Jesus is our mouth, through which we speak to the Father; He is our eye, through which we see the Father; He is our right hand through which we offer ourselves to the Father. Unless He intercedes, there is no intercourse with God.
... St. Ambrose (339-397)
(This is the fruit of spiritual transformation -- participation in the life of God through Christ. Pray that His influence will direct your life this day.)
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Ex 14:21—15:1; Exodus 15:8-9, 10 and 12, 17
Mt 12:46-50
While Jesus was speaking to the crowds,
his mother and his brothers appeared outside,
wishing to speak with him.
Someone told him, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside,
asking to speak with you.”
But he said in reply to the one who told him,
“Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?”
And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said,
“Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father
is my brother, and sister, and mother.”
Reflection on the Scriptures
Glory for any triumph is not ours but God's. Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord swept the sea - not Moses. Further, the Lord saved Israel - not Moses. Here, it seems that Moses's outstretched hand was not so much a gesture of power but, rather, of surrender to the power of God.
Too often, perhaps, we live wrestling with our inadequacies, our failures, our shortcomings. These are the brushstrokes that paint an unsatisfying picture of ourselves to behold. But there is hope. And that hope does not rest in ourselves but in God. God labors with us, through us, and for us. God offers the perpetual invitation to do his will and, as Jesus says, be [his] brother, and sister, and mother. Like Moses,
may we too surrender to God's will and so glorify him.
- by Scott McClure
The Son of God Became Human
From The Catechism of the Catholic Church
Part One, Section Two, Chapter Three
Article 8: I Believe in the Holy Spirit
III. GOD'S SPIRIT AND WORD IN THE TIME OF THE PROMISES
704 "God fashioned humans with his own hands [that is, the Son and the Holy Spirit] and impressed his own form on the flesh he had fashioned, in such a way that even what was visible might bear the divine form."65
The Spirit of the promise
705 Disfigured by sin and death, humans remain "in the image of God," in the image of the Son, but is deprived "of the glory of God,"66 of his "likeness." The promise made to Abraham inaugurates the economy of salvation, at the culmination of which the Son himself will assume that "image"67 and restore it in the Father's "likeness" by giving it again its Glory, the Spirit who is "the giver of
life."
(Footnote references in the Catechism.)
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