|
|
Your whole nature must be re-born, your passions, and your affections, and your aims, and your conscience, and your will must all be bathed in a new element and set reconsecrated to your Maker, and, the last not the least, your
intellect.
-St. John Henry Newman (Be bathed in the "new elelement" of the Spirit this day.)
|
Daily Readings
Dn 3:25, 34-43; PS
25:4-5ab, 6 and 7bc, 8-9 Mt 18:21-35 Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
“Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive
him?
As many as seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.
That is why the Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who decided to
settle accounts with his servants.
When he began the accounting,
a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount.
Since he had no way of paying it back,
his master
ordered him to be sold,
along with his wife, his children, and all his property,
in payment of the debt.
At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said,
‘Be patient with
me, and I will pay you back in full.’
Moved with compassion the master of that servant
let him go and forgave him the loan.
When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants
who owed him a much smaller amount.
He seized him and started to choke him, demanding,
‘Pay back what you owe.’
Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him,
‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’
But he refused.
Instead, he had him put in prison
until he paid back the debt.
Now when his fellow
servants saw what had happened,
they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master
and reported the whole affair.
His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant!
I
forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to.
Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant,
as I had pity on you?’
Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers
until he should pay back the whole debt.
So will my heavenly Father do to you,
unless each of you forgives your brother from your
heart.”
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.) Matthew 18: 21-35: The depths of forgiveness Today’s reading
continues the development of a theme that runs throughout the entire season of Lent—that of forgiveness and reconciliation. Jesus’ admonition to forgive seventy-seven or seventy-times-seven times is not to be taken literally, of course: he is simply using exaggeration to make an important point. • Is there anyone in your life you need to forgive? Ask for the grace to think of
a creative way to let that person know that you forgive him or her. • Is there anyone in your life whom you feel owes you forgiveness? Is reconciliation with this person possible?
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) ____________ BOOK IV: OF THE DECAY AND RUIN OF CHARITY Chapter 8: An exhortation to the amorous submission which we owe to the decrees of divine providence.
"We resemble," says yet again the great Nazianzen, "those, who are troubled with giddiness or turning of the head. They think that all about them is turning upside down, though it be but their brain and imagination which turn, and not the things; so we, when we meet with any events of which the causes are unknown to us, fancy that the world is governed without reason, because we are ignorant of it. Let us believe then that as God is
the maker and father of all things, so he takes care of all things by his providence, which embraces and sustains all the machine of creatures. But especially let us believe that he rules our affairs, (ours who know him) though our life be tossed about in so great contrariety of accidents. Of these we know not the reasons, to the end, perhaps, that not being able to attain this knowledge we may admire the sovereign reason of God which surpasses all things: for with us things easily known are
easily despised; but that which surpasses the highest powers of our spirit, by how much it is harder to be known, by so much it excites a greater admiration in us. Truly the reasons of divine providence were low placed if our small capacities could reach unto them; they would be less lovable in their sweetness and less admirable in their majesty if they were set at a less distance from our capacity!"
|
|
|
