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The people of God are not merely to mark time, waiting for God to step in and set right all that is wrong. Rather, they are to model the new heaven and new earth, and by so doing awaken longings for what God will someday bring to pass.
- Philip Yancy
(How do you experience spiritual longing these days? How might your expression of this be a help to another person?)
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2 COR 11:18, 21-30; PS 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7
Gospel MT 6:19-23
Jesus said to his disciples:
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal.
But store up treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.
"The lamp of the body is the eye.
If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light;
but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness.
And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be."
USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Scripture |
"I am talking like an insane person." —2 Corinthians 11:23
St. Paul founded the church at Corinth. After he left Corinth, various false apostles passed through town. These traveling preachers built up their own ministries (and their wallets) by pointing to their own "impressive" credentials rather than pointing to Jesus. By comparing Paul unfavorably to themselves, they undermined his position as father of the church in Corinth. More important in Paul's eyes, they were undermining the true gospel and leading people away from the Lord (2 Cor
11:3ff).
The Corinthians, in their foolishness, demanded that Paul once again "prove" his apostleship. In today's first reading, Paul sarcastically "stoops" to their level in defense of the gospel he preached. Notice that Paul uses the word "I" eighteen times. To Paul, this emphasis on self is "insane" (2 Cor 11:23). To be insane is to be completely out of touch with reality. The ultimate reality is that Jesus is Lord of
heaven and earth (1 Cor 12:3). Everything in heaven revolves around Him (see Rv 4:8ff). The angels revolve around Him (Jn 1:51). Likewise, the earth, since it belongs to God (Ps 24:1), was created to revolve around the Son.
My mother was fond of saying, "The earth doesn't revolve around me." To St. Paul, this is the beginning of sanity. When we take our "eyes" off of "I" and fix them on Jesus (see Heb 12:2), our eyes are sound (Mt 6:22) and we are sane.
Prayer: Father, I will gaze on Your loveliness forever (Ps 27:4).
Promise: "Look to Him that you may be radiant with joy, and your faces may not blush with shame." —Ps 34:6
Praise: St. Aloysius Gonzaga was called to a life devoted to Jesus at the age of seven. Even though he had a place in the court of Phillip II, he became a Jesuit, ministered to the sick, became sick himself and died at the age of twenty-three.
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 XI. Everything is Supernaturalised by the Divine Action
The divine action incites souls to aim at the most eminent sanctity; all that is required on the part of the soul is abandonment to this action.
O Love of God! how is it that all creatures do not know how freely you lavish Yourself and Your favours on them while they are seeking You in byways and corners where You are not to be found? How foolish to refuse to breathe the open air! to search for a spot on which to place the foot when there is the whole countryside before you; to be unable to find water when there is a whole deluge at your service, nor to
possess and enjoy God, nor to recognise His action when it is present in all things. You search for hidden ways of belonging to God, good people, but the only way is that of making use of whatever He sends you. All leads to union, to perfection, except what is sinful or not a duty. All that is necessary is to accept everything, placing no obstacle in the way of its action but letting it accomplish its work. All things are intended to guide, raise, and support you, and are in the hand of God
whose action is vaster and more present than the elements of earth, air, and water. Even by means of the senses God will enter, provided they are used only as He ordains, because everything contrary to His will must be resisted. There is not a single atom that goes to form part of your being, even to the marrow of the bones, that is not formed by the divine power. From it all things proceed, by it all things are made. Your very life-blood flows through your veins by the movement this power
imparts to it, and all the fluctuations that exist between strength and weakness, languor and liveliness, life and death, are divine instruments put in motion to effect your sanctification. Under its influence all bodily states become operations of grace. From this invisible hand come all your opinions, all your ideas on whatever subject they may be formed. What this action will effect in you, you will learn by successive experiences, for there is no created heart or mind that can teach it to
you. Your life flows on uninterruptedly in this unsounded abyss in which each present moment contains all that is best for you, and as such must be loved and esteemed. It is necessary to have a perfect confidence in this action which of itself can do nothing but what is good.
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