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Sleep recreates. The Bible indicates that sleep is not meant only for the recuperation of the body, but that there is a tremendous furtherance of spiritual and moral life during sleep.
- Oswald Chambers
(How does sleep -- or lack thereof -- affect your prayer? Attentiveness to God? Resolve to make room in your life for adequate sleep.)
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EX 11:10—12:14; PS 116:12-13, 15 AND 16BC, 17-18
MT 12:1-8
Jesus was going through a field of grain on the sabbath.
His disciples were hungry
and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them.
When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him,
"See, your disciples are doing what is unlawful to do on the sabbath."
He said to them, "Have you not read what David did
when he and his companions were hungry,
how he went into the house of God and ate the bread of offering,
which neither he nor his companions
but only the priests could lawfully eat?
Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath
the priests serving in the temple violate the sabbath
and are innocent?
I say to you, something greater than the temple is here.
If you knew what this meant, I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
you would not have condemned these innocent men.
For the Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath."
USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Scripture |
"Although Moses and Aaron performed these various wonders in Pharaoh's presence, the Lord made Pharaoh obstinate, and he would not let the Israelites leave his land." —Exodus 11:10
After hundreds of years of slavery and nine plagues, the Israelites were immediately freed from slavery by the last plague culminating in the Passover. The Passover was the grandest finale of God's most awesome works to that point in time.
The Mass is the new Passover (see Lk 22:15). At the end of Jesus' astounding public ministry, just before He was arrested and crucified, Jesus had the Last Supper, the first Mass. Jesus had the second Mass at the end of the day of His Resurrection (Lk 24:29ff). The Mass, as the new Passover, is the grandest finale of God's greatest works.
Some of us have traveled long journeys. We're so close to being healed or freed. To cross the finish line, to finally break through, we need the Mass. Ten plagues cannot get us out of slavery, but ten plagues plus the Passover changes the world. Several miracles and graces may not necessarily get us "over the top," but miracles plus the Mass effect more than we could ever ask for or imagine (see Eph
3:20).
Don't fall short of God's greatest plans for you. Go to Mass. Live the Mass. Center your life on the Mass.
Prayer: Father, send the Holy Spirit to teach me about the place and power of the Mass.
Promise: "This day shall be a memorial feast for you, which all your generations shall celebrate with pilgrimage to the Lord, as a perpetual institution." —Ex 12:14
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 XII. The Divine Word, Our Model
The divine action alone can sanctify us, for that alone can make us imitate the divine Example of our perfection.
It is evident that to know all the divine mysteries of God is by no means the way in which by His will we are made to resemble His image, that image which the Word has formed of us; that our resemblance to the divine type can only be formed in us by the impression of the seal of the divine action, and that this impression is not produced in the mind by ideas, but in the will by abandonment. The wisdom of the
just soul consists in being content with what is intended for it! in confining itself within the boundary of its path, and not trespassing beyond its limit. It is not inquisitive about Gods ways of acting, but is content as regards itself with the arrangements of His will, making no effort to discover its meaning by comparisons or conjectures, but only desiring to understand what each moment reveals. It listens to the voice of the Word when it sounds in the depths of the heart, it does not
inquire as to what the divine Spouse has said to others, but is satisfied with what it receives for itself, so that moment by moment it becomes, in this way, divinised without its knowledge. It is thus that the divine Word converses with His spouse, by the solid effects of His action which the spouse without scrutinising curiously, accepts with loving gratitude. Thus the spirituality of such a soul is perfectly simple, absolutely solid, and thoroughly diffused throughout its entire being. Its
actions are not determined by ideas nor by a confusion of words which by themselves would only serve to excite pride. Pious people make a great use of the mind, whereas mental exertion is of very little use, and is even antagonistic to true piety. We must make use only of that which God sends us to do or to suffer, and not forsake this divine reality to occupy our minds with the historical wonders of the divine work instead of gaining an increase of grace by our
fidelity.
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