THURSDAY OF THE FOURTH WEEK OF LENT - 2023

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son:
everyone who believes in him has eternal life. JN 3:16

EXODUS 32:7-14 ©

My Sou's Beloved,

You are the new Moses. You stand in the breach and plead for us night and day before the Father. One can lose heart when we look at the diabolic evil that is spreading its putrid tentacles all over the earth. No matter where we look on the globe we see a culture of death being celebrated by those who have given themselves over as slaves to the devil.

The cup of iniquity overflows and it would be right and fitting if God wiped us off the face of the world just as He wanted to do in the time of Moses when the people He had chosen for His own worshipped as god an image of a calf that they made of molten metal and worshipped. How eloquently pleaded with God to spare His chosen people when His anger blazed against them. With a mighty arm, God liberated them with awesome signs and wonders and yet so quickly they forgot their Liberator. He pleaded with God to remember how He saved the people He had chosen for His own and how He from them from slavery to liberation. He reminded You of the promises You had made, the oaths You swore to make of this people a mighty nation.

In the same way, my Lord and my God, You stand in the breach until the end of time and plead with our heavenly Father to remember the price that You paid for the redemption of the world and the Father looks at Your wounds, Your sufferings, the Cross on which You were raised and drew upon Yourself and into Yourself the sins of the whole world and redeemed us. And the Father relents and does not destroy us as we deserve. 

PSALM 105(106):19-23 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

Night and day, Your faithful servants cry out to You not to forsake us, not to forget us, and to remember the price that You paid to liberate us from slavery to sin. There is a remnant who remain steadfast in faith but the rest of the world is given over to diabolic slavery to the sins of the flesh and to worshipping the things of the world. We are an evil and idolatrous people who deserve to be punished severely for our wanton disregard for the good, the true, the noble, and the beautiful. We prefer the fleshpots of Egypt rather than to worship the God who loves us and has given His life for us in order to save us.

Thank You for always keeping before the Father the price You paid to save us. Your redeeming sacrifice on the Cross pours torrents of mercy upon us and prevents the wrath of God from consuming us.

Grant us this grace O Lord, to keep the Cross ever before us and we will never forget the extent to which God has gone to save us. Thank You, Beloved, for standing in the breach night and day and turning back the righteous and justified anger of God, and keeping us from destruction.

JOHN 5:31-47 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

Apart from You, O Lord, there is no salvation. We can spend a lifetime studying the Scriptures but if we do so with myopic vision and refuse to embrace the whole Truth revealed through Scripture and Tradition we will only perceive You dimly as through a veil. 

The triune God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from the dawn of creation is immanent in the world and in every event that has taken place in salvation history. Each Person of the Trinity is uniquely different, each is wholly God, they are One in Three and Three in One. Each testifies to the Other. The Father sent the Son, the Son sent the Holy Spirit and the work of our redemption is the work of God. 

All that God has to say He has uttered through His Eternal Word and that Word cannot be contained within the confines of the Scriptures alone. God's Word is alive, it breathes with the breath of the Holy Spirit. One Word uttered by the Father and sustained by the Holy Spirit so it can be heard by all who listen with a humble and obedient heart as it reverberates from eternity to eternity. 

Who are we to deny what God desires to reveal in the whole of salvation history? The Wisdom of Solomon is the Wisdom of God, Apostolic Tradition handed down to the Church is the revelation of God and the Wisdom of the Church Fathers is the wisdom given to them from God. We will never fully grasp the mysteries of God; we receive insights, and we may have a clearer understanding, and a fuller perspective but the finite mind can never know completely. There is always more. 

We thank You, Lord, for Holy Mother Church, through whom the Holy Spirit speaks uninterruptedly in every age and she is always attentive to the voice of God, the movement of the Holy Spirit. She is the bride of the Bridegroom and the fullness of God dwells in her.