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Showing posts from July, 2014

St. Augustine on Today's Gospel

Gospel for Wednesday of the 17th Week of Ordinary Time Imitating the Lord’s patience Our Lord was an example of incomparable patience. He bore with a “devil” among his disciples even to his Passion (Jn 6,70). He said: “Let them grow together until the harvest lest you uproot the wheat when you pull out the weeds” (cf. Mt 13,29f.). As a symbol of the Church he preached that the net would bring back to shore, namely the end of the world, every kind of fish, both good and bad. And he made it known in various other ways, whether openly or in parables, that there would always be a mixture of good and bad. But nevertheless he stresses that we have to protect the Church’s discipline when he says: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother” (Mt 18,15)…  Yet today we see people who think of nothing but stern commandments, who order that troublemakers be reproved, « not giving what is holy to

Thoughts from the Vine lunch

(1) There is no reason that Holiness cannot be the next worldwide revolution. St. Francis was one man whose holiness inspired a whole continent. What could God do with a small group of men and women today who wholeheartedly abandoned themselves to His will in a similar spirit? (2) The only thing standing between myself and holiness is myself. But I can never overcome myself; after all, I know all my own moves ... Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body? [ Rom 7:15-24 ] But what if the antagonist-self, faced not protagonist-self, but Christ? What if I crucified myself with Christ so that it was no longer I, but Christ in me? [ Gal 2:19-20 ] Surely He who has conquered and overcome the world [ Jn 16:33 ] can conquer antagonist-me. So, Foolish Self, pick up your cross and follow Him whose victory over sin has swallowed up death and gives the victory to us [ 1 Cor 15:54-57 ] victory over self, victory over the world, and whose reward is Holy Beatitude