Tuesday, July 5 : Saint Gregory the Great

“He who is mocked by his neighbour, as I am, will call upon God and he will answer him” (Jb 12,4 Vg)… But sometimes the soul perseveres in good works with a constant heart, and yet is pushed hard by the scoffing of men; it does admirable deeds, and gets only abuse; and he who might have been encouraged to come out of himself by commendation, is repulsed by insults and returns back again into himself. He establishes himself the more firmly in God, as he finds no place else where he may rest in peace: for all his hope is fixed in his creator. Amidst ridicule and abuse, he implores only the interior witness. His soul in distress becomes God’s neighbor, in proportion as he is a stranger to the favor of man’s esteem. So he pours himself out in prayer and, hard-pressed from without, is refined with a more perfect purity to enter more deeply into all that is interior. Therefore, it is well said at this time, “He who is mocked by his neighbor as I am, will call upon God and he will answer him…” And while the soul of the good strengthens itself, with compunction, in prayer, it is united within itself in the hearing of the most High, in the very act that severs it from the approval of men outside itself… “For the upright man’s simplicity is laughed to scorn” (Jb 12,4) It is the wisdom of this world to conceal one’s feelings with pretence, to veil the sense with words; to show things that are false as true, and to make out as fallacious what is true. But on the other hand it is the wisdom of the righteous, to pretend nothing in show, to discover the meaning by words; to love the truth as it is, to avoid falsehood; to set forth good deeds freely, to bear evil more gladly than to do it; to seek no revenge of a wrong, to count ill repute as a gain for the truth’s sake. But this simplicity of the righteous is laughed to scorn, because the goodness of purity is taken for folly by the wise men of this world. For doubtless everything that is done from innocence is counted foolish by them, and whatever truth sanctions in practice sounds weak to carnal wisdom.
maronite readings – rosary,team