When I go to Rome, I fast on Saturday, but in Milan I do not. Do you also follow the custom of whatever church you attend, if you do not want to give or receive scandal.
- St. Ambrose
(How can you put this
principle into practice?) |
Jer 7:23-28; Ps. 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9; Lk 11:14-23
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your
hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;
let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us joyfully sing psalms to him.
Come, let us bow down in worship;
let us kneel before the LORD who made us.
For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
"Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works."
Reflection on the Scriptures |
Jeremiah preaches in the Temple (around 609 BCE) and
admonishes his listeners about their hypocrisy—their way of life contradicts their pious rituals and sacrifices, which are therefore meaningless in the eyes of the Lord. Their sacrifices are tainted by disobedience to the covenant relationship and the blood of the innocent. God neither desires nor requests their sacrifice (Ps. 40); rather he asks for their justice and kindness (Micah 6:8). Protecting and caring for the anawim—the last, the lost, and the least — is more pleasing
to the Lord than all their burnt offerings. Although God sent his prophets to guide people, to help them discern, and to be obedient to God, yet they “did not listen.”
Like Jeremiah, Jesus too encounters stiff-necked people who accuse him of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebul when he exorcises a man who could not speak. Jesus counters their
arguments:
- The exorcisms are against Satan’s power. It would be mutiny if Jesus was Satan’s friend.
- If Jesus worked under the power of Satan, why not say the same of other exorcists? And if they believed that God’s power worked through other
exorcists, they ought to say the same of Jesus if they did not wish to condemn their own.
- Jesus’ exorcisms show that Satan’s power has been broken and God’s reign has come. Jesus’ opponents—if they understood that the Egyptians saw the “finger of God” in Moses’ signs — would realize that in Jesus the Kingdom of God has dawned.
- Lastly, the simile of the strong man explains that God has defeated Satan and taken away his armor.
Jesus’ words are strong; there is no room for neutrality. We have to examine our commitment to Christ and choose — to gather with him. Or to scatter.
- by Roland Coelho, S.J.
Revelations of Divine Love - by Julian of Norwich
Fifth Revelation, Chapter 13 “The Enemy is overcome by the
blessed Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ “
AND after this, ere God shewed any words, He suffered me for a convenient time to give heed unto Him and all that I had seen, and all intellect that was therein, as the simplicity
of the soul might take it. Then He, without voice and opening of lips, formed in my soul these words: Herewith is the Fiend overcome. These words said our Lord, meaning His blessed Passion as He shewed it afore. On this shewed our Lord that the Passion of Him is the overcoming of the Fiend. God shewed that the Fiend hath now the same malice that he had afore the Incarnation. And as sore he travaileth, and as continually he seeth that all souls of salvation escape him, worshipfully, by the virtue
of Christ’s precious Passion. And that is his sorrow, and full evil is he ashamed: for all that God suffereth him to do turneth [for] us to joy and [for] him to shame and woe. And he hath as much sorrow when God giveth him leave to work, as when he worketh not: and that is for that he may never do as ill as he would: for his might is all taken into God’s hand.
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