our Father brought us into his kingdom. It is a kingdom of grace. Be blessed today, brothers and sisters. Mary and her children are full of grace. by George Butterfield
The Existence of God by Francois Fenelon SECTION
XXVIII It is impossible that beasts have spiritual souls.
If you affirm that beasts have souls different from their machines, I immediately ask you, "Of what nature are those souls entirely different from and united to bodies? Who is it that knew
how to unite them to natures so vastly different? Who is it that has such absolute command over so opposite natures, as to put and keep them in such a regular and constant a society, and wherein mutual agreement and correspondence are so necessary and so quick?
If, on the contrary, you suppose that the same matter may sometimes think, and sometimes not think, according to the various wrangling and configurations it may receive, I will not tell you in this place that matter cannot think; and that one cannot conceive that the parts of a stone, without adding anything to it, may ever know
themselves, whatever degree of motion, whatever figure, you may give them. I will only ask you now wherein that precise ranging and configuration of parts, which you speak of, consists? According to your opinion there must be a degree of motion wherein matter does not yet reason, and then another much like it wherein, on a sudden, it begins to reason and know itself.
Now, who is it that knew how to pitch upon that precise degree of motion? Who is it that has discovered the line in which the parts ought to move? Who is it that has measured the dimensions so nicely as to find out and state the bigness and figure every part must have to keep all manner of proportions between themselves in the whole? Who is it that has
regulated the outward form by which all those bodies are to be stinted? In a word, who is it that has found all the combinations wherein matter thinks, and without the least of which matter must immediately cease to think? If you say it is chance, I answer that you make chance rational to such a degree as to be the source of reason itself. Strange prejudice and
intoxication of some men, not to acknowledge a most intelligent cause, from which we derive all intelligence; and rather choose to affirm that the purest reason is but the effect of the blindest of all causes in such a subject as matter, which of itself is altogether incapable of knowledge! Certainly there is nothing a man of sense would not admit rather than so extravagant and absurd an opinion. |
|
