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Receive every day as a resurrection from death, as a new enjoyment of life; meet every rising sun with such sentiments of God’s goodness, as if you had seen it, and all things, new-created upon your account: and under the sense of so great a blessing, let your joyful heart praise and magnify so good and glorious a Creator.
... William Law (1686-1761), A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life [1728]
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Acts 5:34-42; Psalm 27:1, 4, 13-14
Jn 6:1-15
Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee.
A large crowd followed him,
because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick.
Jesus went up on the mountain,
and there he sat down with his disciples.
The Jewish feast of Passover was near.
When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him,
he said to Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?”
He said this to test him,
because he himself knew what he was going to do.
Philip answered him,
“Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough
for each of them to have a little.”
One of his disciples,
Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him,
“There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish;
but what good are these for so many?”
Jesus said, “Have the people recline.”
Now there was a great deal of grass in that place.
So the men reclined, about five thousand in number.
Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks,
and distributed them to those who were reclining,
and also as much of the fish as they wanted.
When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples,
“Gather the fragments left over,
so that nothing will be wasted.”
So they collected them,
and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments
from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.
When the people saw the sign he had done, they said,
“This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.”
Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off
to make him king,
he withdrew again to the mountain alone.
USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Scripture
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Jesus “knew well what He intended to do but He asked this to test Philip’s response.” —John 6:6
Jesus plans to test us. He will present us with humanly impossible situations (see Jn 6:5) to see whether we will walk by faith or by sight (2 Cor 5:7). He will test us to see whether we will judge by God’s standards or by men’s (1 Sm 16:7; Mt 16:23). We may even be tested by persecution. Will we do the natural thing: hate our persecutors and be intimidated by them? Or will we forgive our enemies, love them, and consider it
our privilege to be “judged worthy of ill-treatment for the sake of the Name” of Jesus? (Acts 5:41)
We pass our tests not only by God’s grace at the moment of testing, but also by God’s graces, received hours, days, and years before the tests. Although the strength to have victory in times of testing can be infused into us at the last moment, spiritual strength, like physical strength, is usually gained in small increments over a long period of time. The present is the time to prepare for the future. Miracles, martyrdoms, and
other tests which will happen years from now may stem from the graces we choose to receive today. Therefore, today “grow strong in your holy faith through prayer in the Holy Spirit” (Jude 20).
Prayer: Father, strengthen me minute by minute as I live in obedience and love.
Promise: “When the people saw the sign He had performed they began to say, ‘This is undoubtedly the Prophet Who is to come into the world.’ ” ––Jn 6:14
Presentation Ministries
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Abandonment to Divine Providence
- by Jean-Pierre de Caussade
BOOK II,
CHAPTER IV. CONCERNING THE ASSISTANCE RENDERED BY THE FATHERLY PROVIDENCE OF GOD TO THOSE SOULS WHO HAVE ABANDONED THEMSELVES TO HIM
SECTION 9. Divine love, the principle of all good.
To those who follow this path, divine love is all-sufficing.
While despoiling of all things those souls who give themselves entirely to Him, God gives them something in place of them. Instead of light, wisdom, life, and strength, He gives them His love. The divine love in these souls is like a supernatural instinct. In nature, each thing contains that which is suitable to its kind. Each flower has its special beauty, each animal its instinct, and each creature its perfection.
Also in the different states of grace, each has a special grace. This is the recompense for everyone who accepts with goodwill the state in which he is placed by Providence. A soul comes under the divine action from the moment that a habit of goodwill is formed within it, and this action influences it more or less according to its degree of abandonment. The whole art of abandonment is simply that of loving, and the divine action is nothing else than the action of divine love. How can it be that
these two loves seeking each other should do otherwise than unite when they meet? How can the divine love refuse aught to a soul whose every desire it directs? And how can a soul that lives only for Him refuse Him anything?
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