515th Meditation
Our Father loves it when, in secret, we speak with Him and take time to be with Him (cf. Mt 6:6). In these moments, intimacy, friendship, trust, sensitivity to perceive his presence grow… There, in secret, he can easily speak to our hearts and build his holy temple in us.
1 Macc 2:15-29
‘The king’s commissioners who were enforcing the apostasy came to the town of Modein for the sacrifices. Many Israelites gathered round them, but Mattathias and his sons drew apart. The king’s commissioners then addressed Mattathias as follows, ‘You are a respected leader, a great man in this town; you have sons and brothers to support you. Be the first to step forward and conform to the king’s decree, as all the nations have done, and the leaders of Judah and the survivors in Jerusalem; you and your sons shall be reckoned among the Friends of the King, you and your sons will be honoured with gold and silver and many presents.’
514th Meditation
When we have come to know a little of God’s love and have come to understand His goodness more and more, the desire to reciprocate His love increases in us. The Father wants us to know Him, to honour Him and to love Him. And how are we to do this?
Let us listen to God the Father’s answer to Mother Eugenia:
“With regard to the means of honouring Me as I desire, all I ask of you is great confidence. Do not think I want austerities or mortifications; I do not want you to walk barefoot or to lay your faces in the dust, or to cover your-selves with ashes. No, no! My dearest wish is that you behave as My children, simply and trusting in Me!”
So, what the Lord expects of us is not, in the first instance, external ascetic practices, however important and necessary these may be in certain circumstances. It is something much deeper: our trust.
In asking for our trust, the Father is asking for our heart, our genuine and simple surrender to Him. Indeed, we honour Him when we simply trust Him, for then we believe in His love and give Him the right response.
This trust binds us even more to God than all the good works we can do for Him! If we give the Father our unconditional trust, we also detach ourselves from all forms of disordered self-determination and our tendency to want to take our life into our own hands.
Trusting in God means receiving life from His hands: every day, every hour… And this path leads us to freedom and gratitude.
Let us ask Him, for example, in the mornings: “What is your plan for today, beloved Father? I trust in You!”
Then, this attitude of trust will permeate our whole existence, and the foundation on which we build our life will become more and more secure. Moreover, we honour our Father when we accept life in this way and fulfil the mission He has entrusted to us as His children.
2 Macc 7:1,20-31
It also happened that seven brothers were arrested with their mother. The king tried to force them to taste some pork, which the Law forbids, by torturing them with whips and scourges. But the mother was especially admirable and worthy of honourable remembrance, for she watched the death of seven sons in the course of a single day, and bravely endured it because of her hopes in the Lord. Indeed she encouraged each of them in their ancestral tongue; filled with noble conviction, she reinforced her womanly argument with manly courage, saying to them, ‘I do not know how you appeared in my womb; it was not I who endowed you with breath and life, I had not the shaping of your every part.
We lost so much when the gates of Paradise were closed to us! Even if we have become accustomed to it and no longer perceive it with great pain, it is a deep misery into which man plunged when he fell into sin. But in the depths of our souls there is still a longing for Paradise, which can become an incentive for us to seek God. Read More
2 Macc 6:18-31
Eleazar, one of the foremost teachers of the Law, a man already advanced in years and of most noble appearance, had his mouth forced open, to make him eat a piece of pork. But he, resolving to die with honour rather than to live disgraced, walked of his own accord to the torture of the wheel, having spat the stuff out, as befits those with the courage to reject what is not lawful to taste, rather than live. The people supervising the ritual meal, forbidden by the Law, because of the length of time for which they had known him, took him aside and privately urged him to have meat brought of a kind he could properly use, prepared by himself, and only pretend to eat the portions of sacrificial meat as prescribed by the king; this action would enable him to escape death, by availing himself of an act of kindness prompted by their long friendship.
1 Macc 1:10-15, 41-43, 54-57, 62-64
‘From these there grew a wicked offshoot, Antiochus Epiphanes son of King Antiochus; once a hostage in Rome, he became king in the 107th year of the kingdom of the Greeks. It was then that there emerged from Israel a set of renegades who led many people astray. ‘Come,’ they said, ‘let us ally ourselves with the gentiles surrounding us, for since we separated ourselves from them many misfortunes have overtaken us.’ Read More
A beautiful flower in our Father’s heart is His mercy. With it, and not with inflexible severity, He wants to judge the world. Mercy is His unsurpassable motivation to be ever vigilant and to go out again and again in search of men, so that they may open themselves to His love. Read More
511st Meditation
Indeed, one would think that in all those parts of the world that have been blessed with the announcement of the Christian faith, as well as the regions marked by Judaism and those where there is knowledge of the Old Testament scriptures, God should be recognised as loving Father.
1 Tes 5:1-6
But as to the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When people say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as travail comes upon a woman with child, and there will be no escape. But you are not in darkness, brethren, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all sons of light and sons of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.
