Wednesday, September 15 : Isaac the Syrian

Whoever takes up fire and flame in the cause of truth has not yet learned truth as it really is. When he has truly learned it then he will cease to be inflamed because of it. God’s gift, and the knowledge bestowed by this gift, are never motives for being troubled or raising one’s voice. For wherever the Spirit dwells with love and humility is a place where peace alone reigns… If fiery zeal had been any use for our restoration, why would God have put on a mortal body and used gentleness and humble means to convert the world to his Father? And why would he have stretched himself out on the cross for sinners or delivered up his most holy body to suffering for the sake of the world? For my part, I attest that God could only have done so for one reason: to make his love known to the world so that our capacity for love, already increased by such an event, might be made captive to his own love. In this way the admirable power of the Kingdom of heaven, which consists in love, found an outlet for expression in his Son’s death… that the world might be assured of God’s love for his creation. If this wonderful deed had no other purpose than the remission of our sins some other means would have been enough to bring it about. Who would have refused it if he had fulfilled it just by dying, without anything else? But he did not want just to die that you might understand the mystery… Why were insults and spitting needed?… O wisdom, giving life! Now you have understood and experienced the purpose of our Lord’s coming and of everything that followed from it even before he had explained it clearly to us from his own lips. For it is written that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”

maronite readings – rosary,team