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
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Faithful till the death
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.
Keeping fidelity
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
THE DESIRE OF GOD
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
THAT ALL MAY BE ONE
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.
The Lord’s Day
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.
INFLUENCE GOD’S TIMES
510th Meditation
“Time is in my hands, but with your zeal and love you can influence it” (Interior Word).
We can take this as an invitation from God that we can even collaborate in the history of salvation, because the times of His salvific action are not static and immovable.
Praying without losing heart
Lk 18:1-8
And Jesus told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor regarded man; and there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Vindicate me against my adversary.’ For a while he refused; but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will vindicate her, or she will wear me out by her continual coming.’”
The seriousness of faith
Lk 17:26-37
Jesus said to his disciples: ‘As it was in Noah’s day, so will it also be in the days of the Son of man. People were eating and drinking, marrying wives and husbands, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and the Flood came and destroyed them all. It will be the same as it was in Lot’s day: people were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but the day Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and it destroyed them all. It will be the same when the day comes for the Son of man to be revealed. ‘When that Day comes, no one on the housetop, with his possessions in the house, must come down to collect them, nor must anyone in the fields turn back.
THE FERVOUR OF THE RIGHTEOUS
509th Meditation
When we accept and internalise the love of our Heavenly Father, when God Himself dwells in us and His Holy Spirit transforms us, then we come to know our Father’s heart more and more. Very soon we will notice that He has an urgent desire to make His love known to all people.