Harden not your hearts today,
but listen to the voice of the Lord. PS 94:8
HOSEA 5:15-6:6 ©
My Soul's Beloved,
So often in our lives, we find ourselves seeking You most ardently when our hearts are broken, we are grief-stricken, and surrounded by thick darkness. In the season of our suffering, You are our only lifeline. In desperation, we wail unceasingly to You to hear and answer us. We cry to You for relief even when we think all hope is lost. Day and night, in all our waking moments we grope for You, we seek You ardently and prayer alone provides some measure of comfort because faith in You assures us that in the end, at a time of Your choosing, dawn will break on the night of our gloom and You will save.
The prophet Hosea articulates more eloquently than I ever could how well You know and understand our human nature. When all is well with us we take Your blessings for granted and like the prodigal son, we forget that we owe God everything. In the house of God, all our needs are met. He protects and keeps us safe in His love. It is only when we become selfish, disobedient, and conceited and we deliberately and willfully turn away from You that we wither and die. Cut off from You, Beloved, we soon find ourselves to our dismay foraging for food in the pigs' trough, that wisdom dawns and we begin to appreciate our Father's love for us.
No matter how far we stray from the paths of wisdom and goodness, holiness and truth, when we return, humble and contrite of heart resolving to sin no more, You quickly forgive all our sins. You restore a hundred-fold all the graces that we so foolishly and recklessly squandered in loose living and sin. Thank You for loving us unconditionally and for never tiring of forgiving us when we are truly repentant, humble, and contrite of heart.
How wonderful it is to have this confidence in You, my Lord, that no sooner do we pray,
‘Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us;
he has struck us down, but he will bandage our wounds;
after a day or two he will bring us back to life,
on the third day he will raise us
and we shall live in his presence.’
He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us;
he has struck us down, but he will bandage our wounds;
after a day or two he will bring us back to life,
on the third day he will raise us
and we shall live in his presence.’
Grant us this grace O Lord, to never take Your love for us for granted.
LUKE 18:9-14 ©
My Soul's Beloved,
Your parables bluntly reveal truths about our weaknesses because they are based on our own experiences. If we are honest we will see ourselves reflected in the characters portrayed in them. Which of us at some time or other not preened before God and others like the Pharisees, crowing in self-righteousness. Our self-deception is so deeply ingrained that we fail to recognize that all is grace and that any good we do is because through grace we align our will to Yours.
People around us who see us wrongfully conclude that we are virtuous because we are seen prominently at all religious gatherings. We sit in the front pew, we attend daily Holy Mass, we belong to many parish groups, and play an active and visible role in the community. We make sure we are seen and we are thrilled when we receive recognition and adulation when we give of our time and our money and become peevish and critical when our efforts and good works go unremarked and unnoticed.
How often, my Lord, I come to You in prayer with great expectations, believing that You owe me as I hold out for Your inspection the filthy rags of any good I think I have done. I stand before You like the Pharisee and pray unto myself and I am like a noisy gong. You do not hear me because of the deafening clanging and crashing of the cymbals of my self-adulation.
It is the prayer of the tax collector who is fully aware of his unworthiness, sinfulness, and weaknesses and who confesses them before You deeming himself unfit to even raise his eyes to You whose prayer is heard and answered. He is justified before You because he recognizes that he is a sinner in need of redemption, salvation, healing, and grace.
Each time I come into Your holy presence my Lord, may I come to You like the tax collector acknowledging that I am a sinner and that I need You. Keep me ever mindful that without You I am nothing and can do nothing. It is You and the grace that You lavish on those who are humble that makes all things possible. May I never forget what You say to me this day and always, ‘Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the man who humbles himself will be exalted.’ Stay with me Lord every moment of every day for as long as I live, take me by the hand, never let go, and guide my halting and faltering steps daily as I sojourn from this life to the life that is to come. Amen.
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