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Christian experience always has a special modality, due to the fact that it is inseparable from the mystery of Christ and the collective life of the Church, the Body of Christ. . . . In other words, this experience must always be in some way reducible to a theological form that can be shared by the rest of the Church or that shows that it is a sharing of what the rest of the Church experiences."
- Thomas Merton, Zen and the Birds of Appetite
(How do the faith experiences shared by other Christians nurture your own growth in faith? Be resolved to make spiritual reading a part of your everyday life.)
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IS 38:1-6, 21-22, 7-8; IS 38:10, 11, 12ABCD, 16
MT 12:1-8
Jesus was going through a field of grain on the sabbath.
His disciples were hungry
and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them.
When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him,
“See, your disciples are doing what is unlawful to do on the sabbath.”
He said to the them, “Have you not read what David did
when he and his companions were hungry,
how he went into the house of God and ate the bread of offering,
which neither he nor his companions
but only the priests could lawfully eat?
Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath
the priests serving in the temple violate the sabbath
and are innocent?
I say to you, something greater than the temple is here.
If you knew what this meant, I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
you would not have condemned these innocent men.
For the Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath.”
USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Scripture
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“See, I will make the shadow cast by the sun on the stairway to the terrace of Ahaz go back the ten steps it has advanced.” —Isaiah 38:8
God by definition is infinite and therefore can and will go beyond the laws of the natural world, which He created. He certainly will go far beyond humanity’s very limited understanding of nature. When the Lord goes beyond the laws of nature, we call this a miracle. For example, the Lord healed King Hezekiah of a terminal illness (Is 38:5) and combined this with an awesome miracle of making the “shadow cast by the sun on
the stairway to the terrace of Ahaz go back the ten steps it [had] advanced” (Is 38:8).
Because miracles derive from God’s infinite nature, they are necessarily very significant in God’s plan of salvation. For example, Christianity is based on the astounding miracle of the Incarnation. Miracles always have been a sign of God’s kingdom (Lk 11:20). The salvation of the whole world by Jesus’ death on the cross and His Resurrection from the dead is the miracle of miracles. Pentecost, the birthday of the
Church, was another miracle. The Church began with miracles. Every sacrament is a miracle. The world will end with the miracle of Christ’s final coming and the resurrection of the dead.
Because miracles permeate the Christian life, the devil is using our secular humanistic society to program us to automatically doubt all miracles. This is a way of robbing us of our faith. Therefore, abide in God’s Church and her word. “Have no love for the world, nor the things that the world affords” (1 Jn 2:15).
Prayer: Father, protect me from being brainwashed “by the god of the present age” (see 2 Cor 4:4).
Promise: “It is mercy I desire.” —Mt 12:7
Presentation Ministries
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Abandonment to Divine Providence
- by Jean-Pierre de Caussade
BOOK II,
CHAPTER III. THE TRIALS CONNECTED WITH THE STATE OF ABANDONMENT
SECTION III. Self-contempt
The third trial: interior humiliations.
Let us, then, endure without annoyance the humiliations entailed on us in our own eyes, and in the eyes of others, by what shows outwardly in our lives; or rather, let us conceal ourselves behind these outward appearances and enjoy God who is all ours. Let us profit by this apparent failure, by these requirements, by this care-taking and the necessity of constant nourishment, and of comfort; of our ill-success, of the
contempt of others, of these fears, uncertainties, troubles, etc., to find all our wealth and happiness in God, who, by these means, gives Himself entirely to us as our only good. God wishes to be ours in a poor way, without all those accessories of sanctity which make others to be admired, and this is because God would have Himself to be the sole food of our souls, the only object of our desires. We are so weak that if we displayed the virtues of zeal, almsgiving, poverty, and austerity, we
should make them subjects for vainglory. But as it is, everything is disagreeable in order that God may be our whole sanctification, our whole support, so that the world despises us, and leaves us to enjoy our treasure in peace. God desires to be the principle of all that is holy in us, and therefore what depends on ourselves and on our active fidelity is very small, and appears quite contrary to sanctity. There cannot be anything great in us in the sight of God except our passive endurance.
Therefore let us think of it no more, let us leave the care of our sanctification to God who well knows how to effect it. It all depends on the watchful care, and particular operation of divine Providence, and is accomplished in a great measure without our knowledge, and even in a way that is unexpected, and disagreeable to us. Let us fulfil peacefully the little duties of our active fidelity, without aspiring to those that are greater, because God does not give Himself to us by reason of our
own efforts. We shall become saints of God, of His grace, and of His special providence. He knows what rank to give us, let us leave it to Him, and without forming to ourselves false ideas, and empty systems of sanctity, let us content ourselves with loving Him unceasingly, and in pursuing with simplicity the path He has marked out for us, where all is so mean and paltry in our eyes, and in the estimation of the world.
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