Daily Reflections

Virtue of the Month

PRAYER

“We ought always to pray, and not to faint.” 

– Luke 18:1

When we have to speak to others on spiritual matters, we ought first to speak of them to God in prayer, and empty ourselves of our own spirit, so that we may be filled with the Holy Spirit, which alone illuminates the mind and inflames the world. Superiors especially should do this, and endeavour to have continual communication with God, having recourse to Him not only in doubtful and difficult cases, but in everything that occurs, to learn immediately from Him what they are to teach others, in imitation of Moses, who announced to the people only what the LORD had previously taught him. Hæc dicit Dominus – thus saith the LORD. 

– Saint Vincent de Paul

Tuesday of the Twenty-Second Week in Ordinary Time

Saint Lawrence Justinian, Bishop, Confessor (Traditional)

Saint Teresa of Calcutta, Religious

Saint Paul promises that we are “sons of light and sons of the day: we do not belong to the night or to darkness.” When the power of darkness within us reduces us to panic—“Have you come to destroy us?”—we remember that Jesus uses His authority to cast out our evil, encourage us, and build us up. “God never meant us to experience the Retribution, but to win salvation through our LORD Jesus Christ.”

ST. LAWRENCE JUSTINIAN, BISHOP, CONFESSOR

Saint Lawrence Justinian was the first Patriarch of his native city, Venice. In renouncing the prospect of a noble marriage, he entered the Canons of Saint George of Alga. All his revenues were spent on the poor and the building of new monasteries. God made it known that the safety of the glorious Venetian State was due not to the diplomatic skill of her doges, or her formidable galleys, but to the holiness and merits of her bishop. He was a true forerunner of the ecclesiastical reform a later carried out by the Council of Trent. He died on January 8, 1455, a model of humility and pastoral zeal. Pope Innocent XII fixed his feast on this day, the anniversary of his Episcopal consecration.

From the Imitation of Christ
(Lib. 3, 14)

The Truth of the LORD endures for ever

You thunder Your judgments upon me, O LORD; You shake all my bones with fear and dread, and my soul becomes severely frightened. I am bewildered when I realize that even the heavens are not pure in Your sight.

If You discovered iniquity in the angels and did not spare them, what will become of me? The stars fell from Heaven, and I, mere dust, what should I expect? Those whose works seemed praiseworthy fell to the depths, and I have seen those who once were fed with the Bread of Angels delighting in the husks of swine.

There is no holiness where You have withdrawn Your hand, O LORD; no profitable wisdom if You cease to rule over it; no helpful strength if You cease to preserve it. For if You forsake us, we sink and perish; but if You visit us, we rise up and live again. We are unstable, but You make us firm; we grow cool, but You inflame us.

All superficial glory has been swallowed up in the depths of Your judgment upon me.

What is all flesh in Your sight? Can the clay be glorified in opposition to its Maker?

How can anyone be aroused by empty talk if his heart is subject in the Truth to God?

The whole world cannot swell with pride the man who is subject to Truth; nor will he be swayed by the flattery of all his admirers, if he has established all his trust in God.

For those who do all the talking amount to nothing; they fail with their din of words, but the Truth of the LORD endures for ever.

DAILY MEDITATION

Saint Lawrence was a descendant of the Noble House of the Giustiniani, of greatly themed at Genoa, Venice, and Naples. He was born 1380, of very pious parents, but early lost his father, Bernard. His mother, on whom now devolved the education of her children, re-doubled her care, but Lawrence gave her very little trouble, as he was naturally inclined to virtue. One day, she made him understand that she feared he harboured ambition: “Fear not, Mother; I have only one ambition, and that is to become a great servant of the LORD, and to be more pious than my brothers.” His conduct in youth bore witness to his words; for, though he lived at a period when the morals of the whole city were very corrupt, his edifying life was regarded by every one wth surprise and admiration.

Parents! You will remember what I said to you on the festival of St. Stephen, of the high honour of the priest, and of the important part he takes in the mission for which Christ came into the world…. If all the angels, even St. Michael, should assist at the deathbed of a sinner who is in danger of going to perdition, not one, not all of them would be able to forgive him one sin, If he dies, he is lost forever. But a priest comes; the dying man repents with his last breath; the priest gives him Absolution – he is saved, saved for Eternity! Child, what power! Honour therefore, the priest, and praise the LORD, if He has given you the vocation to become a priest.

Fr. Francis Xavier Weninger (d. 1888) – Austrian priest, professor and author; joined the Jesuits as missionary preacher to the United States.

“What do you want with us?”

He had come to give us the Good News of the tenderness and love of a Father—to whom we are precious because He has created us in His own likeness for greater things—to love and to be loved.

We read in the Scriptures that God loved the world so much that He uttered the Word and the Word became Flesh; and He comes and dwells within us and with us (cf. Jn 1:1, 14)….

Jesus came from Heaven, became man, became poor, died on the Cross (nowadays we see a beautiful cross with clothes, and so on) but He came to give us the message that God loves us….

Jesus’ trust is unconditional. He accepted to become man like us in all things except sin. We do not realise what this means, He was rich, but He became poor (2 Co 8:9). He who is “God from God, Light from Light, begotten not made, one in substance with the Father, through whom all things were made… born of the Virgin Mary.” The Creator chose to become a creature, one with us, like us, to be dependent on others, to need food to eat, clothes to wear, drink to quench His thirst, to need rest, to be tired like us…. One with us in all things: Why? For love of us, with unconditional trust in the Father. He chose to be born of a woman, the Virgin Mary, to take human flesh and blood. “To live in Nazareth” (cf. Lk 1:26-35, 2:1-7).

Saint Teresa of Calcutta

Saint Teresa of Calcutta († 1997) founded the Missionaries of Charity and won the Nobel Peace Prize. Her feast day is 5 September. [From The Writings of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Copyright

“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