maronite readings

This is our faith…: God sent his Word (Jn 1,1) to reveal himself in person before men’s eyes that the world, when it saw him, might be saved… We know he became man, of the same clay as ourselves. If it had been otherwise it would have been futile for him to command us to imitate him as our lord (Jn 13,14-34). If this man were of a different nature, how could he ask me to do as he did, I who am weak by nature? Where, then, would be his goodness, his justice? To make us thoroughly understand that he is no different from us he desired to bear fatigue and know hunger (Jn 4,6); he did not refuse thirst or to find rest in sleep. He did not refuse suffering, he became subject to death and openly manifested his resurrection. In all these things he offered his own humanity as a firstfruits so that you, in your own suffering, might not lose courage but, recognising that you yourself are man, might also wait for what the Father has given to him… Thanks to your knowledge of the true God you will have an immortal and imperishable body like the soul itself. You will receive the Kingdom of heaven as your inheritance because you acknowledged the King of heaven while you lived on earth. You will live in the presence of God, “co-heir with Christ” (Rm 8,17). You will no longer be dominated by desires, suffering and sickness because you have become divine in nature… “Christ is God above all” (cf Rm 9,5)… and have given the perfection of the new man to the old man (Col 3,9). He called it his image from the beginning (Gn 1,27) and, through this likeness, he has shown his lovingkindness for you. If you obey his holy commandments, if you imitate He who is good in being good, you will become like him.
maronite readings – rosary,team

“The Church . . . is held, as a matter of faith, to be unfailingly holy. This is because Christ, the Son of God, who with the Father and the Spirit is hailed as “alone holy,” loved the Church as his Bride, giving himself up for her so as to sanctify her; he joined her to himself as his body and endowed her with the gift of the Holy Spirit for the glory of God.” The Church, then, is “the holy People of God,” and her members are called “saints” (Lumen Gentium, 39,12; 1Cor 6,1)… Through Christ and with him the Church becomes sanctifying… It is in her that “by the grace of God we acquire holiness”… In her members perfect holiness is something yet to be acquired… “Christ, ‘holy, innocent, and undefiled,’ knew nothing of sin, but came only to expiate the sins of the people. The Church, however, clasping sinners to her bosom, at once holy and always in need of purification, follows constantly the path of penance and renewal” (LG 42). All members of the Church, including her ministers, must acknowledge that they are sinners. In everyone, the weeds of sin will still be mixed with the good wheat of the Gospel until the end of time. Hence the Church gathers sinners already caught up in Christ’s salvation but still on the way to holiness: “The Church is therefore holy, though having sinners in her midst, because she herself has no other life but the life of grace. If they live her life, her members are sanctified; if they move away from her life, they fall into sins and disorders that prevent the radiation of her sanctity. This is why she suffers and does penance for those offenses, of which she has the power to free her children through the blood of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
maronite readings – rosary,team

To interpret the parable of the Good Samaritan, one of the elders used to say that the man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho was Adam. He said Jerusalem was paradise, Jericho was the world, and the brigands were enemy powers. The priest was the law, the levite the prophets, and the Samaritan Christ. Adam’s wounds were his disobedience, the animal that carried him was the body of the Lord… and the promised return of the Samaritan, according to this interpeter, was a figure of the Second Coming of the Savior… This Samaritan bore our sins and suffered on our behalf; he carried the half dead man to the inn which takes in everyone, denying no one its help; in other words, to the Church. To this inn Jesus invites all when he says: “Come to me, all who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you new strength” After bringing in the man half dead the Samaritan did not immediately depart, but remained and dressed his wounds by night as well as by day, showing his concern and doing everything he could for him… This guardian of souls “who showed mercy to the man who fell into the hands of brigands” was a better neighbor to him than were either the law or the prophets, and he proved this more by deeds than by words. Now the saying: “be imitators of me as I am of Christ” makes it clear that we can imitate Christ by showing mercy to those who have “fallen into the hands of brigands”. We can go to them, bandage their wounds after pouring in oil and wine, place them on our own mount, and bear their burdens. And so the Son of God exhorts us to do these things, in words addressed not only to the teacher of the law but to all of us: “Go and do likewise.”

maronite readings – rosary,team

If we are to love God fully in heaven we must first of all love him fully on earth. The degree of love we have for God at the end of our life will be the measure of our love for God during eternity. Would we like to gain the certainty of never being separated from this sovereign Good in the present life? Let us compel Him ever more with the bonds of our love, saying with the Bride in the Song of Songs: “I found him whom my soul loves: I took hold of him and will not let him go” (3,4). How has the consecrated Bride taken hold of her Beloved? “With the arms of charity,” William answers…; “It is with the arms of charity that we take hold of God,” Saint Ambrose repeats. Happy, then, is the one who can exclaim together with Saint Paulinus: “Let the rich possess their riches, let kings possess their kingdoms: our glory, our wealth and the kingdom that is ours is Christ!” And with Saint Ignatius: “Only grant me your love and your grace and I shall be rich enough.” Make me love you and may I be loved by you; I neither wish for, nor need wish for anything besides.

maronite readings – rosary,team

My wretched soul is naked and cold and benumbed, it longs to warm itself at the fIre of your love… Out of my wide wilderness and the great emptiness of my heart I have collected only these few tiny twigs like the widow of Sarepta; so that, when I do come to the tabernacle of my house, 161 I may have a handful of flour and a vessel of oil to eat before I die (1Kgs 17,10f.). Or maybe, Lord, I shall not die as quickly as all that! It may be rather that “I shall not die at all, but live, and declare the works of the Lord” (Ps 117[118],17). So I stand in the house of solitude… I open my mouth in your direction, Lord; I breathe in the Spirit. And sometimes, Lord,… you do put something in my heart’s mouth, but you do not permit me to know just what it is. A savor I perceive, so sweet, so gracious, and so comforting that… I should seek nothing more. But when I receive this thing, neither by bodily sight nor by spiritual sense nor by understanding of the mind do you allow me to discern what it is. When I receive it, then I want to keep it, and think about it, and assess its flavor; but forthwith it has gone… But every time this happens I hear the Lord say to me: “The Spirit blows whither he will. ” And I know even in myself that he breathes not when I will, but when he himself wills… I know that it is to you alone, O Fount of life, that I must lift up my eyes, that “in your light I may see light” (Ps 35[36],10). Towards you, then, Lord, are all things turned… But in the meantime, Lord, how much longer are you going to put me off? How often must my wretched, harassed, gasping soul trail after you? “Hide me,” I beseech you, “in the secret place of your face away from the troubles of men, protect me in your tabernacle from the strife of tongues!” (Ps 30[31],21).

maronite readings – rosary,team