Sunday, February 6 : Saint John Chrysostom

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