20TH SUNDAY
AFTER PENTECOST (29th S. Ord. Time)
Proverbs, Chapter 1, Verse 28-29
28 Then they will call me, but I will not
answer; they will seek me, but will not find me, 29 because they hated knowledge, and the fear of the LORD they did not choose.
Wisdom is personified in
this proverb; and she proclaims the moral order, threatening to leave to their
own devices those who disregard her invitation. Wisdom comes to those who make
their hearts ready.
The Beginning of Knowledge[1]
·
The
Book of Proverbs begins with a short mission statement. It says that it's here
to instruct people in—wisdom.
·
But
it'll also take time to drop some knowledge about justice, equity, shrewdness,
and stuff like that. It's targeting this wisdom at an audience including the
young and the simple—people who really need it—as well as the wise, so they can
kick their wisdom up to Dragon Ball Z levels of firepower.
·
It
states that wisdom begins by fearing (and revering) God.
Shun Evil Counsel (Media?!)
·
As
the actual dispensing of wisdom begins, the author speaks like a parent urging
a son to obey his mother and father, since they've got good advice to give.
·
If
sinners try to get you to go and ambush innocent people and kill them and steal
all their stuff, the author says you should walk away and avoid them.
·
These
evil robber-murderers are actually going to kill themselves (because their sins
will come back to get them). They are like hunters setting a net while the bird
they're trying to catch is watching them (kind of like Wile E. Coyote stalking
the Roadrunner).
·
This
is what happens to people who are greedy—they lose their lives.
The Call of Wisdom
·
The
author imagines Wisdom as being a person—specifically, a woman—who walks
through the streets calling out to the ignorant and simple people, asking them
how long they'll remain without wisdom.
·
She
says that she'll pour out her insights to anyone who pays attention to her. But
she'll mock the people who refuse to listen, and who bring disasters and panic
on themselves by their willful stupidity.
·
They'll
try to find her once they've fallen into calamity, but they won't be able to,
because they failed to fear God and heed wisdom's advice earlier. It'll be too
late.
·
So,
Wisdom says, if you pay heed now, you'll be fine.
Decision Making[2]
Wisdom is the true goal
of good leadership, rather self or leading a group. Without leadership and
wisdom everything stops; kinda like congress. Wisdom eludes the selfish and
Godless. True wisdom is an act of faith. John Maxwell gives us the following
guidelines as outlined in this proverb.
1.
The foundation of every decision is to honor and revere
God (v.7).
2.
We must build of our heritage and conscience: what values
are we to embrace? (v. 8-9) (Life,
Liberty, Legacy)
3.
We must avoid the counselof the ungodly (v. 10-19) (cnn?)
4.
We must pursue wisdom. What are the facts? What are the
options? (v.20-13)
5.
We must move toward inward peace (v. 32-33).
28th Sunday in Ordinary Time[3]
GOSPEL. Matthew 22:15-21
20th Sunday after Pentecost[4]
Under the traditional calendar the Church focuses on making our
hearts ready through faith as we "redeem the times".
GOSPEL. John vi. 46-53
At that time there was a
certain ruler whose son was sick at Capharnaum. He having heard that Jesus was -
come from Judea into Galilee, went to Him, and prayed Him to come down and heal
his son, for he was at the point of death. Jesus therefore said to him: Unless you
see signs and wonders, you believe not. The ruler saith to him: Lord, come down
before that my son die. Jesus saith to him: Go thy way, thy son liveth. The man
believed the word which Jesus said to him, and went his way. And as he was
going down, his servants met him: and they brought word, saying that his son lived.
He asked therefore of them the hour wherein he grew better. And they said to him:
Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. The father therefore knew that
it was at the same hour that Jesus said to him, Thy son liveth; and himself believed,
and his whole house.
Consolation in Sickness
To console ourselves in
sickness, let us bethink ourselves that God has sent us sickness for the good of
our souls; that we may thereby attain a knowledge of our sins, and make satisfaction
for them; or, if we suffer innocently, we may exercise ourselves in patience,
charity, humility, and such like virtues, and so increase our merits. When ill let
us employ a competent physician and use the remedies he may prescribe. But before
all else, let us betake ourselves to God, give ourselves up unreservedly to His
will, pray Him to enlighten the physician, and bless the means employed for our
recovery, and subdue our inclinations if the prescription of the physician does
violence to our former habits. For how otherwise should medicine have its proper
effect?
O Lord, here burn, here wound, only
spare me in eternity!
St. Augustine
ON THE CARE OF THE SICK
All who
have charge of the sick should before all think of the soul, and to that end call
upon Jesus to come in the Blessed Sacrament, before the sick person is past the
point of receiving Him with devotion. Therefore, parents, children, relatives, and
friends, if they truly love the sick, should seek to induce him to receive the
Blessed Sacrament in time. At the beginning, and during the progress of the sickness,
we should endeavor to encourage the patient to resignation and childlike confidence
in God; should place before him the Savior, suffering and glorified, as a pattern
and consolation, should pray with him, to strengthen him against desponding
thoughts and the temptations of the devil; should sign him with the sign of the
cross, sprinkle him with holy water, and, before all, pray for a happy death. But
in caring for the soul the body is not to be neglected. We must call in time a skilful
physician, give the sick person his medicines at the appointed times, keep everything
clean, observe particularly the prescribed limit as to eating and drinking, and
not permit the patient to have his own will, for he might often desire what
would be hurtful to him. In general we should do what, in like case, we would wish
to have done for ourselves, for there is no greater work of charity than to attend
a sick person, and particularly to assist him to a happy death.
