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Never... think we have a due knowledge of ourselves till we have been exposed to various kinds of temptations, and tried on every side. Integrity on one side of our character is no voucher for integrity on another. We cannot tell how we should act if brought under temptations different from those we have hitherto experienced. This thought should keep us humble. We are sinners, but we do not know how great. He
alone knows who died for our sins.
... John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
(What temptations do you struggle with these days? What are the opportunities for developing character and integrity? Pray for the grace to do what is right in the face of temptations.)
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Acts 9:1-20; Psalm 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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“He is there praying.” —Acts 9:12
The early Church was a praying Church. The Church was born at Pentecost after a nine-day gestation period of prayer (see Acts 1:14). After Pentecost, the Church devoted itself to prayer (Acts 2:42). So powerful were the Church’s prayers that sometimes the building where the Church prayed shook (Acts 4:31). The apostles concentrated on prayer and the ministry of the Word (Acts 6:4). The early Church was a praying
Church.
The immediate results of the Church’s prayers were mixed. The number of disciples “enormously increased” (Acts 6:7), but persecution against the Church likewise increased. The more the Church prayed, the better and the worse it got. Finally, Stephen, one of the first deacons, was murdered, martyred, stoned to death. How’s that for an answer to prayer? Nonetheless, the Church kept praying. Soon, a Samaritan town came to Christ
(Acts 8:14), an Ethiopian was baptized and took the Gospel to the ends of the earth (Acts 8:38ff), and Saul, the dreaded persecutor of the Church, was baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:17-18).
Prayer changes things. It can change opposition into persecution and murder, and persecution and murder into the evangelization of the world. In this Easter season, pray as if your life and the salvation of others depended on it.
Prayer: Father, may I pray up a storm of persecution and evangelization.
Promise: “Let Me solemnly assure you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.” —Jn 6:53
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.
Love can refuse nothing that love desires, nor desire anything that love refuses. The divine action regards only the goodwill; the capability of the other faculties does not attract it, nor does the want of capability repel it. All that it requires is a heart that is good, pure, just, simple, submissive, filial, and respectful. It takes possession of such a heart, and of all its faculties, and so arranges everything
for its benefit that it finds in all things its sanctification. That which destroys other souls would find in this soul an antidote of goodwill which would nullify its poison. Even at the edge of a precipice the divine action would draw it back, or even if it were allowed to remain there it would prevent it from falling; and if it fell, it would rescue it. After all, the faults of such a soul are only faults of frailty; love takes but little notice of them, and well knows how to turn them to
advantage. It makes the soul understand by secret suggestions what it ought to say, or to do, according to circumstances. These suggestions it receives as rays of light from the divine understanding:"A good understanding to all that do it‚" (Ps. cx, 10), for this divine understanding accompanies such souls step by step, and prevents them taking those false steps which their simplicity encourages. If they make arrangements which would involve them in some promise prejudicial to them, divine
Providence arranges some fortunate occurrence which rectifies everything. In vain are schemes formed against them repeatedly; divine Providence cuts all the knots, brings the authors to confusion, and so turns their heads as to make them fall into their own trap. Under its guidance those souls that they wish to take by surprise do certain things that seem very useless at the time, but that serve afterwards to deliver them from all the troubles into which their uprightness and the malice of their
enemies would have plunged them. Oh! what good policy it is to have goodwill!
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