|
|
We implore the mercy of God, not that He may leave us at peace in our vices, but that He may deliver us from them.
… Blaise Pascal (From which vices do you seek
deliverance?)
|
Daily Readings
2 THES 2:1-3A, 14-17; PS 96:10, 11-12,
13 MT 23:23-26 Jesus said:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin,
and have neglected the weightier things of the law:
judgment and mercy and
fidelity.
But these you should have done, without neglecting the others.
Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel!“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You cleanse the outside of cup and dish,
but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence.
Blind Pharisee,
cleanse first the inside of the cup,
so that the outside also may be clean.”
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.) Matthew 23:23-26 (Keeping priorities straight) Every Jew
acknowledged the importance of paying tithes on crops. That the scribes and Pharisees have extended this responsibility to small plots of kitchen seasonings indicates to Jesus just how off-center they have become in their legalistic zeal. He goes on to say that commitments and responsibilities which detract from justice, mercy, and good faith will leave us empty inside. • In what does true religion consist? Do any of your present
commitments and responsibilities detract from your practice of true religion? • With what has the cup of your soul been filled recently? Pray for the grace to be filled with love.
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) ____________ Chapter 3: That holy complacency gives our heart to God, and makes us feel a perpetual desire in fruition.
If it be
true that the chameleon lives on air, wheresoever he goes in the air he finds food, and though he move from one place to another, it is not to find wherewith to be filled, but to exercise himself within that element which is also his food, as fishes do in the sea. He who desires God while possessing him, does not desire him in order to seek him, but in order to exercise this affection within the very good which he enjoys; for the heart does not make this movement of desire as aiming at the
enjoyment of a thing not had, since it is already had, but as dilating itself in the enjoyment which it has; not to obtain the good, but to recreate and please itself therein; not to gain the enjoyment of it but to take enjoyment in it. So we walk and move to go to some delicious garden, where, being arrived, we cease not to walk and exercise ourselves, not now to get there, but being there to walk and pass our time therein: we walk in order to go and enjoy the pleasantness of the garden, being
there we walk to take our pleasure in the enjoyment of it. Seek ye the Lord and be strengthened, seek his face evermore. [234] We always seek him whom we always love, says the great S. Augustine: love seeks that which it has found, not to have it but to have it always..
|
|
|
