Thursday, September 1 : Saint Vincent de Paul
It is honoring our Lord when we enter into his sentiments, holding then in esteem, doing what he did and carrying out what he commanded. Now his principal attraction was towards the care of the poor: to heal, console, assist and plead for them. This was what mattered to him. He himself had wanted to be born in poverty, to welcome the poor into his company, to serve the poor and put himself in the place of the poor to the point of saying that the good and the evil we do to the poor will be held by him to have been done to his own divine person (Mt 25,40). What more tender love could he have shown for the poor! And what sort of love could we be showing him, I ask you, if we don’t love what he loved? So much so that loving the poor is to love him as he would wish and imitating him is to serve him rightly and honor him as we ought… Now, if this gallant Lord of ours considers himself honored by this imitation, how much more should we consider ourselves greatly honored to become like him in this! Doesn’t it seem to you that here is a most powerful motive for renewing your first fervor in yourselves? For myself, I think we should offer ourselves to His divine Majesty today… in such a way that from now on people will be able to say of you that «the love of Christ impels you» (2Cor 5,14).
maronite readings – rosary,team