maronite readings

All the farmer’s work naturally leads to the harvest. So how could Christ call a work that was still in its beginnings a harvest? Idolatry reigned over all the earth… Everywhere there was fornication, adultery, debauchery, greed, theft, wars… The earth was filled with so many evils! No seed had been sown there. The thorns, thistles and weeds that covered the ground had not yet been pulled up. The ground had not yet been plowed, no furrow had yet been drawn. So how could Jesus say that the harvest was good? … The apostles were probably distressed and frustrated: “How will we even be able to say anything, to stand upright before so many people? How can we, the Eleven, correct all the inhabitants of the earth? Will we who are so ignorant be able to approach scholars; will we who are so stripped of everything be able to meet armed men; will we who are subordinates be able to approach people in authority? We know only one language – will we be able to argue with the Barbarians who speak foreign languages? Who will bear with us if they don’t even understand our language?” Jesus did not want such reasoning to discourage them. So he called the Gospel a harvest. It is as if he told them: “Everything is prepared, all the preparations have been made. I am sending you out to harvest the ripe grain. You will be able to sow and reap on the same day.” When the farmer leaves his home to go and harvest, he is brimming over with joy and shining with happiness. He thinks neither of the suffering nor of the difficulties, which he might encounter… Christ says, lend me your tongue, and you will see the ripe grain going into the king’s granaries. And so he then sends them out, telling them: “I am with you always, until the end of the world.” (Mt 28:20)
maronite readings – rosary,team

“Though the earth and all who dwell in it quake, I have set firm its pillars” (Ps 74[75],40). All the apostles are pillars of the earth but, at their head, the two whose feast we are celebrating. They are the two pillars who support the Church with their teaching, their prayer and the example of their steadfastness. The Lord himself strengthened these pillars. For at first they were weak, completely incapable of supporting either themselves or others. And in this the Lord’s great design appears: it they had always been strong people could have thought their strength came from themselves. That is why the Lord wanted to show what they were capable of before strengthening them, so that all might know their strength came from God… Peter was thrown to the ground by the voice of a mere servant… and the other pillar was very weak too: “I was once a blasphemer and persecutor and an arrogant man” (1Tm 1,13)… Hence we must ought to praise these saints with all our heart: our fathers who bore such trials for the Lord’s sake and who persevered with such determination. It is nothing to persevere in joy, happiness and peace. But this is what is great: to be stoned, scourged, struck for Christ (2Cor 11,25) and in all this to persevere with Christ. With Paul it is a great thing to be cursed and to bless, to be persecuted and to endure, to be slandered and to console, to be like the world’s rubbish and to draw glory from it (1Cor 4,12-13)… And what shall we say of Peter? Even if he had undergone nothing for Christ, it would be sufficient to celebrate him today in that he was crucified for him… He well knew where he whom he loved, he whom he longed for was…: his cross has been his road to heaven.

maronite readings – rosary,team

But some one will say, perhaps, Shall there, then, be no progress in Christ’s Church? Certainly; all possible progress. For what being is there, so envious of men, so full of hatred to God, who would seek to forbid it? Yet on condition that it be real progress, not alteration of the faith… The intelligence, then, the knowledge, the wisdom, as well of individuals as of all, as well of one man as of the whole Church, ought, in the course of ages and centuries, to increase and make much and vigorous progress; but yet only in its own kind; that is to say, in the same doctrine, in the same sense, and in the same meaning. The growth of religion in the soul must be analogous to the growth of the body, which, though in process of years it is developed and attains its full size, yet remains still the same. There is a wide difference between the flower of youth and the maturity of age; yet they who were once young are still the same now that they have become old, insomuch that though the stature and outward form of the individual are changed, yet his nature is one and the same, his person is one and the same. An infant’s limbs are small, a young man’s large, yet the infant and the young man are the same…, there were already present in embryo… In like manner, it behoves Christian doctrine to follow the same laws of progress, so as to be consolidated by years, enlarged by time, refined by age… Our forefathers in the old time sowed wheat in the Church’s field. It would be most unmeet and iniquitous if we, their descendants, instead of the genuine truth of corn, should reap the counterfeit error of tares (Mt 13:24 sq). This rather should be the result,—there should be no discrepancy between the first and the last. From doctrine which was sown as wheat, we should reap, in the increase, doctrine of the same kind—wheat also; so that when in process of time any of the original seed is developed, and now flourishes under cultivation, no change may ensue in the character of the plant… Therefore,… the same ought to be cultivated and taken care of by the industry of their children, the same ought to flourish and ripen, the same ought to advance and go forward to perfection.
maronite readings – rosary,team

The Holy Spirit tells us: Don’t let your mind succumb to temptation and sorrow, for joy of the heart is life for the soul. Sorrow is no good for anything and causes our spiritual death. It happens sometimes that the darkness of trial overwhelms your soul’s heaven; but this darkness is light! Thanks to it, you believe even in darkness; the mind feels lost, it fears no longer being able to see, no longer understanding anything. But this is the moment when the Lord speaks and makes himself present to the soul; and the soul listens, understands and loves in the fear of God. So don’t wait for Tabor to “see” God when you are already contemplating him on Sinai. Progress in the joy of a sincere heart that is wide open. And if it is impossible for you to keep that happiness, at least don’t lose courage and keep all your trust in God.

maronite readings – rosary,team