You will shine in the world like bright stars
because you are offering it the word of life. PH 2:15-16
ECCLESIASTICUS 27:5-8
My Soul's Beloved,
Too often I make the mistake of misjudging people and seeing virtue or wisdom, based on a very superficial knowledge of them. I have been disappointed in my assessment of people often because I have made false assumptions based on their looks, dress, or how they pleasingly they present themselves, failing to see their intrinsic worth, virtues, and strengths. I have focused on things that have no bearing on the truth.
Prudence takes time to weigh a person's worth after listening to them speak and getting acquainted with them in different settings. Only after spending time with someone can you truly assess their character, and the words of the writer in today's first reading have words of practical wisdom that are worthy of note and can save us embarrassment and grief if practiced:
In a shaken sieve the rubbish is left behind,
so too the defects of a man appear in his talk.
The kiln tests the work of the potter,
the test of a man is in his conversation.
The orchard where a tree grows is judged on the quality of its fruit,
similarly a man’s words betray what he feels.
Do not praise a man before he has spoken,
since this is the test of men.
PSALM 91(92):2-3,13-16
It is good to give you thanks, O Lord.
LUKE 6:39-45
My Soul's Beloved,
In a shaken sieve the rubbish is left behind,
so too the defects of a man appear in his talk.
The kiln tests the work of the potter,
the test of a man is in his conversation.
The orchard where a tree grows is judged on the quality of its fruit,
similarly a man’s words betray what he feels.
Do not praise a man before he has spoken,
since this is the test of men.
PSALM 91(92):2-3,13-16
It is good to give you thanks, O Lord.
It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to make music to your name, O Most High,
to proclaim your love in the morning
and your truth in the watches of the night.
to make music to your name, O Most High,
to proclaim your love in the morning
and your truth in the watches of the night.
The just will flourish like the palm tree
and grow like a Lebanon cedar.
Planted in the house of the Lord
they will flourish in the courts of our God,
still bearing fruit when they are old,
still full of sap, still green,
to proclaim that the Lord is just.
In him, my rock, there is no wrong.
still bearing fruit when they are old,
still full of sap, still green,
to proclaim that the Lord is just.
In him, my rock, there is no wrong.
It is good to give you thanks, O Lord.
1 CORINTHIANS 15:54-58
My Soul's Beloved,
My Soul's Beloved,
To be a Christian, to walk in the Way of Truth and to receive the power of the Spirit and Life through the Sacraments You instituted gives us unimaginable power to live lives of heroic virtue. Saints were ordinary men and women who took You at Your Word and lived it and in doing so they tapped into the streams of life-giving grace that flows from You to us through the Holy Spirit.
If we allow ourselves to be caught up in the perishable nature of our flesh, we will be weighed down and dragged into the mire that robs us of the divine thrill that comes from taking God at His Word. The Living Word when acted on makes us aware of who we are - children of God redeemed by Your Blood, and branches of the true Vine. With roots embedded in the Holy Spirit, grace is always available to those who abide in You. We can stay untouched by the wiles of the Enemy and the flesh and nothing this transient and wicked world does to us can rob us of our eternal inheritance. Sin kills, but Your death on the Cross and Your glorious resurrection has won for us amazing grace as God generously shares Your victory with His little ones so we too can sing the victory song: Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting?
Never give in then, my dear brothers, never admit defeat; keep on working at the Lord’s work always, knowing that, in the Lord, you cannot be labouring in vain.
LUKE 6:39-45
My Soul's Beloved,
The tragedy of our world is that we have learned nothing from the past. The writer in Scripture who laments, 'What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.' We commit the same horrific sins in every generation, nothing changes. Grave sin sucks us deeper and deeper into decay, ruin, and death and it is willful, deliberate ignorance that has brought the world on the brink of spiritual ruin that is the harbinger of God's wrath coming down on us as in the past.
The world is being led by the nose by those whose souls have been sold to the Enemy, for Satan is aware that time is running out and his minions are prowling about the world seeking to plunder and destroy as many souls as possible. Governments, institutions, nations, school rooms, homes, and families have been infiltrated by the Enemy and the parable You told Your disciples is as relevant today as when You first told it.
The spiritual disfigurement of those with power, influence, wealth, and the means to carry out their nefarious plans is so horrific that one wonders if the remnant of God stands a chance against the tidal wave of wickedness that is sweeping the world. Yet O Lord, we have hope, for we know that although the battle is lost the war is won all we need to do is remain faithful, pray, hope, and trust in the power of God, the goodness of God, the love of God and that salvation is won by the power of the Cross.
Ignorant Christian parents are raising ignorant children and each generation is more gullible than the next as it feeds and is formed by the cultural garbage of relativism. Unless sheer commonsense prevails, the world blind teacher will lead the blind student through ignorance into an abyss of disappointment, despair and death. Faithful Christians need to make a ruthless examination of conscience and acknowledge our own failure by our nonchalance in handing down the faith to those entrusted to us. Have mercy on us O Lord, and grant us Your saving help before it is too late.
Jesus told a parable to his disciples: ‘Can one blind man guide another? Surely both will fall into a pit? The disciple is not superior to his teacher; the fully trained disciple will always be like his teacher. Why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the plank in your own? How can you say to your brother, “Brother, let me take out the splinter that is in your eye,” when you cannot see the plank in your own? Hypocrite! Take the plank out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to take out the splinter that is in your brother’s eye.
‘There is no sound tree that produces rotten fruit, nor again a rotten tree that produces sound fruit. For every tree can be told by its own fruit: people do not pick figs from thorns, nor gather grapes from brambles. A good man draws what is good from the store of goodness in his heart; a bad man draws what is bad from the store of badness. For a man’s words flow out of what fills his heart.’
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