Monday, February 3 : The letter to Diognetus

The tradition of the Christians is no mere earthly discovery that was committed to them, nor is it a mortal idea that they think fit to guard so carefully, nor have they been entrusted with merely human secrets. But in reality the omnipotent, all-creating, invisible God from heaven introduced among men the truth and the holy and incomprehensible word and has established it in their hearts. He did not send, as one might imagine, some servant or angel or ruler, or one of those who manage things on earth, or one of those who have been entrusted with the administration of affairs in heaven (cf. Eph 1,21), but the “designer and creator” of the universe himself (Heb 11,10). It was by him that God created the heavens, by him he enclosed the sea in its own limits, whose secrets all the elements faithfully keep, from whom the sun has received the measures of the courses of the day to keep, whom the moon obeys when he commands her to shine at night, whom the stars obey, as they follow the course of the moon; by whom all things have been constituted and had their limits set and made subject, the heavens and the things in the heavens, the earth and the things on the earth, the sea and the things in the sea, fire, air, abyss, the things in the heights, the things in the deeps, the things between. It was he God sent to them. Did he though do it as a man might suppose, like a tyrant with fear and terror? Not at all. But with gentleness and meekness, like a king sending his son, he sent him as king, he sent him as God, he sent him as man to men; he sent as seeking to save, as persuading, not compelling, for compulsion is not the way of God.

Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine) Daily Readings – rosary,team