MEDITATIO

We must have the courage of faith not to allow ourselves to be guided by the mentality that tells us: “God is not necessary, he is not important for you”, and so forth. It is exactly the opposite (…): God is our strength! God is our hope! Dear brothers and sisters, we must be the first to have this steadfast hope and we must be a visible, clear and radiant sign of it for everyone. (…) Our hope as Christians is strong, safe and sound on this earth, where God has called us to walk, and it is open to eternity because it is founded on God who is always faithful. (…) Being raised with Christ through Baptism, with the gift of faith, an inheritance that is incorruptible, prompts us to seek God’s things more often. Being Christian is not just obeying orders but means being in Christ, thinking like him, acting like him, loving like him; it means letting him take possession of our life and change it, transform it and free it from the darkness of evil and sin. Dear brothers and sisters, let us point out the Risen Christ to those who ask us to account for the hope that is in us (cf. 1 Pt 3:15). Let us point him out with the proclamation of the word, but above all with our lives as people who have been raised. Let us show the joy of being children of God, the freedom that living in Christ gives us which is true freedom (Rm 8:21), the freedom that saves us from the slavery of evil, of sin and of death! Looking at the heavenly homeland, we shall receive new light and fresh strength, both in our commitment and in our daily efforts. This is a precious service that we must give to this world of ours which all too often no longer succeeds in raising its gaze on high, no longer succeeds in raising its gaze to God.
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team

There are plenty of people who, wanting to be well-ordered on the surface and filled with beautiful feelings about God within, stop there (…); they are satisfied with the sweet colloquies they hold with God in prayer (…). Don’t let us deceive ourselves: our whole task consists in passing over into acts. And so true is this that the apostle, Saint John, tells us that our works are the only thing to accompany us into the next life (Rev 14:13). So let us think this over: never more than in our own day are there many who seem to be virtuous, and indeed are so, but who nevertheless tend towards a way that is easy and gentle rather than to hard-working, straightforward devotion. The Church is like a great harvest in need of laborers – but laborers who work ! Nothing is more in keeping with the Gospel than to draw light and strength for one’s soul in prayer, reading and solitude on the one hand, but then to go and distribute this spiritual nourishment to other people. This is to do what our Lord did and, after him, his apostles; it is to unite Martha’s task with that of Mary; it is to imitate the dove who digests half the food she has taken and then places the rest with her beak into that of her little ones to feed them. This is what we ought to do, too; this is how we ought to show God by our works how much we love him. Our whole task consists in passing over into act.
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team

“The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth” (Jn 5:28) (…) We have read in the Gospel of three dead persons who were raised to life by the Lord, and, let us hope, to some good purpose. For surely the Lord’s deeds are not merely deeds, but signs (…) We were listening with wonder (…) in the reading of the Gospel, how Lazarus was restored to life (Jn 11). If we turn our thoughts to the still more wonderful works of Christ, every one that believes rises again: if we all consider, and understand that more horrifying kind of death, everyone who sins dies. But every man is afraid of the death of the flesh; few, of the death of the soul (…) Man, destined to die, labors to avert his dying; and yet man, destined to live for ever, labors not to cease from sinning (…) ! Oh that we could arouse men, and be ourselves aroused along with them, to be as great lovers of the life that abides, as men are of that which passes away (…) ! Who has had it said to him: “Be off to sea if you would escape with your life”, and has delayed to do so? Who has had it said to him: “Set to work if you would preserve your life”, and has continued a sluggard? It is but little that God requires of us, that we may live for ever: and we neglect to obey Him. (…) If, then, the Lord in the greatness of His grace and mercy raises our souls to life, that we may not die for ever, we may well understand that those three dead persons whom He raised in the body, have some figurative significance of that resurrection of the soul which is effected by faith.
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team