Thursday, July 28 : Symeon the New Theologian

Your Master is not disturbed by mockery, and do you get upset? He bears spittle, blows, strokes of the lash, and can you not take a harsh word? He accepts the cross, a humiliating death, the torture of the nails, and can you not undertake to carry out the lowliest of tasks? How can you become a sharer in his glory (1Pt 5,1) if you will not consent to become a sharer in his humiliating death? Your having forsaken your wealth is truly useless if you have no wish to take up the cross, as he himself commanded with his word of truth. “Sell what you have and give to the poor,” stipulated Christ to the young man, as also to ourselves; “Take up your cross”, “Come, follow me” (Mt 19,21; 16,24). You may indeed have shared out your goods yet without consenting to take up your cross, that is to say courageously enduring the attack of all kinds of trials. You have strayed on the path of life and, to your own misfortune, have parted from your most sweet God and Master. I implore you, my brethren, let us observe all Christ’s commands; let us bear until death, for love of the Kingdom of heaven, the trials that assail us so that we may have communion with the glory of Jesus, share in eternal life and inherit the joy of those good things that cannot be expressed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

maronite readings – rosary,team