MEDITATIO

“The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed you from the law of sin and death” (Rm 8:2) (…) Saint Paul says that the Law of Moses has been given to prove our weakness, and not just to prove it but to increase it and thus force us to find the doctor. (…) “Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more” (Rm 5:20; cf. 3:20) (…) But why did the first Law, written with the finger of God (Ex 31:18), not give us the essential assistance of grace ? Because it was written on tablets of stone, not the tablets of flesh that are our hearts (2 Cor 3:3) (…). It is the Holy Spirit who writes “the Law of the Spirit of life” not on stone but in the heart; this Law of the Spirit of life that is in Jesus Christ in whom the Passover has been celebrated in truth (1 Cor 5:7-8), has delivered you from the law of sin and death. Do you want to have proof of the manifest and certain difference separating the Old Testament from the New? (…) Hear what the Lord spoke by the mouth of one of the prophets. (…): ”I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts” (Jr 31:33). So if God’s Law is written in your heart, it does not bring forth fear [as at Sinai] but pours a secret sweetness into your soul.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team

Today I haven’t persuaded the person listening to me but maybe I’ll do so tomorrow, perhaps in three or four days or a little while. The fisherman who threw his nets the whole day long to no avail sometimes takes a catch in the evening, just as he was about to leave, of the fish he had been unable to catch during the day. The laborer does not cease to cultivate his land even though he had not had a good harvest for several years; and in the end a single year often makes up abundantly for all the previous losses. God does not ask us to succeed but to work; now our work will not be any the less rewarded because no one will have listened to us. More: will the devil cease to tempt each of the faithful because he foresees that many of them will be saved ? See with what care, what infernal perseverance, what detestable solicitude he pursues the soul until they have rendered their last sigh: until then he doesn’t despair, and don’t you believe that your bishop will do to save your soul what the devil does to pay it back ? Christ well knew that Judas would not convert, and yet, until the end, he wanted to attempt his conversion, reproaching him for his fault in the most touching terms: “Friend, why have you come ?” (Mt 26:50). Now, if Christ, the model of pastors, worked until the end for the conversion of a desperate man, what should we not do for those with regard to whom it is granted to us to hope ?

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team

If you put into action everything that makes up your life and understanding without holding back anything for reflection and meditation, am I to praise you? No, I will not praise you for that. And I don’t think anyone is to be found who would do so if he has heard this saying of Solomon’s: “Whoever restrains his actions will gain wisdom” (Eccl 38:25 Vg). But assuredly action itself needs to be preceded by reflection. Moreover, if you want to be wholly there for everyone following the example of the one who made himself wholly for all, I praise your humanity but only on condition that it is whole and entire. Now, how would it be if you excluded your own self? You are a man as well. And so, in order that your humanity should be whole and entire it must include you as well in that openness of heart that you reserve for all others. Otherwise what use is it, as the Lord said, to gain the whole of mankind if you lose yourself? Thus, since you are the benefit of all, be, yourself, one of those who possess it. Why should you be the only one to be deprived of this favor? Until when is your spirit going to withdraw without returning to you, in your turn, amongst those who present themselves? You owe it to the wise and ignorant and refuse it only to yourself? (…) Yes, let your waters spread abroad everywhere, let men and beasts drink from it; pour out to drink for the camels of Abraham’s servant. But amongst them all, you too drink from the water springing up from your well. (…) So remember, I don’t say ‘always’, I don’t even say ‘often’, but at least sometimes give back yourself to yourself. Among many others, or even after many others, run back to your services.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team