|
|
Lord, when I feel that what I'm doing is insignificant and unimportant, help me to remember that everything I do is significant and important in your eyes, because you love me and you put me here, and no one else can do what I am doing in exactly the way I do it.
- Brennan Manning
|
Rom 8:26-30; Psalm 13:4-5, 6
Lk 13:22-30
Jesus passed through towns and villages,
teaching as he went and making his way to Jerusalem.
Someone asked him,
“Lord, will only a few people be saved?”
He answered them,
“Strive to enter through the narrow gate,
for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter
but will not be strong enough.
After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door,
then will you stand outside knocking and saying,
‘Lord, open the door for us.’
He will say to you in reply,
‘I do not know where you are from.’
And you will say,
‘We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.’
Then he will say to you,
‘I do not know where you are from.
Depart from me, all you evildoers!’
And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth
when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God
and you yourselves cast out.
And people will come from the east and the west
and from the north and the south
and will recline at table in the Kingdom of God.
For behold, some are last who will be first,
and some are first who will be last.”
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.)
Luke 13: 22-30 (The narrow gate)
If we have not already heard this message enough, we need to listen again: Salvation does not come because we know about Jesus. In today’s reading we hear Jesus promising to reject people who claim familiarity with him but who do nothing to help their needy neighbors. The narrow road he invites us to walk is the difficult path of love.
• Do you believe that some people will go to hell, that they will be separated from God for all eternity? Why? Why not? • List some of the key events of your past two days. How would you describe the spiritual road that threads through these events?
• Pray for the grace to embrace difficult times in a spirit of perseverance.
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
____________
BOOK II: THE HISTORY OF THE GENERATION AND HEAVENLY BIRTH OF DIVINE LOVE
Chapter 14: Of the sentiment of divine love which is had by faith.
You have heard, Theotimus, that in general councils there are great disputations and inquiries made about truth by discourse, reasons and theological arguments, but the matters being discussed, the Fathers, that is, the bishops, and especially the Pope who is the chief of the bishops, conclude, resolve and determine; and the determination being once pronounced, every one fully accepts it and acquiesces in it,
not in consideration of the reasons alleged in the preceding discussion and inquisition, but in virtue of the authority of the Holy Ghost, who, presiding invisibly in councils, has judged, determined and concluded, by the mouth of his servants whom he has established pastors of Christianity. The inquisition then and the disputation are made in the priests' court by the doctors, but the resolution and acquiescence are formed in the sanctuary, where the Holy Ghost who animates the body of his
Church, speaks by the mouth of its chiefs, as Our Lord has promised. In like manner the ostrich lays her eggs upon the sands of Libya, but the sun alone hatches her young ones; and doctors by their inquiry and discourse propose truth, but only the beams of the sun of justice give certainty and acquiescence. To conclude then, Theotimus, this assurance which man's reason finds in things revealed and in the mysteries of faith, begins by an amorous sentiment of complacency which the will receives
from the beauty and sweetness of the proposed truth; so that faith includes a beginning of love, which the heart feels towards divine things.
|
|
|
