|
The greatest Christians in history seem to say that their sufferings ended up bringing them the closest to God - so this is the best thing that could happen, not the worst.
- Peter
Kreeft
(So what's to be afraid of?) |
|
EZR 6:7-8, 12B,
14-20; PS 122:1-5; LK 8:19-21
R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
I rejoiced because they said to
me, “We will go up to the house of the LORD.” And now we have set foot within your gates, O Jerusalem.
Jerusalem, built as a city with compact unity. To it the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD.
According to the decree for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD. In it are set up judgment seats, seats for the house of
David.
USCCB Lectionary
|
Reflection on the Scriptures |
The words of Jesus in today’s gospel strike us as strange – not at all what we would have thought Jesus might have said under the circumstances. When we experience that reaction, it’s a clue that the text is
challenging us. What are we missing?
Rather than an incidental happening on Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, there is something here that the Church thinks is quite important. It’s worth noting that the incident is described in Matthew and
Mark, as well as in Luke, and in a typical year, we will hear about this episode at least three times.
Rather than rejecting his mother and brothers, Jesus is emphasizing a new kind of relationship, even stronger than the relationship of biology
– a relationship in which we are all brothers and sisters of Jesus, children of the Father, brothers and sisters of one another, and heirs to eternal life. We take this, perhaps, as a kind of figure of speech, whereas Jesus takes it very literally. This brother & sister relationship is a direct consequence of Baptism, which has to be understood as more than simply membership in a large, international organization. In Baptism, as the Catholic funeral rite proclaims, a person dies in
Christ and takes on a new life, that is, is literally vivified by the spirit of God. - by Robert Heaney Creighton Online Ministries
|
|
Revelations of Divine Love
- by Julian of
Norwich Chapter
6
“The Goodness of God is the highest prayer, and it cometh down to the lowest part of our need”
For this, as I shall tell, came to my mind in the same time: We pray to God for [the
sake of] His holy flesh and His precious blood, His holy Passion, His dearworthy death and wounds: and all the blessed kindness, the endless life that we have of all this, is His Goodness. And we pray Him for [the sake of] His sweet Mother’s love that Him bare; and all the help we have of her is of His Goodness. And we pray by His holy Cross that he died on, and all the virtue and the help that we have of the Cross, it is of His Goodness. And on the same wise, all the help that we have of
special saints and all the blessed Company of Heaven, the dearworthy love and endless friendship that we have of them, it is of His Goodness. For God of His Goodness hath ordained means to help us, full fair and many: of which the chief and principal mean is the blessed nature that He took of the Maid, with all the means that go afore and come after which belong to our redemption and to endless salvation. Wherefore it pleaseth Him that we seek Him and worship through means, understanding that He
is the Goodness of all.
Paperback, Hardcover, Kindle
|
|
|
