MEDITATIO

[Saint Catherine heard God say to her]: You reach perfection through knowledge and contempt of yourself and knowledge of my goodness. And at no time does the soul know herself so well, if I am within her, as when she is most beleaguered. Why? I will tell you. She knows herself well when she finds herself besieged and can neither free herself nor resist being captured. Yes, she can resist with her will to the point of not giving her consent, but that is all. Then she can come to know that of herself she is nothing. For if she were anything at all of herself she would be able to get rid of what she did not want. So in this way she is humbled in true self-knowledge, and in the light of holy faith she runs to me, God eternal. For by my goodness she was able to maintain her good and holy will steadfast when she was sorely besieged so that she did not imitate the wretched things that were vexing her. You have good reason, then, to take comfort in the teaching of the gentle, loving Word, my only-begotten Son, in times of great trouble, suffering and adversity, and when you are tempted by people or the devil. For these things strengthen your virtue and bring you to great perfection.
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us!” O the unspeakable mercy of God! It has not only given us a form of prayer and taught us how to act in a manner acceptable to him, uprooting both anger and sadness through the requirements of the formula that he gave, by which he ordered that we should always pray it. It has also conferred on those who pray an opportunity by disclosing to them the way that may bring upon themselves the merciful and kind judgment of God, and it has conferred a certain power by which we can moderate the sentence of our Judge, persuading him to pardon our sins by the example of our own forgiveness when we tell him: “Forgive us as we forgive.” And so, securely confident in this prayer, a person who has been forgiving to his own debtors asks pardon for his offenses. (…) Therefore, if we wish to be judged mercifully, we must ourselves be merciful to those who have offended us. For we shall be forgiven to the degree that we have forgiven those who have injured us by any wrongdoing whatsoever. Some peoples fear this, and when this prayer is recited together in church by the whole congregation they pass over this line in silence lest by their own words they obligate rather than excuse themselves. They do not understand that it is in vain that they contrive to quibble in this way with the Judge of all, who wished to show beforehand how he would judge his suppliants. For since he does not wish to be harsh and inexorable towards them, he indicated the form that his judgment would take. Thus, just as we want to be judged by him, so also we should judge our brothers if they have offended us in anything.
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team

To assume the name of Christ without following the way of Christ -what else is that but to make a sham of the divinely given name and to abandon the path of salvation? When Christ himself teaches that the person who keeps his commandments will have life (Mt 19:17) and that wisdom belongs to the one who not only listens to his words but acts on them (Mt 7:24), that the distinction of being called the greatest teacher in the kingdom of heaven is awarded to the one who not only teaches but acts in accordance with his teaching, then he means that if anything good and useful has been preached it will benefit the preacher only insofar as he lives by what he preaches. Now is there anything the Lord more frequently urged on his disciples, any salutary counsel or heavenly precept he wanted them to cherish and observe more assiduously than his commandment that we should love one another with the same love as he himself showed for his disciples? (Jn 13:34; 15:12) Yet how can anyone preserve the peace and love of the Lord if jealousy has rendered him incapable of being either peaceable or loving toward his neighbor? This is why the apostle Paul gave a eulogy of peace and charity and made an uncompromising assertion that neither faith nor alms nor even the suffering of the confessor or martyr would be of any value unless we observe the claims of love in their entirety (1 Cor 13:1-3).

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team