Isaiah, Chapter 51, verse 7
Hear me, you who know justice, you people who have my teaching at heart:
Do not fear the reproach of others;
remain firm at their reviling’s.
What
is God’s justice and what teaching should we have at heart?
The
Old Testament established the seven laws of Noah, or the Noahide Laws which
were given by God as binding on all of humanity. Any person who adheres to
these is regarded as righteous and is assured a place in the world to come.
These
laws are:
1.
Don’t
Deny God
2.
Don’t
Blaspheme God
3.
Don’t
Murder
4.
Don’t
Engage in Incest, Adultery or Homosexuality.
5.
Don’t
Steal
6.
Don’t
Eat of a Live Animal
7.
Do establish Functioning Courts of Law
Jesus said to his disciples; “Do not think
that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish
but to fulfill.” (Mt. 5:17)
Good Works[1]
Lent is traditionally considered a
particularly good time for performing corporal
works of mercy (e.g., almsgiving, peacemaking, etc.). The importance of
supplementing ascetical denial with active virtues is underscored in the Gospel
(Luke 11.14-28), in which a man who has had a demon exorcized from him later
becomes repossessed by the demon and seven other unclean spirits. Christ's
point seems to be that holy practices such as fasting do indeed remove bad
things from one's soul, but this is ultimately to no avail if the soul is not
then filled with good things. This understanding is also operative in the
Collect for the First Sunday of Lent:
O
God, who by the yearly Lenten observance dost purify Thy Church, grant to Thy
household that what they strive to obtain from Thee by abstinence, they may
achieve by good works.
Baptism[2]
Supernatural
Life begins at baptism. Jesus himself spoke of baptism in terms of a strict obligation: “unless one is born of
water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” When new believers
asked St. Peter, the first pope, what they should do, he declared: “Repent, and
be baptized”. It is easy for us to take God’s fatherhood for granted. We say
easily, “God is our Father” yet we forget that that during Christ’s time to say
that could get you killed. This was why the Jews sought to kill Jesus because
he called God his Father. When we are born anew in baptism we are born not of
human parentage but heavenly by what theologians call the “marvelous exchange.”
In Jesus, God became what we are so that we might become what HE is. This is
why God became man and this is why he gave us baptism. “So you also must
consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin
therefore reign in you mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. Do not
yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to
God as men who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as
instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you
are not under law but under grace” (Rom. 6:11-14).
What is meant by serving God? Doing the will of God in all things
which He requires of us, in whatever state of life we may be placed, and doing
this with fidelity, with unwearied zeal, and out of love for Him.
Who are the two masters whom we cannot serve at the same time? God
and an inordinate desire for worldly gain. One cannot serve both, because they
demand things that are contradictory.
Who are they that serve mammon, or worldly wealth? The avaricious,
who, impelled by their longing for riches, offend God by manifold
transgressions of His commandments,
Why does Christ refer us to the birds of the air and the lilies of the
field? To awaken in us confidence in Divine Providence. If God feeds the
young ravens (Ps. cxlvi. 9) and the birds of the air if He decks so beautifully
the flowers of the field, how much more will He not care for men, whom He has
created after His own image, and adopted as His children.
Are we, then, to use no care or labor? That by no means follows
from what has been said. The Savior forbids only that anxiety, proceeding from
little faith, which, in striving for maintenance, neglects God’s honor and commandments,
and the good of one’s soul. For the rest, God Himself has commanded man to
labor (Gen. iii. 17-19); and St. Paul says, “If any man will not work, neither
let him eat” (n. Thess. iii. 10).
What should preserve us from excessive anxiety? A firm and living
faith that God can and will help us. That He can is clear, because He is almighty;
that He will is certain, for the reason that He is love that He has promised it
to us, more than once, most expressly, and that He is faithful in keep ing His
promises.
Let us, then, trust in
God, and daily renew our confidence in Him, particularly when we say the Creed,
or when, in the Our Father, we pray, i i Give us this day our daily bread.
Consolation in Poverty
In your misery and
poverty, say often, with Job: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; as
it hath pleased the Lord so it is done; blessed be the name of the Lord (Job i.
21). Or seek comfort in these words: “We lead indeed a poor life, but we shall
have many good things if we fear God and depart from all sin, and do that which
is good” (Job iv. 23).
Warning against Usury
Usury is that mortal sin
which takes advantage of our neighbor’s poverty and need to extort from him
what is justly his own. Would that usurers might bear in mind what the Lord says:
“What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of
his own soul?” (Matt. xvi. 26.)
The Devil and Temptations[4]
There are many and varied ways in which sin and evil are presented to us in
an attractive way.
Freeing My Own Self from the Power of Evil
·
Through his passion, death, and resurrection,
Jesus has broken the power of the Evil One. When the influence of evil is
perceived in one's own life, it most frequently comes about from personal sin.
Family members suffer because of the sin of an individual member of the family.
It is through the sacred power that the Lord has placed in his Church that the
evil of sin is conquered.
·
Through medicine, psychology and other human
means, suffering can often be alleviated. But Jesus in his Church, has given us
basic helps that are often neglected.
·
In our day the Sacrament of Reconciliation has
fallen into disuse. There exists a power in this sacrament to break the power
of the Evil One and sin that is not possible otherwise.
·
Our faith in the Eucharist is weakened. In this
sacrament is the power and presence of Jesus Himself. Persons who have actually
needed exorcism from the power of the Evil One have been cured by sitting in
church in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, an hour each day, for one or
two months. These were very difficult cases.
·
Our Blessed Mother has been designated by God as
the one who crushes the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:1s). The Rosary is a very
powerful means of protection and salvation. Many sons and daughters have been
saved from the power of sin and the loss of faith through the perseverance of
their parents in saying the Holy Rosary.
Daily
Devotions
·
Do 1 hour in front of
the Blessed Sacrament now till Easter.
·
Please pray for me and this ministry
[2]
Hahn, Scott, Signs of Life; 40 Catholic Customs and their biblical roots. Chap.
3. Baptism.
[3]Goffine’s
Devout Instructions, 1896.
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