SPIRITUAL GROWTH  

“You must endure the dark hours and trials so that your trust may fully depend on me” (Inner Word).

This is one of the most difficult lessons we must learn on our way to eternity, but it is also one of the most important and fruitful. Our Father never actively desires evil or suffering. Why would He? However, evil entered the world as a consequence of man’s sin, bringing suffering and death with it, as our faith teaches us. We lost paradisiacal innocence, and now humanity lives under this shadow.

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The yoke of Jesus

Mt 11:28-30

‘Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.’

Many people feel crushed under a heavy burden, which they are barely able to bear and which seems to rob their whole existence of joy, determining all their feelings. Already when they wake up they are weighed down by this burden and have to struggle all day long not to sink under it.

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DO NOT WEARY THE SOUL

“Avoid irrelevant things that hinder, paralyze, sap strength and determination, and weary the soul” (Inner Word).

Today’s phrase does not refer to legitimate recreation and rest, but rather to the distractions in our lives. We easily stray from what is essential and get lost in trivialities. In an age when media and cell phones dominate people’s lives excessively, we may no longer even notice the distraction. We may have become accustomed to this scattered, hectic pace of life and even feel comfortable with it.

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The Simple Way

Mt 11:20-24

‘At that time Jesus exclaimed, ‘I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to little children. Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do. Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.’

In today’s Gospel, we find two affirmations of the Lord of great importance.

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BEAR FRUIT EVERY DAY

“If man knew how much he could gain in a single day, his heart would be filled with joy as soon as he woke up, knowing that a new day had dawned in which he could praise God and multiply his reward to His glory, and he would be encouraged and strengthened throughout the day for whatever he had to do or endure” (St. Mechthild of Hackeborn).

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The consequence of truth

Mt 11:20-24

‘Then he began to reproach the towns in which most of his miracles had been worked, because they refused to repent. ‘Alas for you, Chorazin! Alas for you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Still, I tell you that it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on Judgement Day than for you. And as for you, Capernaum, did you want to be raised as high as heaven? You shall be flung down to hell. For if the miracles done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have been standing yet. Still, I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on Judgement Day than for you.’ Read More

Darkness and its influence on men

Ex 1:8-14:22

‘Then there came to power in Egypt a new king who had never heard of Joseph. ‘Look,’ he said to his people, ‘the Israelites are now more numerous and stronger than we are. We must take precautions to stop them from increasing any further, or if war should break out, they might join the ranks of our enemies. They might take arms against us and then escape from the country.’ Accordingly they put taskmasters over the Israelites to wear them down by forced labour. In this way they built the store-cities of Pithom and Rameses for Pharaoh. But the harder their lives were made, the more they increased and spread, until people came to fear the Israelites. So the Egyptians gave them no mercy in the demands they made, making their lives miserable with hard labour: with digging clay, making bricks, doing various kinds of field – work – all sorts of labour that they imposed on them without mercy. Pharaoh then gave all his people this command: ‘Throw every new-born boy into the river, but let all the girls live.’

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Love of God and love of neighbour

Lk 10:25-37

And now a lawyer stood up and, to test him, asked, ‘Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the Law? What is your reading of it?’ He replied, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have answered right, do this and life is yours.’ But the man was anxious to justify himself and said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ In answer Jesus said, ‘A man was once on his way down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of bandits; they stripped him, beat him and then made off, leaving him half dead.

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