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"An old saint, being asked whether it is easy or hard to love God, replied: 'It is easy to those who do it.'"
- C. S. Lewis [20th C.], Mere
Christianity
(What's stopping you?)
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Daily Readings
Jas 1:12-18; Ps
94:12-13a, 14-15, 18-19 Mk 8:14-21 The disciples had forgotten to bring bread,
and they had only one loaf with them in the boat.
Jesus
enjoined them, "Watch out,
guard against the leaven of the Pharisees
and the leaven of Herod."
They concluded among themselves that
it was because they had no
bread.
When he became aware of this he said to them,
"Why do you conclude that it is because you have no bread?
Do you not yet understand or comprehend?
Are your hearts
hardened?
Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear?
And do you not remember,
when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand,
how many wicker baskets full of fragments
you picked up?"
They answered him, "Twelve."
"When I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand,
how many full baskets of fragments did you pick up?"
They answered him,
"Seven."
He said to them, "Do you still not understand?"
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.) Mark 8: 14-21 - Jesus warns his disciples to be on guard) Although Jesus’ disciples loved him dearly, there were times when they found it hard to comprehend the symbolic language of their master. When Jesus tries to warn them about the influence of the Pharisees and Herod, they misinterpret his words. They really do not understand him. • List a few destructive yeasts in our society that erode faith.
With which of these do you struggle most intensely? • Thank God for things which you have taken for granted recently.
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) ____________ BOOK IV: OF THE DECAY AND RUIN OF CHARITY Chapter 7: That we must . . . humbly acquiesce in God's most wise providence. We see sometimes twins, of whom one is born alive and receives Baptism, the other in his birth loses his temporal life, before being regenerated to the eternal, and consequently the one is heir of heaven, the other is deprived of the inheritance. Now why does divine providence give such different fates to one equal birth? Truly it might be answered that ordinarily God's providence does not violate the laws of nature, so that one of
these twins being strong, and the other too feeble to support the labour of his delivery, the latter died before he could be baptized, the other lived; divine providence not willing to stop the course of natural causes, which on this occasion were the reason why the one was deprived of Baptism. And truly this is a perfectly solid answer. But, following the advice of the divine S. Paul, and of S. Augustine, we ought not to busy our thoughts in this consideration, which, though it be good, yet in
no respect enters into comparison with many others which God has reserved to himself, and will show us in heaven. "Then," says S. Augustine, "the secret shall end why rather the one than the other was received, the causes being equal as to both, and why miracles were not done amongst those who in case they had been done would have been brought to repentance, and were done amongst such as would will not to believe them." And in another place the same saint, speaking of sinners, some of whom God
leaves in their iniquity while others he raises, says: "Now why he retains the one and not the other, it is not possible to comprehend, nor lawful to inquire, since it is enough to know that it is by him we stand and that it is not by him we fall." And again: "This is hidden and far removed from man's understanding, at least from mine."
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