Daily Reflections

“Heart of Jesus, establish peace in our homes!” Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque

Joshua 4:22-24; Psalm 114:5

Israel crossed the Jordan on dry land,
for God dried up its waters,
just as in the past He had dried up the water of the Red Sea,
– so that all the peoples of the earth may know
that the Hand of the LORD is Mighty.

What has happened that the sea has been put to flight,
and the Jordan has turned back upon itself?
– So that all the peoples of the earth may know
that the Hand of the LORD is Mighty.

Wednesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

Saint Basil the Great, Bishop, Confessor, Doctor of the Church 

Saint Davnet, Virgin (Ireland)

Those who obey the least of the Commandments will be called greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. Why? They desire to have every aspect of their lives transformed by “the Spirit [that] gives Life”. They use their freedom to live by the confidence we have “through Christ”. They receive from Christ the fulfilling grace that He provides, the only way to the glorious life that endures. 

ST. BASIL THE GREAT, BISHOP, CONFESSOR, DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH

Sts. Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, celebrating Mass

Saint Basil the Great, the Archbishop of Caesarea in the Asiatic Province of Cappadocia, completed his studies at Constantinople and Athens with his friend Gregory of Nazianzen. His solid and eloquent words silenced the Arian heretics who were persecuting the Church, and he restored the spirit of discipline and fervour. He was one of the most celebrated Fathers of the Eastern Church. He is the author of a monastic rule from which Saint Benedict derived many points, and which is still observed by the monks of the East. During his lifetime he was called a vessel of election by Saint Ephrem. He died January 1, 379 A.D.

SAINT DAVNET, VIRGIN

Saint Davnet (in Gaelic Damhnat) lived and died at Sliabh Beagh in the parish of Tydavnet (Tigh Damhnait = “house of Davnet”), Co. Monaghan. Tradition speaks of her as a virgin who in the sixth century founded a church or monastery in the area (generally considered to have been located in the graveyard of the current village Catholic church).

From a homily on Joshua by Origen, Priest
(Hom. 4,1: PG 12, 842-843)

The Crossing of the Jordan

The Ark of the Covenant led the people of God across the Jordan. The priests and the Levites halted, and the waters, as though out of reverence to the ministers of God, stopped flowing. They piled up in a single mass, thus allowing the people of God to cross in safety. As a Christian, you should not be amazed to hear of these wonders performed for men of the past. The Divine Word promises much greater and more lofty things to you who have passed through Jordan’s stream by the Sacrament of Baptism: He Promises you a passage even through the sky. Listen to what Paul says concerning the just: We shall be caught up in the clouds to meet Christ in heaven, and so we shall always be with the LORD.There is absolutely nothing for the just man to fear; the whole of creation serves him. Listen to another promise that God makes him through the prophet: If you pass through fire, the flame shall not burn you, for I am the LORD your God. The just man is everywhere welcome, and everything renders him due service.

So you must not think that these events belong only to the past, and that you who now hear the account of them do not experience anything of the kind. It is in you that they all find their spiritual fulfillment. You have recently abandoned the darkness of idolatry, and you now desire to come and hear the Divine Law. This is your departure from Egypt. When you became a catechumen and began to obey the laws of the Church, you passed through the Red Sea; now at the various stops in the desert, you give time every day to hear the law of God and to see the face of Moses unveiled by the Glory of God. But once you come to the baptismal font and, in the presence of the priests and deacons, are initiated into those Sacred and august Mysteries which only those know who should, then, through the ministry of the priests, you will cross the Jordan and enter the Promised Land. There Moses will hand you over to Jesus, and He Himself will be your guide on your New Journey.

Mindful, then, of all the Mighty works of God, remembering that He divided the sea for you and held back the waters of the river, you will turn to them and say: Why was it, sea, that you fled? Jordan, why did you turn back? Mountains, why did you skip like rams, and you hills, like young sheep? And the Word of the LORD will reply: The earth is shaken at the face of the LORD, at the face of the God of Jacob, who turns stones into a pool and rocks into springs of water.

Sharing in the Fullness of Jesus Christ

In the Sermon on the Mount, the magna carta of Gospel morality, Jesus says: Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete them. Christ is the key to the Scriptures: You study the Scriptures…now these same Scriptures testify to me (Jn 5:39). Christ is the centre of the economy of salvation…of the promises of the Law and of their fulfilment in the Gospel; He is the Living and Eternal Link between the Old and the New Covenants….