Karol Wojtyla came of age at one of the darkest moments of the twentieth
century. When he was 19 years old and just commencing his university career,
the Nazis rolled through his native Poland and instigated a reign of terror
over the country. Almost immediately, the conquerors decapitated Polish
society, killing the intelligentsia outright or sending them to concentration
camps. All distinctive forms of Polish culture were cruelly suppressed, and the
church was actively persecuted. Young Wojtyla displayed heroic courage by joining
the underground seminary run by the Cardinal of Krakow and by forming a small
company of players who kept Polish literature and drama alive. Many of his
colleagues in both of these endeavors were killed or arrested in the course of
those terrible years of occupation. Sadly, the Nazi tyranny was replaced
immediately by the Communist tyranny, and Fr. Wojtyla was compelled to manifest
his courage again. In the face of harassment, unfair criticism, the threat of
severe punishment, etc., he did his priestly work, forming young people in the
great Catholic spiritual and theological tradition. Even as a bishop, Wojtyla
was subject to practically constant surveillance (every phone tapped; every
room bugged; his every movement tracked), and he was continually, in small ways
and large, obstructed by Communist officialdom. And yet he soldiered on. Of
course, as Pope, he ventured into the belly of the beast, standing athwart the
Communist establishment and speaking for God, freedom, and human rights. In
doing so, he proved himself one of the most courageous figures of the twentieth
century. Karol Wojtyla was a man who exhibited the virtue of justice to a
heroic degree. Throughout his papal years, John Paul II was the single most
eloquent and persistent voice for human rights on the world stage. In the face
of a postmodern relativism and indifferentism, John Paul took the best of the
Enlightenment political tradition and wedded it to classical Christian
anthropology. The result was a sturdy defense of the rights to life, liberty,
education, free speech, and above all, the free exercise of religion. More
persuasively than any other political figure, east or west, John Paul advocated
for justice.
George Weigel titled his magisterial biography of John Paul II, Witness to Hope, by identifying Karol Wojtyla with a theological virtue. In October of 1978, the newly elected Pope John Paul II gave his inaugural speech to a packed St. Peter’s Square. This man, who had witnessed at first hand the very worst of the twentieth century, who had intimate experience of how twisted and wicked human beings can be, spoke over and over again this exhortation: “Be not afraid.” There was, of course, absolutely no political or cultural warrant for that exhortation, no purely natural justification for it. It could come only from a man whose heart was filled with the supernatural sense that the Holy Spirit is the Lord of history. Finally, was Karol Wojtyla in possession of love, the greatest of the theological virtues? The best evidence I can bring forward is the still breathtaking encounter that took place in a grimy Roman jail cell in December of 1983. John Paul II sat down with Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who had, only a year and a half before, fired several bullets into the Pope. John Paul spoke to him, embraced him, listened to him, and finally forgave him. Love is not a feeling or a sentiment. It is, Thomas Aquinas reminds us, an act of the will, more precisely, willing the good of the other. This is why the love of one’s enemies—those who are not disposed to wish us well—is the great test of love. Did John Paul II express love in a heroic way? He forgave the man who tried to kill him; no further argument need be made.
Today is also the feast of Saint
John Paul II. He was a man afflicted, he was a man of endurance, he stress that
Christ is our only hope and he showed us the love of God.
George Weigel titled his magisterial biography of John Paul II, Witness to Hope, by identifying Karol Wojtyla with a theological virtue. In October of 1978, the newly elected Pope John Paul II gave his inaugural speech to a packed St. Peter’s Square. This man, who had witnessed at first hand the very worst of the twentieth century, who had intimate experience of how twisted and wicked human beings can be, spoke over and over again this exhortation: “Be not afraid.” There was, of course, absolutely no political or cultural warrant for that exhortation, no purely natural justification for it. It could come only from a man whose heart was filled with the supernatural sense that the Holy Spirit is the Lord of history. Finally, was Karol Wojtyla in possession of love, the greatest of the theological virtues? The best evidence I can bring forward is the still breathtaking encounter that took place in a grimy Roman jail cell in December of 1983. John Paul II sat down with Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who had, only a year and a half before, fired several bullets into the Pope. John Paul spoke to him, embraced him, listened to him, and finally forgave him. Love is not a feeling or a sentiment. It is, Thomas Aquinas reminds us, an act of the will, more precisely, willing the good of the other. This is why the love of one’s enemies—those who are not disposed to wish us well—is the great test of love. Did John Paul II express love in a heroic way? He forgave the man who tried to kill him; no further argument need be made.
Daily Devotions
·
Say the Rosary
or go to a Rosary
Event
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