Repent, says the Lord,
for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand. MT 4:17
DEUTERONOMY 30:15-20 ©
My Soul's Beloved,
All through Sacred Scripture the Way of Truth and Life is clearly mapped out for all who wish to follow You closely and faithfully - there is no excuse Lord, for those who know You and say they love You to follow any other path than the one that You chose and You command us to follow.
The world is in the mess it is today not just because of ignorance of You and Your Word for not all are ignorant but because of concupiscence. Those who knew failed to hand down what they knew to be true, good, and beautiful because they did not foresee their failure in carrying out their foremost duty, which is handing down the faith in all its pristine truth and beauty would result in raising godless generations after them.
We are all to blame for not taking our God-given duty to raise Godfearing children seriously. It is the one thing that was paramount and we failed miserably. But You O Lord can write straight on the crooked lines of our lives. This is our hope. This is our prayer. In Your goodness, mercy, and tender compassion blot out our sins, and our failures, and do for us and for our children what we neglected to do. We ask this in Your mighty Name Lord. Amen.
‘I call heaven and earth to witness against you today: I set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live, in the love of the Lord your God, obeying his voice, clinging to him; for in this your life consists, and on this depends your long stay in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob he would give them.’
PSALM 1:1-4,6 ©
Happy indeed is the man
who follows not the counsel of the wicked;
nor lingers in the way of sinners
nor sits in the company of scorners,
but whose delight is the law of the Lord
and who ponders his law day and night.
nor lingers in the way of sinners
nor sits in the company of scorners,
but whose delight is the law of the Lord
and who ponders his law day and night.
He is like a tree that is planted
beside the flowing waters,
that yields its fruit in due season
and whose leaves shall never fade;
and all that he does shall prosper.
that yields its fruit in due season
and whose leaves shall never fade;
and all that he does shall prosper.
Not so are the wicked, not so!
For they like winnowed chaff
shall be driven away by the wind:
for the Lord guards the way of the just
but the way of the wicked leads to doom.
shall be driven away by the wind:
for the Lord guards the way of the just
but the way of the wicked leads to doom.
Happy the man who has placed his trust in the Lord.
LUKE 9:22-25 ©
My Soul's Beloved,
We have just entered the season of Lent and today as I reflect through the day on the 2nd Station - Jesus carries His Cross, it is wonderful that the Liturgy of the Holy Mass offers me this Gospel passage to meditate on.
‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross every day and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, that man will save it. What gain, then, is it for a man to have won the whole world and to have lost or ruined his very self?’
Among the many, many great saints whose lives resplendently adorn the Church, are those who truly understood the great value of suffering and all that Your passion and death wrought for the salvation of the world. They gazed on You crucified on the Cross and meditated constantly on Your holy wounds. So ardently and passionately did they love You and feel the horror of the consequences of the sins of the human race inflicted so cruelly on Your sacred body, that they were granted the privilege of actually bearing these wounds. While we O Lord, myself included, run away from suffering, complain, carry our cross grudgingly, and whine constantly to You to take away the cross that is laid on us.
Today, O Lord, and through this glorious season of Lent grant us all the wisdom to understand that there is no crown without the cross and to accept every cross that is given to us gladly uniting all its pains with the unimaginable and horrific sufferings You endured for my salvation and for the salvation of the world.
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