|
|
The renewal of our natures is a work of great importance. It is not to be done in a day. We have not only a new house to build up, but an old one to pull down.
... George Whitefield (1714-1770), letter
(How's the remodeling project coming? "Do not be conformed to this world,[c] but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect." Rm. 12:2)
|
Nm 13:1-2, 25–14:1, 26a-29a, 34-35; Psalm 106:6-7ab, 13-14, 21-23
Mt 15: 21-28
At that time Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out,
“Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David!
My daughter is tormented by a demon.”
But he did not say a word in answer to her.
His disciples came and asked him,
“Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.”
He said in reply,
“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
But the woman came and did him homage, saying, “Lord, help me.”
He said in reply,
“It is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.”
She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps
that fall from the table of their masters.”
Then Jesus said to her in reply,
“O woman, great is your faith!
Let it be done for you as you wish.”
And her daughter was healed from that hour.
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.)
Matthew 15: 21-28 (Messiah of the Gentiles)
This passage describes an event which took place during the only time Jesus ever ventured outside Jewish territory. While seeking respite from the demands of the crowds who followed him and from the authorities who tormented him, he is confronted by a persistent Canaanite woman. Even though she is a Gentile and, as a Canaanite, a member of the Jews’ most ancient enemy, her faith and love finally move Jesus to
grant her requests.
• "The family that prays together, stays together" is a familiar saying. How important is praying and worshiping as a family to you? Resolve to find books and pamphlets on family prayer to help deepen this experience.
• Spend some time thanking God for those people in your life who love you.
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
____________
BOOK II: THE HISTORY OF THE GENERATION AND HEAVENLY BIRTH OF DIVINE LOVE
Chapter 12: That divine inspirations leave us at full liberty to follow or repulse them.
I will not here speak, my dear Theotimus, of those miraculous graces which have almost in an instant transformed wolves into shepherds, rocks into waters, persecutors into preachers. I leave on one side those all-powerful vocations, and holily violent attractions by which God has brought some elect souls from the extremity of vice to the extremity of grace, working as it were in them a certain moral and
spiritual transubstantiation: as it happened to the great Apostle, who of Saul, vessel of persecution, became suddenly Paul, vessel of election. We must give a particular rank to those privileged souls in regard of whom it pleased God to make not the mere outflowing, but the inundation--to exercise, if one may so say, not the simple liberality and effusion, but the prodigality and profusion of his love. The divine justice chastises us in this world with punishments which, as they are
ordinary, so they remain almost always unknown and imperceptible; sometimes, however, he sends out deluges and abysses of punishments, to make known and dreaded the severity of his indignation. In like manner his mercy ordinarily converts and graces souls so sweetly, gently and delicately, that its movement is scarcely perceived; and yet it happens sometimes that this sovereign goodness, overflowing its ordinary banks (as a flood swollen and overcharged with the abundance of waters and breaking
out over the plain) makes an outpouring of his graces so impetuous, though loving, that in a moment he steeps and covers the whole soul with benedictions, in order that the riches of his love may appear, and that as his justice proceeds commonly by the ordinary way and sometimes by the extraordinary, so his mercy may exercise liberality upon the common sort of men in the ordinary way, and on some also by extraordinary ways.
|
|
|
