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I see the wrong that round me lies,
I feel the guilt within;
I hear, with groan and travail-cries,
The world confess its sin.
Yet, in the maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed trust my spirit clings
I know that God is good!
... John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)
(All the time . . .
)
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EZ 1:2-5, 24-28C; PS 148:1-2, 11-12, 13, 14
MT 17:22-27
As Jesus and his disciples were gathering in Galilee,
Jesus said to them,
"The Son of Man is to be handed over to men,
and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day."
And they were overwhelmed with grief.
When they came to Capernaum,
the collectors of the temple tax approached Peter and said,
"Does not your
teacher pay the temple tax?"
"Yes," he said.
When he came into the house, before he had time to speak,
Jesus asked him, "What is your opinion, Simon?
From whom do the kings of the earth take tolls or census tax?
From their subjects or from foreigners?"
When he said, "From foreigners," Jesus said to him,
"Then the subjects are exempt.
But that we may not offend them, go to the sea, drop in a hook,
and take the first fish that comes up.
Open its mouth and
you will find a coin worth twice the temple tax.
Give that to them for me and for you." USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Scripture |
"Then Jesus on entering the house asked, without giving him
time to speak: 'What is your opinion, Simon?' " —Matthew 17:25
It was no surprise, except to Peter, that Peter denied Christ three times shortly before Jesus was crucified. Peter had indicated the shallowness of his relationship with the Lord when he:
failed to recognize the implications of his
profession of faith in Jesus, the Messiah and "the Son of the living God" (cf Mt 16:16 and Mt 17:4, 24ff),
- denied that Jesus would have to suffer (Mt 16:22),
- did not judge "by God's standards but by man's" (Mt 16:23), and
- lacked the faith to free a boy from demonic possession (Mt 17:16ff).
When the mass apostasy occurs at the end of the world (2 Thes 2:3), if we suffer severe temptations before our deaths, or if we face being martyred, will we accept God's grace and rise to the occasion, or will we sin,
compromise, and be manipulated into denying Christ? Right now, we are showing signs of faithfulness or unfaithfulness. It probably shouldn't be a surprise what we will do when the pressure's on. What does the depth of your faith in the present say about the strength of your commitment to Jesus in the future?
Prayer: Father, send the Holy Spirit to confirm and deepen my love for
You.
Promise: "Like the bow which appears in the clouds on a rainy day was the splendor that surrounded Him. Such was the vision of the likeness of the glory of the Lord." —Ez 1:28 Presentation Ministries
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Abandonment to Divine Providence - by Jean-Pierre de Caussade Section
VI: On the use of mental faculties
The exercise of mental and other faculties is only useful when instrumental of the divine action. ___________
The divine action although of
infinite power can only take full possession of the soul in so far as it is void of all confidence in its own action; for this confidence, being founded on a false idea of its own capacity, excludes the divine action. This is the obstacle most likely to arrest it, being in the soul itself; for, as regards obstacles that are exterior, God can change them if He so pleases into means for making progress. All is alike to Him, equally useful, or equally useless. Without the divine action all things
are as nothing, and with it the veriest nothing can be turned to account.
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