maronite readings

As he sent out disciples into his harvest – which had,in truth,been sown by the Father’s Word but which required to be worked over, cultivated and carefully tended if the birds were not to ravage the seed – Jesus said to them: “Behold, I send you out like lambs among wolves”… The Good Shepherd could not but fear wolves in his flock: these disciples were sent to spread grace abroad, not to become a prey. But the Good Shepherd’s care prevented the wolves from doing anything against the lambs he sends out. He sends them that Isaiah’s prophecy might be fulfilled: “The wolf and the lamb shall graze alike” (Is 65,25)… And besides, were not the disciples who were sent out ordered not even to carry a staff?… What our humble Lord laid down, his disciples also accomplished by practising humility. For he sends them out to broadcast the faith, not by force but by their teaching; not by exerting force of will but by exalting the doctrine of humility. And he thought good to link patience to humility since, according to Peter’s testimony: “When he was insulted, he returned no insult; when he suffered, he did not threaten” (1Pt 2,23). This amounts to saying: “Be imitators of me: let go of your thirst for revenge; respond to the blows of pride, not by returning evil for evil but with the patience that forgives. No one should perform on their own account what they reprehend in others; gentleness confronts the arrogant with far greater strength”.
maronite readings – rosary,team

In His gracious goodness, God has seen to it that what He had revealed for the salvation of all nations would abide perpetually in its full integrity and be handed on to all generations. Therefore Christ the Lord in whom the full revelation of the supreme God is brought to completion (2Cor. 1:20; 3:13; 4:6), commissioned the Apostles to preach to all men that Gospel which is the source of all saving truth and moral teaching, and to impart to them heavenly gifts. This Gospel had been promised in former times through the prophets, and Christ Himself had fulfilled it and promulgated it with His lips. This commission was faithfully fulfilled by the Apostles who, by their oral preaching, by example, and by observances handed on what they had received from the lips of Christ, from living with Him, and from what He did, or what they had learned through the prompting of the Holy Spirit. The commission was fulfilled, too, by those Apostles and apostolic men who under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit committed the message of salvation to writing. But in order to keep the Gospel forever whole and alive within the Church, the Apostles left bishops as their successors, “handing over” to them “the authority to teach in their own place.”(Saint Irenaeus) This sacred tradition, therefore, and Sacred Scripture of both the Old and New Testaments are like a mirror in which the pilgrim Church on earth looks at God, from whom she has received everything, until she is brought finally to see Him as He is, face to face (1 John 3:2)… This tradition which comes from the Apostles develop in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. For there is a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down. This happens through the contemplation and study made by believers, who treasure these things in their hearts (Luke, 2:19, 51) through a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience, and through the preaching of those who have received through Episcopal succession the sure gift of truth. For as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her.
maronite readings – rosary,team

The two disciples were making their way to Emmaus. Their appearance was perfectly ordinary, like that of many another person passing through the vicinity. And it is there, very simply, that Jesus appears to them and walks with them, engaging them in a conversation that makes them forget their tiredness… Jesus on the way. Lord, you are always great! But your condescending to follow us, to seek us out in our daily comings and goings, always moves me. Lord, grant us simplicity of spirit; give us a single eye, an unclouded mind, that we may understand you when you come to us bearing no external signs of your glory. When they reached the inn, the journey ended and the two disciples who, without realizing it, had been struck to the depths of their hearts by the word and love of God made man, are sorry about his departing. For Jesus takes his leave of them, “giving the impression that he was going on farther”. Our Lord never forces himself on us. Once we have perceived the purity of the love he has placed in our souls, he wants us to call on him freely. We have to hold him back by force and beg him: “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is nearly over, night is falling”. We are like this too: always lacking in boldness, through lack of sincerity, perhaps, or from shyness. What we are really thinking is: Stay with us, because darkness surrounds our soul and you alone are the light, you alone can satisfy the thirst consuming us… And Jesus stays with us. Our eyes are opened like those of Cleophas and his companion when Christ breaks the bread; and even though he disappears once more from sight, we too will be able to set out again on our journey – night begins to fall – to speak of him to others since so great a joy cannot be kept within a single heart.         The way to Emmaus. Our God has filled this name filled with sweetness. And the whole world is Emmaus because the Lord has opened up the divine ways of the earth.

maronite readings – rosary,team

Be mindful of the mystery of Christ! Born from the Virgin’s womb, both Servant and Lord: Servant to work, Lord to command so that he might plant a Kingdom for God in men’s hearts. Twofold in origin but one in nature, he is not one thing when he comes from the Father, another when he comes from the Virgin. He is the very same, the one born from the Father before all ages, who has taken flesh of the Virgin in the course of time. And that is why he is named both Servant and Lord: Servant for our sake but, due to the unity of the divine substance, God from God, Principle from Principle, Son equal in all things to the Father who is his equal. For the Father has not begotten a Son different to himself – the Son of whom he asserted: “In him I am well pleased” (Mt 3,17)… In every respect the Servant preserves his titles of dignity. God is great and the Servant is also great: when he came in the flesh he did not lose this “greatness that has no limit” (Ps 145[144],3)… “Though he was in the form of God he did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave” (Phil 2,6-7)… Therefore, as Son of God, he is equal to God; he took the form of a slave by becoming incarnate; he whose greatness has no limit “tasted death” (Heb 2,9)… How good is the condition of a Servant that has set us all free! Yes, how good it is! It won for him “the name which is above all other names”! How good this humility is! It was through it that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2,10-11).
maronite readings – rosary,team

The Jewish Temple, visible and material, was confined to one place. It could not be a home for the whole world, nay not for one nation, but only for a few out of the multitude. But the Christian Temple is invisible and spiritual, and hence admits of being everywhere… Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, “The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth” (Jn 4,23). “In spirit and in truth;” for unless his Presence were invisible, it could not be real. That which is seen is not real; that which is material is dissoluble; that which is in time is temporary; that which is local is but partial. But the Christian Temple is wherever Christians are found in Christ’s Name; it is as fully in each place as if it were in no other; and we may enter it, and appear among its holy inmates, God’s heavenly family, as really as the Jewish worshipper betook himself to the visible courts of the Temple. We see nothing; but this I repeat, is a condition necessary to its being every where. It would not be everywhere, if we saw it anywhere; we see nothing; but we enjoy every thing. And thus is it set before us in the Old Testament, whether in prophecy or by occasional anticipation. Isaiah prophesies that “it shall come to pass, that the Mountain of the Lord’s House shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow into it” (Is 2,2). And it was shown by anticipation to Jacob… when he saw in his dream “a ladder set upon the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven, and behold the Angels of God ascending and descending on it” (Gen 28,12), and to Elisha’s servant when “the Lord opened the eyes of the young man … and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” (2 Kings 6,17). These were anticipations of what was to be continually, when Christ came and “opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers;” and what that opening consisted in, St. Paul tells us—”Ye are come,” he says, “unto Mount Sion, and unto the City of the Living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of Angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born which are written in heaven” (Heb 12,22).
maronite readings – rosary,team