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Consider that your life is a perpetual perishing, and lift up your mind to God above all whenever the clock strikes, saying, ‘God, I adore your eternal being; I
am happy that my being should perish every moment, so that at every moment it may render homage to your eternity.
- J. J. Olier (Everything is passing away. Each moment of life is a gift. Give
thanks.) |
Ex 14:5-18; Ex 15:1bc-2, 3-4, 5-6
Mt 12:38-42 Some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus,
"Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you."
He said to them in reply,
"An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign,
but no sign will be given it
except the sign of Jonah the prophet.
Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights,
so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth
three days and three nights.
At the judgment, the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation
and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of
Jonah;
and there is something greater than Jonah here.
At the judgment the queen of the south will arise with this generation
and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth
to hear the wisdom of Solomon;
and there is something greater than Solomon here."
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.) Matthew 12: 38-42 (The sign of Jonah) It is doubtful that Jesus could have worked any kind of sign to inspire loving faith in the hearts of those who persecuted him. People who sought truth and who were humble found in him all that they needed. • Father John Powell wrote that to the people who said to Jesus, ‘Show us and we will believe,” Jesus replied, ‘Believe,
and I will show you.” What kind of knowledge does faith make possible? • What kind of sign of God’s presence is needed most in today’s world? How can you manifest this sign today?
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) ____________ BOOK IV: OF THE DECAY AND RUIN OF CHARITY Chapter 1: That as long as we are in this mortal life we may lose the love of God.
We do not now speak of those great elect souls whom God by a most special favour so maintains and confirms in his love, that they run no hazard of losing it. We speak for the rest of mortals, to whom the Holy Ghost
addresses these warnings: He that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall. Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. Labour the more that by good works you may make sure your calling and election. Whence he makes them make this prayer: Cast me not
away from thy face; and take not thy holy spirit from me. And lead us not into temptation: that they may work out their salvation with a holy trembling, and a sacred fear, knowing that they are not more constant and strong to preserve God's love than were the first angel with his
followers and Judas, who receiving it lost it, and losing it lost themselves for ever; nor than Solomon, who, having once left it, holds the whole world in doubt of his damnation; nor than Adam and Eve, David, S. Peter, who being children of salvation, fell yet for a space from the love without which there is no salvation. Alas! Theotimus, who shall then have assurance of preserving sacred love in the navigation of this mortal life, since, as well on earth as in heaven, so many persons of
incomparable dignity have suffered such cruel shipwrecks?
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