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We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to live one way and pray another.
- William Law
(What adjustments are needed these days?)
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ACTS 9:1-20; Ps 117:1BC, 2
JN 6:52-59
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying,
“How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood,
you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood
has eternal life,
and I will raise him on the last day.
For my Flesh is true food,
and my Blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood
remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me
and I have life because of the Father,
so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven.
Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,
whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Scripture
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"Saul, still breathing murderous threats against the Lord's disciples, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus which would empower him to arrest and bring to Jerusalem anyone he might find, man or woman, living according to the new way." —Acts 9:1-2
As Saul was cruising on the road to Damascus, he was likely thinking of his return trip when he would be moving a chain gang of Christians on that same Damascus road. Saul reacted to being an accomplice to the murder of Stephen by violently trying to justify his murderous sinfulness. He had been such a zealous anti-Christian that he later rated himself as the foremost sinner in the world (1 Tm 1:15), "a blasphemer,
a persecutor, a man filled with arrogance" (1 Tm 1:13). Saul's conversion proved that the Lord can, does, and will convert anybody.
Therefore:
There is hope for you by God's mercy, no matter what you have done.
Pray expectantly for the most evil people in the world to be converted, particularly your enemies.
- and -
There is hope for your marriage and family, no matter what has happened.
Be another Ananias, courageously bringing new life in the Spirit to extremely dangerous people (Acts 9:10ff).
Be awed by the Lord's love, power, and mercy in converting Saul.
Saul's conversion is awesome. Be awed into hope and joy.
Prayer: Father, send the Holy Spirit to give me a new perspective on those whom I have considered the most lost.
Promise: "The man who feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me, and I in him." —Jn 6:56
Praise: "Isn't this the carpenter's Son?" (see Mt 13:55) St. Joseph, you instructed the young Jesus in a dignified trade; pray for us who labor.
Presentation Ministries
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Abandonment to Divine Providence
- by Jean-Pierre de Caussade
BOOK II,
CHAPTER II. THE DUTIES OF THOSE SOULS CALLED BY GOD TO THE STATE OF ABANDONMENT
SECTION VII. Trust in the Guidance of God
The docile soul will not seek to learn by what road God is conducting it.
When God makes Himself the guide of a soul He exacts from it an absolute confidence in Him, and a freedom from any sort of disquietude as to the way in which He conducts it. This soul, therefore, is urged on without perceiving the path traced out before it. It does not imitate either what it has seen, or what it has read, but proceeds by its own action, and cannot do otherwise without grave risk. The divine action is
ever fresh, it never retraces its steps, but always marks out new ways. Souls that are conducted by it never know where they are going; their ways are neither to be found in books, nor in their own minds; the divine action carries them step by step, and they progress only according to its movement.
When you are conducted by a guide who takes you through an unknown country at night across fields where there are no tracks, by his own skill, without asking advice from anyone, or giving you any inkling of his plans; how can you choose but abandon yourself? Of what use is it looking about to find out where you are, to ask the passers-by, or to consult maps and travellers? The plans or fancies of a guide who insists on
being trusted would not allow of this. He would take pleasure in overcoming the anxiety and distrust of the soul, and would insist on an entire surrender to his guidance. If one is convinced that he is a good guide one must have faith in him, and abandon oneself to his care.
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