Message of 10-13-21

Published: Wed, 10/13/21

A Daily Spiritual Seed
Wednesday, October 13, 2021

Today's Message

We've had enough of exhortations to be silent! Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues. I see that the world is rotten because of silence.

- St. Catherine of Siena

("There is a time for everything . . . A time to be silent, a time to speak up." [Eccl. 3:1, 7] How do you discern the time to do one or the other?)

Scripture Readings

Rom 2:1-11; Psalm 62:2-3, 6-7, 9

Lk 11:42-46

The Lord said:
“Woe to you Pharisees!
You pay tithes of mint and of rue and of every garden herb,
but you pay no attention to judgment and to love for God.
These you should have done, without overlooking the others.
Woe to you Pharisees!
You love the seat of honor in synagogues
and greetings in marketplaces.
Woe to you!
You are like unseen graves over which people unknowingly walk.”

Then one of the scholars of the law said to him in reply,
“Teacher, by saying this you are insulting us too.”
And he said, “Woe also to you scholars of the law!
You impose on people burdens hard to carry,
but you yourselves do not lift one finger to touch them.”

Scripture Reflection

Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.)

- See http://shalomplace.com/view/praying.html

Luke 11: 42-46 ("Woe to you...')

If we saw a friend backing toward the edge of a cliff, we would certainly yell out a warning. Similarly, Jesus feels compelled to warn the scribes and Pharisees that some of their beliefs and practices are hurting themselves and others.

* He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help," Abraham Lincoln wrote. Does this criterion apply to Jesus?

* Of what practices in the Church are you most critical? What are you doing to help improve these situations?

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Spiritual Reading

Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622)

https://amzn.to/2PEIKQs

____________

BOOK II: THE HISTORY OF THE GENERATION AND HEAVENLY BIRTH OF DIVINE LOVE

Chapter 14: Of the sentiment of divine love which is had by faith.

May I, Theotimus, have leave to say this? Faith is the chief beloved of our understanding, and may justly speak to human sciences which boast that they are more evident and clear than she, as did the sacred spouse to the other shepherdesses.

I am black but beautiful, --O human reasonings, O acquired knowledge! I am black, for I am amidst the obscurities of simple revelation, which have no apparent evidence, and which make me look black, putting me well-nigh out of knowledge: yet I am beautiful in myself by reason of my infinite certainty; and if mortal eyes could behold me such as I am by nature they would find me all fair. And must it not necessarily follow that in effect I am infinitely to be loved, since the gloomy darkness and thick mists, amid which I am--not seen but only half-seen cannot hinder me from being so dearly loved, that the soul, prizing me above all, cleaving the crowd of all other knowledges, makes them all give place to me and receives me as his queen, placing me on the highest throne in his palace, from whence I give the law to all sciences, and keep all argument and all human sense under?

Yea, verily, Theotimus, even as the commanders of the army of Israel taking off their garments, put them together and made a royal throne of them, on which they placed Jehu, and said: Jehu is king: so on the arrival of faith, the understanding puts off all discourse and arguments, and laying them underneath faith, makes her sit upon them, acknowledging her as Queen, and with great joy cries out: Long live faith!

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