Sirach, Chapter 26, Verse 3
A good wife is a generous gift bestowed upon him who fears the Lord.
So does this mean that
if you don’t fear the Lord you are to be cursed with a bad wife? I don’t think
that is the message here though; the point is that if our primary relationship
with the Lord is right then as a natural result all our relationships will be
improved. If you fear the Lord, that is Love the Lord, then you will love those
around you and not see others as objects to be used but as persons of worth and
dignity. As a husband seek to love your wife as Christ loved the church giving
Himself up for her.
Today we are a community
living in the fulfillment of faith in Christ and He asks us to do something
unthinkable, “Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have
life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life,
and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood
is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in
him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father,
so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread
that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,
whoever eats this bread will live forever.”(John 6:53-58)
All men are called by
God to be husbandmen. Some are called to the priesthood and they may hear
Christ saying to them:
Follow
me, and I will make you fishers of men. (Mt. 4:19)
Others are called to the
single life and they may serve the Lord via their work and there are those who
are called to the married life but all are husbandmen. What makes a good
husbandman?
Let us look at St.
Joseph as an example of a good husbandman.[1]
St. Joseph in all his dealings was humble. He was the provider
and protector of Mary and Jesus full of zeal and great courage, obedient to the will
of God. Yet he was not rash; and with prudence pondered his decisions
trusting
in divine providence. He
was a model of workers and an example of married life and
chaste love. He valued prayer and the hidden life. He was ready and at the call of a neighbor or to the call
of God; he gave an immediate response. His was a life of
sacrifice; his was a life
of simplicity.
To be a good husbandman
is to, “Do the ordinary in an extraordinary way.”
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