Jesus brings God’s Commandments to fulfilment, particularly the Commandment of love of neighbour, by interiorising their demands and by bringing out their fullest meaning. Love of neighbour springs from a loving heart that, precisely because it loves, is ready to live out the loftiest challenges. Jesus shows that the Commandments must not be understood as a minimum limit not to be gone beyond, but rather as a path involving a moral and spiritual journey towards perfection, at the heart of which is love (Col 3:14). Thus the Commandment You shall not kill becomes a call to an attentive love that protects and promotes the life of one’s neighbour. The precept prohibiting adultery becomes an invitation to a pure way of looking at others, capable of respecting the spousal meaning of the body…. Jesus Himself is the Living Fulfilment of the Law inasmuch as He fulfils its authentic meaning by the total gift of Himself: He himself becomes a Living and Personal Law who invites people to follow Him. Through the Spirit, He gives the Grace to share His own Life and Love and provides the strength to bear witness to that love in personal choices and actions….

Those who live in a way that is unspiritual (Rm 8:5) experience God’s law as a burden, and indeed as a denial or at least a restriction of their own freedom. On the other hand, those who are impelled by love and who are guided by the Spirit (Ga 5:16), and who desire to serve others, find in God’s Law the fundamental and necessary way in which to practise love as something freely chosen and freely lived out. Indeed, they feel an interior urge—a genuine necessity and no longer a form of coercion—not to stop at the minimum demands of the Law, but to live them in their fullness. This is a still uncertain and fragile journey as long as we are on earth, but it is one made possible by Grace, which enables us to possess the full freedom of the children of God and thus to live our moral life in a way worthy of our sublime vocation as “sons in the Son”.

Saint John Paul II

Saint John Paul II († 2005) was Pope from 1978 until 2005. [From the encyclical Veritatis Splendor.

DAILY MEDITATION

Do not then imagine, O man! that the visible world is without a beginning; and because the celestial bodies move in a circular course, and it is difficult for our senses to define the point where the circle begins, do not believe the bodies impelled by a circular movement or, from their nature, without a beginning. without doubt the circle [I mean the plane figure described by a single line] is beyond our perception, and it is impossible for us to find out where it begins or where it ends, but we are not on this account to believe it to be without a beginning. although we are not sensible of it, it really begins at some point where the draftsman has begun to draw it at a certain radius from the centre. Just seeing that figures which move in a circle always return upon themselves, without a single instant interrupting the regularity of their course, do not vainly imagine to yourselves that the world has neither beginning nor end. “For the fashion of this world passes away.” [1 Corinthians 7:31]; and “Heaven and earth shall pass away”[Matthew 24:35].

The dogmas of the end, and of the renewing of the world, are announced beforehand in these short words put at the head of the inspired history: “In the beginning, God made”[Genesis 1:1]. That which was begun in time is condemned to come to an end in time. If there has been a beginning, do not doubt of the end.  Of what use then are geometry – the calculations of arithmetic, the study of solids and far-famed astronomy, this laborious vanity, if those who pursue them imagine that this visible world is coeternal with the Creator of all things, with God Himself; if they attribute to this limited world, which has a material body, the same glory as to the incomprehensible and invisible nature; if they cannot conceive that a hole, of which the parts are subject to corruption and change, must of necessity and by itself submitting to the fate of its parts? But they have become vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” [Romans 1:21–22]. Some have affirmed that Heaven coexists with God from all Eternity; others that it is God Himself without beginning or end, and the cause of the particular arrangement of all things. One day, doubtless, their terrible condemnation will be the greater for all this worldly wisdom, since, seeing so clearly into vain sciences, they have willfully shut their eyes to the knowledge of the Truth. 

St. Basil the Great, (d. 379) – Bishop of Caesarea, and most reknowned of the “Three Cappadocians” – and one of the Four Great Doctors of the East.

Wisdom 17:1; 19:22; Psalm 77:20

Great are Your judgments, LORD,
and beyond all describing.
– You have exalted Your people and made them glorious.

You made a road through the sea,
and a path through the deep waters.
– You have exalted Your people and made them glorious.

“The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction.” – Ven. Archbishop Fulton Sheen