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If the appetite alone hath sinned, let it alone fast, and it sufficeth. But if the other members also have sinned, why should they not fast, too? … Let the eye fast from strange sights and from every wantonness, so that that which roamed in freedom in fault-doing may, abundantly humbled, be checked by penitence. Let the ear, blameably eager to listen, fast from tales and rumours, and
from whatsoever is of idle import, and tendeth least to salvation. Let the tongue fast from slanders and murmurings, and from useless, vain, and scurrilous words, and sometimes also, in the seriousness of silence, even from things which may seem of essential import. Let the hand abstain from … all toils which are not imperatively necessary. But also let the soul herself abstain from all evils and from acting out her own will. For without such abstinence the other things find no favor with the
Lord.
… Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, “Selections from His Letters, Meditations, Sermons, Hymns and Other Writngs”
(What kind of fasting do you need to do at this time in life?) |
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2 Jn 4-9; Ps 119:1, 2, 10, 11, 17, 18
Lk 17:26-37
Jesus said to his disciples:
“As it was in the days of Noah,
so it will be in the days of the Son of Man;
they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage up to the day
that Noah entered the ark,
and the flood came and destroyed them all.
Similarly, as it was in the days of Lot:
they were eating, drinking, buying,
selling,
planting, building;
on the day when Lot left Sodom,
fire and brimstone rained from the sky to destroy them all.
So it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed.
On that day, someone who is on the housetop
and whose belongings are in the house
must not go down to get them,
and likewise one in the field
must not return to what was left behind.
Remember the wife of Lot.
Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it,
but whoever loses it will save it.
I tell
you, on that night there will be two people in one bed;
one will be taken, the other left.
And there will be two women grinding meal together;
one will be taken, the other left.”
They said to him in reply, “Where, Lord?”
He said to them, “Where the body is,
there also the vultures will gather.”
USCCB Lectionary
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Luke 17: 26-37 (The end times)
The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is a paradigm for the direction which history is to take. “He didn’t teach us how to swim only to let us drown,” the Imperials
sing. This does not mean Christians will be spared the experience of catastrophe, however. Even Jesus had to pick up his own cross and face the powers of evil in this world.
* Do you believe God will allow nuclear warfare to occur? Why? Why not?
* Do you, as Paul did nineteen hundred
years ago, entertain the hope that Jesus will return before you die? Is this a way to cope with your fear of death?
Paperback, Kindle
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The Way of Perfection, by Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
Treats of these last words of the Paternoster: "Sed libera nos a malo. Amen." "But deliver us from evil. Amen."
Oh, far other must be that life in which we no longer desire death! How differently shall we then incline our wills towards the will of God! His will is for us to desire truth, whereas we desire falsehood; His will is for us
to desire the eternal, whereas we prefer that which passes away; His will is for us to desire great and sublime things, whereas we desire the base things of earth; He would have us desire only what is certain, whereas here on earth we love what is doubtful. What a mockery it all is, my daughters, unless we beseech God to deliver us from these perils for ever and to keep us from all evil! And although our desire for this may not be perfect, let us strive to make the petition. What does it cost us
to ask it, since we ask it of One Who is so powerful? It would be insulting a great emperor to ask him for a farthing. Since we have already given Him our will, let us leave the giving to His will, so that we may be the more surely heard; and may His name be for ever hallowed in the Heavens and on the earth and may His will be ever done in me. Amen
- Chapter 42 (Keep in mind that she is writing to sisters in a cloistered contemplative order.)
Paperback, Kindle
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