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A Christian should always remember that the value of good works is not based on their number and excellence, but on the love of God which prompts one to do these things.
- John Of The Cross
(How is the love of God compelling you to give of yourself these days?)
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Heb 7:1-3, 15-17; Psalm 110:1, 2, 3, 4
Mk 3:1-6
Jesus entered the synagogue.
There was a man there who had a withered hand.
They watched Jesus closely
to see if he would cure him on the sabbath
so that they might accuse him.
He said to the man with the withered hand,
“Come up here before us.”
Then he said to the Pharisees,
“Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil,
to save life rather than to destroy it?”
But they remained silent.
Looking around at them with anger
and grieved at their hardness of heart,
Jesus said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”
He stretched it out and his hand was restored.
The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel
with the Herodians against him to put him to death.
USCCB Lectionary
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Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain,
2018 (3rd ed.)
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Mark 3: 1-6 (A healing and a confrontation)
Today's reading describes a significant turning point in the ministry of Jesus. Jewish law forbade medical ministry on the Sabbath except in critical life-saving situations. The man with the paralyzed hand is not in critical condition, but Jesus heals him anyway. Because of this act of love, he earns the contempt of the legalistic Pharisees.
* Picture this confrontation in your imagination. Note the anger and indignation on Jesus' face as he addresses the authorities; see them responding to him from the heights of self-righteousness; experience the thrill of the moment when Jesus overrides the Sabbath restrictions by saying, "Stretch out your hand." Note the gratitude on the man's face as his hand is healed.
* Are you self-assured yet humble in your efforts to love others?
Paperback, Kindle and eBook
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Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
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BOOK II: THE HISTORY OF THE GENERATION AND HEAVENLY BIRTH OF DIVINE LOVE
Chapter 4: Of the supernatural providence which God uses towards reasonable creatures
He also clearly foresaw that the first man would abuse his liberty and forsaking grace would lose glory, yet would he not treat human nature so rigorously as he determined to treat the angelic. It was human nature of which he had determined to take a blessed portion to unite it to his divinity. He saw that it was a feeble nature, a wind which goeth and returneth
not, that is, which is dissipated as it goes. He had regard to the surprise by which the malign and perverse Satan had taken the first man, and to the greatness of the temptation which ruined him. He saw that all the race of men was perishing by the fault of one only, so that for these reasons he beheld our nature with the eye of pity and resolved to admit it to his mercy.
But in order that the sweetness of his mercy might be adorned with the beauty of his justice, he determined to save man by way of a rigorous redemption. And as this could not properly be done but by his Son, he settled that he should redeem man not only by one of his amorous actions, which would have been perfectly sufficient to ransom a million million of worlds:
but also by all the innumerable amorous actions and dolorous passions which he would perform or suffer till death, and the death of the cross, to which he destined him. He willed that thus he should make himself the companion of our miseries to make us afterwards companions of his glory, showing thereby the riches of his goodness, by this copious, abundant, superabundant, magnificent and excessive redemption, which has gained for us, and as it were reconquered for us, all the means necessary to
attain glory, so that no man can ever complain as though the divine mercy were wanting to any one.
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