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There's a time to get ready by focusing on your own sinfulness and wrongdoing, a time for personal transformation and following Christ to the cross. That's Lent.
There's a time to get ready by rejoicing that our God is not far away and unfamiliar with the struggles of human life, that Christ is here right now among His followers, that God has already begun to bring in the Kingdom, and that Christ will come again to make it clear who really runs the place. That's Advent. "Lo, I am with you, even unto the end of the age", says Jesus.
- Robert Longman Jr.
(God has already begun . . . and will complete . . . How do you experience these movements in your life?)
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IS 48:17-19; PS 1:1-2, 3, 4 AND 6
MT 11:16-19
Jesus said to the crowds:
“To what shall I compare this generation?
It is like children who sit in marketplaces and call to one another,
‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance,
we sang a dirge but you did not mourn.’
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said,
‘He is possessed by a demon.’
The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said,
‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard,
a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’
But wisdom is vindicated by her works.”
USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Scripture
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“If you would hearken to My commandments...your vindication [would be] like the waves of the sea.” —Isaiah 48:18
Jesus is coming soon, and He plans to set things right for “the just” (Ps 1:6), for those who put their trust in Him. We Christians take up our daily cross (Lk 9:23) and give up many things the world embraces. This makes us look foolish in the eyes of the world. We who are just need to be vindicated, proven right to those who denounce us.
When Jesus comes, heaven will announce to us: “Here is your God, He comes with vindication” (Is 35:4; see also Is 63:1). Jesus comes to bring “a day of vindication by our God” (Is 61:2). God can’t rest until He has vindicated us, His servants (Is 62:1). God’s vindication is more far-reaching than our greatest hopes (Is 62:2); it will be as bright as the noonday sun (Ps 37:6).
While we wait for His coming and His vindication, we must endure the complaints and insults of those who are never satisfied with us (see Mt 11:16ff). We will endure this cross by fixing our eyes on Jesus (Heb 12:2). With eyes of faith, we confess with Job: “I know that my Vindicator lives” (Jb 19:25, NAB). Come, Lord Jesus! (Rv 22:20)
Prayer: Father, may my life bring You much honor and glory in the sight of all (Mt 5:16).
Promise: “Time will prove where wisdom lies.” —Mt 11:19
Presentation Ministries
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Abandonment to Divine Providence
- by Jean-Pierre de Caussade
BOOK II,
CHAPTER IV. CONCERNING THE ASSISTANCE RENDERED BY THE FATHERLY PROVIDENCE OF GOD TO THOSE SOULS WHO HAVE ABANDONED THEMSELVES TO HIM
SECTION III. The Generosity of God
The more God seems to despoil the soul that is in the state of abandonment, the more generous are His gifts.
Let us continue to advance in the knowledge of the divine action and of its loving deceptions. That which it withdraws from the perception, it bestows incognito, as it were, on the goodwill. It never allows it to want for anything. It is as if someone who had maintained a friend by bounties bestowed personally upon him, should suddenly, for the welfare of this same friend, pretend that he could no longer oblige
him, yet continues to assist him without making himself known. The friend, not suspecting any stratagem in this mystery of love, feels hurt, and entertains all sorts of ideas and criticisms on the conduct, of his benefactor.
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