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Faith is not so much belief about God as it is total, personal trust in God, rising to a personal fellowship with God that is stronger than anxiety and guilt, loneliness and all manner of disaster. The Christian’s faith in Christ is trust in a Living Person, once crucified, dead, and buried, and now living forevermore. Call it, if you will, an assumption that ends as an assurance, or an
experiment that ends as an experience, Christian faith is in fact a commitment that ends as a communion.
… Frederick Ward Kates
(How does this speak to your experience of faith?) |
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NA 2:1, 3; 3:1-3, 6-7 DT 32:35-36, 39, 41
MT
16:24-28
Jesus said to his disciples,
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world
and forfeit his life?
Or what can one give in exchange for his life?
For the Son of Man will
come with his angels in his Father’s glory,
and then he will repay each according to his conduct.
Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here
who will not taste death
until they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.”
USCCB Lectionary
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Matthew 16: 24-28 (The meaning of self-denial)
The gospel says we must die to ourselves, so it is important that we understand what this means. Jesus neither calls us to despise ourselves nor
to deny our personal dreams and ambitions — unless they lead to sin. The self we are to deny is that strong tendency in each of us to be selfish and unconnected to others — to be ruled by instinct and desire rather than by truth and love. The cross is the way to grow into the higher, spiritual self.
* Review your past day, focusing on a few key events. What decisions did you make? What were your motives behind these
decisions?
* “Incarnation happens with every decision to love” is a teaching of the mystics. How do you understand this? Pray for the grace to be more conscious of the loving alternatives you have for each decision you make.
Paperback, Kindle
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The Way of Perfection, by Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
Speaks of the fear of God and of how we must keep ourselves from venial sins.
Oh, what a great thing it is not to have offended the Lord, so that the servants and slaves of hell may be kept under control! In
the end, whether willingly or no, we shall all serve Him -- they by compulsion and we with our whole heart. So that, if we please Him, they will be kept at bay and will do nothing that can harm us, however much they lead us into temptation and lay secret snares for us.
Keep this in mind, for it is very important advice, so do not neglect it until you find you have such a fixed determination not to offend
the Lord that you would rather lose a thousand lives and be persecuted by the whole world, than commit one mortal sin, and until you are most careful not to commit venial sins. I am referring now to sins committed knowingly: as far as those of the other kind are concerned, who can fail to commit them frequently? But it is one thing to commit a sin knowingly and after long deliberation, and quite another to do it so suddenly that the knowledge of its being a venial sin and its commission are one
and the same thing, and we hardly realize what we have done, although we do to some extent realize it. From any sin, however small, committed with full knowledge, may God deliver us, especially since we are sinning against so great a Sovereign and realizing that He is watching us! That seems to me to be a sin committed of malice aforethought; it is as though one were to say: "Lord, although this displeases Thee, I shall do it. I know that Thou seest it and I know that Thou wouldst not have me do
it; but, though I understand this, I would rather follow my own whim and desire than Thy will." If we commit a sin in this way, however slight, it seems to me that our offence is not small but very, very great.
- Chapter 41 (Keep in mind that she is writing to sisters in a cloistered contemplative order.)
Paperback, Kindle
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