Tuesday - August 01, 2017
'God takes particular care to detach those from the fleeting pleasures of this life whom He loves with a love of predilection, by the desires with which He inspires them for the heavenly life, and by the griefs and afflictions which He sends them in this life.'
~St. Ignatius of Loyola
TODAY'S READINGS
August 1, 2017
Memorial of Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Lectionary: 402
Reading 1EX 33:7-11; 34:5B-9, 28
The tent, which was called the meeting tent,Moses used to pitch at some distance away, outside the camp.
Anyone who wished to consult the LORD
would go to this meeting tent outside the camp.
Whenever Moses went out to the tent, the people would all rise
and stand at the entrance of their own tents,
watching Moses until he entered the tent.
As Moses entered the tent, the column of cloud would come down
and stand at its entrance while the LORD spoke with Moses.
On seeing the column of cloud stand at the entrance of the tent,
all the people would rise and worship
at the entrance of their own tents.
The LORD used to speak to Moses face to face,
as one man speaks to another.
Moses would then return to the camp,
but his young assistant, Joshua, son of Nun,
would not move out of the tent.
Moses stood there with the LORD and proclaimed his name, "LORD."
Thus the LORD passed before him and cried out,
"The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God,
slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity,
continuing his kindness for a thousand generations,
and forgiving wickedness and crime and sin;
yet not declaring the guilty guiltless,
but punishing children and grandchildren
to the third and fourth generation for their fathers' wickedness!"
Moses at once bowed down to the ground in worship.
Then he said, "If I find favor with you, O LORD,
do come along in our company.
This is indeed a stiff-necked people;
yet pardon our wickedness and sins,
and receive us as your own."
So Moses stayed there with the LORD for forty days and forty nights,
without eating any food or drinking any water,
and he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant,
the ten commandments.
Responsorial PsalmPS 103:6-7, 8-9, 10-11, 12-13
R. (8a) The Lord is kind and merciful.The LORD secures justice
and the rights of all the oppressed.
He has made known his ways to Moses,
and his deeds to the children of Israel.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful.
Merciful and gracious is the LORD,
slow to anger and abounding in kindness.
He will not always chide,
nor does he keep his wrath forever.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful.
Not according to our sins does he deal with us,
nor does he requite us according to our crimes.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he put our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.The seed is the word of God, Christ is the sower;
All who come to him will live for ever.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
GospelMT 13:36-43
Jesus dismissed the crowds and went into the house.His disciples approached him and said,
"Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field."
He said in reply, "He who sows good seed is the Son of Man,
the field is the world, the good seed the children of the Kingdom.
The weeds are the children of the Evil One,
and the enemy who sows them is the Devil.
The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire,
so will it be at the end of the age.
The Son of Man will send his angels,
and they will collect out of his Kingdom
all who cause others to sin and all evildoers.
They will throw them into the fiery furnace,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.
Then the righteous will shine like the sun
in the Kingdom of their Father.
Whoever has ears ought to hear."
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Weeds and flowers in God's bouquet!
Jesus' explanation about the harvest at the end of time, which is told in our Gospel reading today, raises, in my mind, the question: Why do we have to wait until the end of the world for God to rescue us from evildoers? I want them out of my life -- NOW!
Oops, how selfish of me! That would make my life extremely easier, but what about the people who are weeds in my plot of land in the field? What about their lives? What about their eternal lives?
We Christians are nurtured in the garden of God's love to grow strong and tall, as beautiful flowers, so that we can make the world a prettier place. We have been commissioned by Christ to go into the world with our fragrance, which is the perfume of heaven, to affect the lives of the weedy, so that they, too, will want to convert into flowers for the bouquet of God's kingdom.
If weeds are yanked out too early (such as when criminals are executed by a death penalty or when we eject troublemakers from our lives), they lose future opportunities for conversion. Then, we who wanted our soils free of their filth will have to explain to God why we didn't care about their souls.
Oh, and by the way, some weeds are quite ugly, but some are very pretty. We have to learn to recognize the difference between beautiful weeds and true flowers so that we aren't duped into accepting their sins as okay and end up joining them in their filth. But what is that difference?
A weed is any plant that's growing where it's not supposed to be. Grass is a weed in a corn field, but on my lawn, corn would be the weed. A weed-person is anyone who is not committed to being one of God's beautiful flowers.
My job, as a commissioned Christian -- and yours, too -- is to help weed-people discover their true beauty and fragrance, i.e., who they are as children of God and how they can grow into beautiful flowers.
Meanwhile, this does not mean allowing their sins to hurt us. We need to figure out, often with professional help, how to prevent their weedy poison from harming us and from spreading. And we have to stay in close contact with God so that we know when it's time to pluck them out and give others a chance to convert them.
All weeds start out as plants that God made and called "good." In their rightful place, doing what God designed them to do, they're not weeds, but by growing in ways that they were not designed to do, they became evil-doers. Weeds are unblossomed flowers who have not discovered their true identities as children of God nor their true calling as servants of God.
Instead of complaining about the evildoers, we should do what we were commissioned and empowered by God to do: Reach out to the weeds and help them discover their inner beauty and awaken their desire to be true flowers in God's bouquet.
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God Bless You.....
The mother of Jesus promised St. Dominic that, “one day through the rosary & the scapular I shall save the world!”
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