"Trouble creates a capacity to handle it....meet it as a friend, for you'll
see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
(Attitude can make all the difference. If you're going to have to live through "troubles" anyway, why not do so as graciously as possible?)
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IS 11:1-10; PS 72:1-2, 7-8, 12-13,
17
LK 10:21-24
Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said,
"I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
for although you have
hidden these things
from the wise and the learned
you have revealed them to the childlike.
Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.
All things have been handed over to me by my Father.
No one knows who the Son is except the Father,
and who the Father is except the Son
and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him."
Turning to the disciples in private he said,
"Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.
For I say to you,
many prophets and kings desired to see what you see,
but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it."
UCCB Lectionary
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Reflection on the Scriptures |
"Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb..." —Isaiah 11:6
Half of the animals mentioned in today's first eucharistic reading are predators: the wolf, leopard, lion, bear, cobra, and adder. The other half mentioned are prey: lamb, kid, calf, cow, and baby. The nature and instinct of a predator is to eat the prey. A predator would need an entirely new
nature in order to resist eating prey so near at hand. On God's holy mountain, in His kingdom, a new order is in place. "There shall be no harm or ruin on all My holy mountain" (Is 11:9).
God gave this new nature to us on the day of our Baptism. If we ask Him, God will give us eyes to behold this new nature. We won't see criminals; instead, in Jesus we will see a potential "good thief" (Lk 23:39-43). The "learned and the clever" see predators and assume they will eat the
prey (Mt 11:25). The childlike see as God sees (Nm 24:4; Mt 11:25) and with their spiritual eyes can see fierce predators acting with contented new natures in Christ, eating "hay like the ox" (Is 11:7) rather than eating the prey. The childlike are able to see fierce opponents of the Lord potentially desiring unity and life and so can treat them with innocent love rather than with fear and avoidance. The "wise" look at the exterior; the childlike look into the heart as does Jesus (see 1 Sm
16:7).
Meanwhile, we live in a predatory world ruled, it seems, by the nature of the flesh. Though we live in the world, we are called to not be of the world (Jn 15:19). We do not evaluate situations with the eyes of the world but spiritually (1 Cor 2:12ff). Blest are the eyes that see what we see (Lk 10:23), that is, what the Almighty sees (Nm 24:4).
Prayer: Father, give me the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16).
Promise: "The earth shall
be filled with knowledge of the Lord, as water covers the sea." —Is 11:9
- presentationministries.com DailyScripture.net
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The Ascent of Mount Carmel, by St. John of the Cross E. Allison Peers Translation. Paperback, Kindle, Audio Book.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1935785982/?tag=christianspiritu
BOOK THE FIRST Wherein is described the nature of dark night and how necessary it is to pass through it to Divine union; and in particular this book describes the dark night of sense, and desire, and the evils which these work in the soul.
CHAPTER XII Which treats of the answer to another question, explaining what the desires are that suffice to cause the evils aforementioned in the soul.
3. Answering this question, I say, first of all, that with respect to the privative evil — which consists in the
soul’s being deprived of God — this is wrought wholly, and can only be wrought, by the voluntary desires, which are of the matter of mortal sin; for they deprive the soul of grace in this life, and of glory, which is the possession of God, in the next. In the second place, I say that both those desires which are of the matter of mortal sin, and the voluntary desires, which are of the matter of venial sin, and those that are of the matter of imperfection, are each sufficient to produce in the
soul all these positive evils together; the which evils, although in a certain way they are privative, we here call positive, since they correspond to a turning towards the creature, even as the privative evils correspond to a turning away from God. But there is this difference, that the desires which are of mortal sin produce total blindness, torment, impurity, weakness, etc. Those others, however, which are of the matter of venial sin or imperfection, produce not these evils in a complete and
supreme degree, since they deprive not the soul of grace, upon the loss of which depends the possession of them, since the death of the soul is their life; but they produce them in the soul remissly, proportionately to the remission of grace which these desires produce in the soul. So that desire which most weakens grace will produce the most abundant torment, blindness and defilement.
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