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Our labor here is but brief, but the reward is eternal. Do not be disturbed by the clamor of the world, which passes like a shadow. Do not let the false delights of a deceptive world deceive you."
- Clare of Assisi -
(Awareness of eternal life can put many things in perspective. So let it be for you this day.)
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JER 26:1-9; Ps 69:5, 8-10, 14
MT 13:54-58
Jesus came to his native place and taught the people in their synagogue.
They were astonished and said,
“Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds?
Is he not the carpenter’s son?
Is not his mother named Mary
and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas?
Are not his sisters all with us?
Where did this man get all this?”
And they took offense at him.
But Jesus said to them,
“A prophet is not without honor except in his native place
and in his own house.”
And he did not work many mighty deeds there
because of their lack of faith.
USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Scripture
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If you disobey Me, not living according to the law I placed before you and not listening to the words of My servants the prophets, whom I send you constantly though you do not obey them...—Jeremiah 26:4-5
At daily Mass, we have been reading from the prophet Jeremiah for about ten days. We will continue to read from Jeremiah for another week. Day after day, we read that God’s Word spoken through Jeremiah and almost all other prophets was not accepted. The hardness of the human heart is so great that even Jesus, the greatest Prophet, was not accepted in His native place (Mt 13:57). Even after His death on the cross and
glorious resurrection, Jesus is not accepted. How hard can our hearts be!
In six days, we will celebrate Jesus’ Transfiguration, when God the Father from the overshadowing cloud of the Holy Spirit announced: “This is My beloved Son on Whom My favor rests. Listen to Him” (Mt 17:5). Initially, even the message of Jesus’ Transfiguration did not soften hardened hearts. Finally, at the first Christian Pentecost, the Holy Spirit did the amazing miracle of opening hardened hearts to Jesus. Jesus’
disciples listened to Him, and the Church was born.
God our Father, send the Holy Spirit to do the miracle of Pentecost so that we will listen to Jesus.
Prayer: Father, break open my hardened heart.
Promise: “But I pray to you, O Lord, for the time of Your favor, O God! In Your great kindness answer me with Your constant help.” ––Ps 69:14
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 IV. Distrust of self
The fourth trial of souls in the state of abandonment: the obscurity of their state, and their apparent opposition to the will of God.
For a soul that desires nothing else but the will of God, what could be more miserable than the impossibility of being certain of loving Him? Formerly it was mentally enlightened to perceive in what consisted the plan for its perfection, but it is no longer able to do so in its present state. Perfection is given to it contrary to all preconceived ideas, to all light, to all feeling. It is given by all the crosses
sent by Providence, by the action of present duties, by certain attractions, which have in them no good beyond that of not leading to sin; but seem very far from the dazzling sublimity of sanctity, and all that is unusual in virtue. God and His grace are given in a hidden and strange manner, for the soul feels too weak to bear the weight of its crosses, and disgusted with its obligations. Its attractions are only for quite ordinary exercises. The ideal it has formed of sanctity reproaches it
interiorly for its mean and contemptible disposition. All books treating of the lives of the saints condemn it, it can find nothing in vindication of its conduct; it beholds a brilliant sanctity which renders it disconsolate because it has not strength sufficient to attain to it, and it does not see that its weakness is divinely ordered, but looks upon it as cowardice. Those whom it knows to be distinguished for striking virtue, of sublime contemplation regard it only with contempt. "What a
strange saint,‚" say they; and the soul, believing this, and confused by its countless useless efforts to raise itself from this low condition, is overwhelmed with opprobrium, and has nothing to advance in its own favour either to itself or to others. The soul in this state feels as if it were lost. Its reflexions afford it no help for its guidance, or enlightenment, and divine grace seems to have failed it. It is, however, through this loss that it finds again that same grace substituted under
a different form, and restoring a hundredfold more than it took away by the purity of its hidden impressions.
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