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The many contradictions in our lives - such as being home while feeling homeless, being busy while feeling bored, being popular while feeling lonely, being believers while feeling many doubts - can frustrate, irritate, and
even discourage us. They make us feel that we are never fully present. Every door that opens for us makes us see how many more doors are closed.
But there is another response. These same contradictions can bring us into touch with a deeper longing for the fulfillment of a desire that lives
beneath all desires and that only God can satisfy. Contradictions, thus understood, create the friction that can help us move toward God.
- Bread for the Journey, by Henri Nouwen -
(God alone satisfies our deepest desires. Invite the Spirit to show
you this truth today.) |
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Rv 10:8-11; Ps 119:14, 24, 72, 103, 111, 131; Lk 19:45-48 R. (103a) How sweet to my taste is your promise! In the way of your decrees I rejoice,
as much as in all riches.
Yes, your decrees are my delight;
they are my counselors.
The law of your mouth is to me more precious
than thousands of gold and silver pieces.
How sweet to my palate are your promises,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Your decrees are my inheritance forever;
the joy of my heart they are.
I gasp with open mouth
in my yearning for your commands. USCCB Lectionary
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In the gospel of Luke this episode follows Jesus' acclaimed entry into Jerusalem. Did he feel that the momentum was on his side? Would he have done the same in different circumstances? The temple was the apple of Israel's eye and it would be hard to imagine a more provocative gesture short of declaring himself Son of God, which he later on did. But the temple was also the apple of Jesus' eye and he was upset that the space of worship "a
house of prayer" had been turned into a marketplace - "a den of thieves." . . .
Now, if all space is God's space, how do we treat that space - our life-space? Do we treat it as God' space, which it is, or do we emancipate some dimensions of our lives, where we rule and carry on our own trading? Today's gospel reading challenges us to honest consistency and to let the Lord examine and question how we treat our life-space. - by Rev. Luis Rodriguez, S.J. Creighton Online Ministries
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On Cleaving to God, by St. Albert the Great
So always keep your faults and your own incapacity before your eyes, and know yourself, so that you can be humbled and not try to avoid being held as the lowest, vilest and most abject scum by everyone when you are aware of the grave sins and serious faults in yourself. For which reason consider yourself compared to others as dross to gold, weeds to the wheat, chaff to the grain, a wolf to the sheep, Satan to the children of God. And do not seek to be respected by others and given precedence before others, but rather flee with all your heart and soul the poison of this disease, the venom of praise, the concern for boasting and vanity, lest, as the prophet says, The wicked is praised in his own heart's desires, (Psalm 10.4) and Isaiah, They who speak good of you, deceive you and destroy the way of your feet, (Isaiah 3.12) and the Lord in Luke, Woe to you when men speak well of you! (Luke 6.26).
- Chapter 14. That we should seek the verdict of our conscience in every decision.
Paperback (Kindle edition available)
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