Thursday, August 13 : Saint Gregory the Great
“Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath. And a woman was there who for eighteen years had been crippled by a spiri” … “She was bent over and was quite unable to look upwards.” Every sinner who thinks about the things of earth and fails to seek those of heavenly things is unable to look upwards. When he follows his lower desires his heart is bent double and he is always looking at what he is continually thinking about. Turn into your hearts, dearly beloved. Look at what you are turning over in your thoughts at all hours. One person thinks about public honors, another about money, another about the acquisition of property. All these are inferior things. When your heart is involved with such things it is bent out of its upright condition. Since it is not rising toward heavenly desires, it resembles the woman who was bent over and unable to look upwards… The psalmist spoke figuratively of the human race m regard to our bent condition: “I was bent over and humbled all sides” (Ps 38[37]:7. Contemplative man was indeed created to behold the heavenly light. Because his sins deserved it, he was cast out to endure the darkness of his heart. Because he had no desire for things on high, he stretched out to things below… If a human being who had lost his heavenly contemplation were to think only of his physical necessities he would be bent over and humbled, but not on all sides. When it is not only necessity that casts him down… but forbidden pleasures bring him low as well, he is not just bent over but “bent over on all sides”.
maronite readings – rosary,team
