maronite readings

God is the sovereign master of his plan. But to carry it out he also makes use of his creatures’ co-operation. This use is not a sign of weakness, but rather a token of almighty God’s greatness and goodness. For God grants his creatures not only their existence, but also the dignity of acting on their own… and thus of co-operating in the accomplishment of his plan.
To human beings God even gives the power of freely sharing in his providence by entrusting them with the responsibility of “subduing” the earth and having dominion over it. (Gen 1, 26-28) God thus enables men to be intelligent and free causes in order to complete the work of creation, to perfect its harmony for their own good and that of their neighbours. Though often unconscious collaborators with God’s will, they can also enter deliberately into the divine plan by their actions, their prayers and their sufferings. They then fully become “God’s fellow workers” and co-workers for his kingdom. (1Co 3,9 ; 1Th 3,2) The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator. God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes: “For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Ph 2,13).
maronite readings – rosary,team

From the highest heaven, God offers the riches of his grace to all men. He is himself the source of salvation and of light, whence mercy and goodness flow eternally. But not all men make use of his strength and his grace in the perfect exercise of virtue and the realization of its marvels; only those do it who put their resolutions into practice and who prove their attachment to God through actions, those who have completely turned away from evil, who firmly adhere to God’s commandments and who fix the eyes of their spirit on Christ, the Sun of justice (Mal 3:20). From the highest heaven, Christ offers the help of his arm to those who fight, and he exhorts them through these words of the Gospel: “Whoever acknowledges me before men I will acknowledge before my father in heaven.” As a servant of God, every one of the saints acknowledges that, in this transitory life and before mortal men, he is for Christ; he does so during a short lapse of time and in the presence of a small number of men. Whereas our Lord Jesus Christ… will acknowledge us in the world of eternity, before God his Father, surrounded by the angels and the archangels and all the powers of heaven, in the presence of all men, from Adam to the end of time. For all will rise and will stand before Christ’s tribunal. Then, in the presence of all and visible to all, he will make known, he will glorify, and he will crown those who proved their faith to him until the end.
maronite readings – rosary,team

We are nothing of ourselves but we are a great deal with the Holy Spirit. The human person is all earthly, wholly animal, only the Holy Spirit can raise the soul and elevate it on high. Like those kinds of spectacles which magnify things, the Holy Spirit makes us see both the good and the bad enlarged. With the Holy Spirit one sees everything enlarged: the greatness of the least action done for God and the greatness of the least fault. As a clockmaker can distinguish with his spectacles the smallest parts of a watch so, with the light of the Holy Spirit, we can see every detail of our poor lives. Everything is cold without the Holy Spirit and so, whenever we feel our fervor fading, we should make a novena to the Holy Spirit to ask for faith and love!

maronite readings – rosary,team

If God’s gift to the world in sending it his Son is so good, so worthy of God, why did he then defer his gift for so long? Why, when evil in the world was still in its early stages, did God not cut short its hidden development? I have time to respond briefly to this objection that it is God’s prevenient Wisdom, the One who is good by nature, who has held back this gift. Just as with physical illnesses… doctors wait until the disease, which is hidden within the body to begin with, manifests itself without so that he can apply the remedy it needs once it has become visible, so, once the disease of sin had attacked the human race, the world’s Physician waited until no kind of wickedness should remain concealed. That is why God did not apply his remedy to the world immediately after Cain’s jealousy and murder of his brother Abel… It was when vice had reached its peak and there was no single act of evil that men had not attempted that God set about curing the sore, no longer in its beginnings but in its full development. In this way the divine remedy could extend to every human weakness… But then, why was the grace of the Gospel not at once extended over all? True, the divine call is addressed equally to all alike, without distinction of condition, age or race… But he who has the freely disposition of all things within his hands, pushed to the extreme his respect for humankind. He has permitted each one of us to have our own domain over which we alone are masters: this is the will, the faculty that does not know bondage, which remains free, founded on the autonomy of reason. Therefore faith is at the free disposition of those who receive the message of the Gospel.

maronite readings – rosary,team

“As you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house,’” (Lk 10:5) so that the Lord himself might enter and remain there, as with Mary… This greeting is the mystery of faith, which shines forth in the world. Through it enmity is stifled, war is stopped, and people acknowledge one another. The effect of that greeting was hidden by a veil in spite of the fact that it prefigures the mystery of the resurrection… when the light rises and dawn chases night away. From the moment Christ sent out his disciples, people began to give and receive this greeting, a source of healing and blessing… This greeting with its hidden power… is amply sufficient for us all. That is why Our Lord sent it out, together with his disciples, as forerunner, so that it might bring about peace and, carried by the voice of the apostles whom he sent, prepare the way before them. It was sown in every dwelling…; it entered into all who heard it so as to separate and set apart the children it recognized as its own. It remained in them but it denounced those who were alen to it, for they did not welcome it. This greeting of peace did not dry up; it began in the apostles and then sprang up in their brethren, revealing the Lord’s inexhaustible treasures… Present in those who offered greetings in this way and in those who welcomed the greeting, this announcement of peace was neither diminished nor divided. It announced that the Father is near and is in everyone; it revealed that the Son’s mission is bound up with all even if its object is to be with his Father. It will not cease to proclaim that images are now brought to completion and truth will cast all shadows away at last.
maronite readings – rosary,team