85th Meditation on God the Father
“Ephraim, how could I part with you? Israel, how could I give you up? How could I make you like Admah or treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender” (Hos 11:8).
If only we could know our Father’s heart better! Then the layer of ice around our heart would begin to melt, so that His love could penetrate it, transforming us and making us capable of loving like Him. Read More
NOTE: In today’s and tomorrow’s meditation, we will leave the usual framework of daily meditations, usually based on the reading or the Gospel of the day, to develop a theme that is very significant for our spiritual life: simplicity.
Simplicity, properly understood, is a great value. Indeed, simplicity does not mean simplifying all things and not being able to think in a differentiated way. Rather, in its essence, true simplicity means that we look at all things from God’s perspective, so that each is given its rightful place. It is the Holy Spirit who puts everything in order, both in the inner and in the outer life. Read More
Micah 5:1-4a
Thus says the Lord: “But you (Bethlehem) Ephrathah, the least of the clans of Judah, from you will come for me a future ruler of Israel whose origins go back to the distant past, to the days of old. Hence Yahweh will abandon them only until she who is in labour gives birth, and then those who survive of his race will be reunited to the Israelites. Read More
84th Meditation on God the Father
“I lead them with human ties, with leading-strings of love. With them, I was like someone lifting an infant to his cheek, and I bent down to feed him” (Hos 11:4).
The Father uses a thousand ways to show His love to mankind. In many forms he bends down to us, and this happens most clearly in the birth of the Son of God, who came to us as a man, so that we might understand how close God wants to be to us, how precious we are to Him…. Read More
1 Cor 7:25-31
About people remaining virgin, I have no directions from the Lord, but I give my own opinion as a person who has been granted the Lord’s mercy to be faithful. Well then, because of the stress which is weighing upon us, the right thing seems to be this: it is good for people to stay as they are. If you are joined to a wife, do not seek to be released; if you are freed of a wife, do not look for a wife. Read More
83rd Meditation on God the Father
“I myself taught Ephraim to walk, I myself took them by the arm, but they did not know that I healed them” (Hos 11:3).
The Father and His chosen people… What a love story with so many facets! In yesterday’s verses we heard that the more God called them, the more the children of Israel turned away from Him and turned to idols. Read More
82nd Meditation on God the Father
“When Israel was a child I loved him, and I called my son out of Egypt. But the more I called, the further they went away from me; they offered sacrifice to Baal and burnt incense to idols” (Hos 11:1-2).
This is the drama that our Father experiences so often. It runs through the whole of human history, and it is particularly painful when it is the people of Israel who are the protagonists. The verses that follow this passage from the Prophet Hosea show us how tenderly God calls His own and how He is always ready to forgive them. But it is with sorrow that He has to note that the more He calls them and shows them His love, the more His people turn away from Him and offend Him with their aberrations. Read More
1 Cor 6:1-11
Is one of you with a complaint against another so brazen as to seek judgement from sinners and not from God’s holy people? Do you not realise that the holy people of God are to be the judges of the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you not competent for petty cases? Do you not realise that we shall be the judges of angels? – then quite certainly over matters of this life. Read More
81st Meditation on God the Father
“How hard for me to grasp your thoughts,
how many, God, there are!
If I count them, they are more than the grains of sand;
if I come to an end, I am still with you” (Ps 139:17-18). Read More
Note: By a mistake, we have today taken the reading corresponding to the odd-numbered year. However, it allows us to meditate on a very important theme for the Christian life, which will certainly be profitable for many.
Col 1:24-2:3
It makes me happy to be suffering for you now, and in my own body to make up all the hardships that still have to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his body, the Church, of which I was made a servant with the responsibility towards you that God gave to me, that of completing God’s message, the message which was a mystery hidden for generations and centuries and has now been revealed to his holy people. Read More
