Each of us has two natures: one, a hard outer
husk, which is an old nature; the other an inner softness, which constitutes our true self. The outer husk is that part of us that, while we are flesh-center beings, is used to protect ourselves from the harshness of our world. Before we come to Christ, that “husk” protects the inner softness, which otherwise cannot endure the struggles of life in this hostile, devil-filled world. But when we come to Christ, the husk must be broken and die. We cannot rely on the way of the flesh to protect us;
we must become Christ-centered.
- Francis Frangipane
(Are you willing to let go of that “hard outer husk” and be
transformed in Christ?) |
GN 17:3-9; PS 105:4-5, 6-7, 8-9
JN 8:51-59
Jesus said to the Jews:
"Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever keeps my word will never see death."
So the Jews said to him,
"Now we are sure that you are possessed.
Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say,
'Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.'
Are you greater than our father Abraham, who
died?
Or the prophets, who died?
Who do you make yourself out to be?"
Jesus answered, "If I glorify myself, my glory is worth nothing;
but it is my Father who glorifies me,
of whom you say, 'He is our God.'
You do not know him, but I know him.
And if I should say that I do not know him,
I would be like you a liar.
But I do know him and I keep his word.
Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day;
he saw it and was glad."
So the Jews said
to him,
"You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?"
Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you,
before Abraham came to be, I AM."
So they picked up stones to throw at him;
but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area.
Reflection on the
Scriptures |
Jesus reveals new aspects of the covenant. His
presence is a gift from God that enriches the loving relationship created with Abraham. Jesus takes on our burden of sin and atones for us in His ultimate sacrifice. His statements to the Jews in the excerpt from John today link Him back to Abraham, and while disturbing to the Jews of His day, are clear to us in hindsight with the benefit of revelation and tradition. God promised Abraham that He would always uphold Her end of the covenant, but what Abraham thought that meant,
and what Jesus reveals it in fact means, are different. Jesus tells the Jews there will be eternal life, not just a restoration of the kingdom of Israel. Jesus clarifies the true meaning of the ten commandments as the simple truth (so very difficult to live out) of loving God by loving our neighbor as God in turn loves us.
- by Tom Purcell
Revelations of Divine
Love - by Julian of Norwich
Fourteenth Revelation, Chapter 49 “Where our Lord appeareth, peace is taken, and wrath hath no place. Immediately
is the soul made at one with God when it is truly set at peace in itself”
For that same endless Goodness that keepeth us when we sin, that we perish not, the same endless Goodness continually treateth in us a peace against our wrath and our contrarious falling, and maketh us to see our need with a true dread, and mightily to seek unto God to have forgiveness, with a gracious desire of our salvation. And
though we, by the wrath and the contrariness that is in us, be now in tribulation, distress, and woe, as falleth to our blindness and frailty, yet are we securely safe by the merciful keeping of God, that we perish not. But we are not blissfully safe, in having of our endless joy, till we be all in peace and in love: that is to say, full pleased with God and with all His works, and with all His judgments, and loving and peaceable with our self and with our even-Christians and with all that God
loveth, as love beseemeth. And this doeth God’s Goodness in us.
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