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It is not that prayer changes God, or awakens in God the purposes of love and compassion that he has not already felt. No, it changes us, and therein lies its glory and purpose.
- Hannah Hurnard
(Be open to being changed by God thru prayer. God's will is our happiness, and prayer draws us into alignment with God's will.)
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JER 20:10-13; PS 18:2-3A, 3BC-4, 5-6, 7
JN 10:31-42
The Jews picked up rocks to stone Jesus.
Jesus answered them, "I have shown you many good works from my Father.
For which of these are you trying to stone me?"
The Jews answered him,
"We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy.
You, a man, are making yourself God."
Jesus answered them,
"Is it not written in your law, 'I said, 'You are gods"'?
If it calls them gods to whom the word of God came,
and Scripture cannot be set aside,
can you say that the one
whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world
blasphemes because I said, 'I am the Son of God'?
If I do not perform my Father's works, do not believe me;
but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me,
believe the works, so that you may realize and understand
that the Father is in me and I am in the Father."
Then they tried again to arrest him;
but he escaped from their power.
He went back across the Jordan
to the place where John first baptized, and there he remained.
Many came to him and said,
"John performed no sign,
but everything John said about this man was true."
And many there began to believe in him.
USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Scripture |
"All those who were my friends are on the watch for any misstep of mine." —Jeremiah 20:10
It's bad enough to be rejected, but it is even worse to be rejected by those who had accepted us. "If an enemy had reviled me, I could have borne it; if he who hates me had vaunted himself against me, I might have hidden from him. But you, my other self, my companion and bosom friend! You, whose comradeship I enjoyed; at whose side I walked in procession in the house of God!" (Ps 55:13-15) It is the very worst
to be rejected by Christian spouses or by our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Jesus was and is rejected by those He created and for whom He died, when we sin seriously. "And when we deny Him by our deeds, we in some way seem to lay violent hands on Him" (Catechism, 598). Jesus, Who never rejected anyone (Jn 6:37), is the most rejected of all people (see Jn 10:31). He will give us the grace to stop rejecting Him and to forgive all those who have rejected us and continue to do
so.
On the first day of Easter, we will be challenged to reject Satan and all his works. This includes rejecting unforgiveness and vengeance towards all who have sinned against us. Forgive! Reject Satan, not Jesus!
Prayer: Father, by Your grace I love my enemies and will never reject You.
Promise: "Put faith in these works, so as to realize what it means that the Father is in Me and I in Him." —Jn 10:38
Presentation Ministries
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Abandonment to Divine Providence
- by Jean-Pierre de Caussade
CHAPTER II. THE DIVINE ACTION WORKS UNCEASINGLY FOR THE SANCTIFICATION OF SOULS.
SECTION IX. The Will of God in the Present Moment is the Source of Sanctity.
O, all you who thirst, learn that you have not far to go to find the fountain of living waters; it flows quite close to you in the present moment; therefore hasten to find it. Why, with the fountain so near, do you tire yourselves with running about after every little rill? These only increase your thirst by giving only a few drops, whereas the source is inexhaustible. If you desire to think, to write, and to
speak like the Prophets, the Apostles, and the Saints, you must give yourself up, as they did, to the inspirations of God. O unknown Love! it seems as if Your wonders were finished and nothing remained but to copy Your ancient works, and to quote Your past discourses! And no one sees that Your inexhaustible activity is a source of new thoughts, of fresh sufferings and further actions: of new Patriarchs, Apostles, Prophets, and Saints who have no need to copy the lives and writings of the others,
but only to live in perpetual abandonment to Your secret operations. We hear of nothing on all sides but “the first centuries,” “the time of the Saints.” What a strange way of talking! Is not all time a succession of the effects of the divine operation, working at every instant, filling, sanctifying, and supernaturalising them all? Has there ever been an ancient method of abandonment to this operation which is now out of season? Had the Saints of the first ages any other secret than that of
becoming from moment to moment whatever the divine power willed to make them? And will this power cease to pour forth its glory on the souls which abandon themselves to it without reserve.
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