Friday, March 13, 2020

Friday In the Second Week of Lent

FAST DAY

Matthew, Chapter 21, verse 46:

And although they were attempting to arrest him, they feared the crowds, for they regarded him as a prophet.

This verse is referring to John the Baptist, but they, the priests and powerful, also feared the crowds because of Jesus. Fear is a natural reaction and when we fear something, we instinctively do one of five things. We either: fight, run away, do nothing, compromise or grow. The whole of the bible are stories of people both good and bad making choices. Some of people’s choices were good and some were evil; but it was always the spirit of God that urged men to make choices that caused growth in humankind; to create a Kingdom of God on earth. Both John the Baptist and Jesus were marked by the priests and elders for death because they threatened their power over the people which they feared. Like savage beasts they killed anything that got in their way.

According to John Maxwell[1] leaders lose their right to selfishness and must take the lives of others into account before their own. They must testify to the truth and tell people what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear. They must tell people where they have to go to grow the Kingdom and not where they desire to go.

Christ came not only to restore the Israelite's but all of mankind into His Kingdom: The Kingdom of God. Leaders in the Kingdom must fear not and lead from principle rather than from reaction.

Friday in the Second Week of Lent[2]

Prayer. GRANT, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that, purified by the holy fast, we may celebrate the coming festival with pure hearts.

EPISTLE. Gen. xxxvii. 6-22.

In those days Joseph said to his brethren: Hear my dream which I dreamed. I thought we were binding sheaves in the field: and my sheaf arose as it were and stood, and your sheaves standing about, bowed down before my sheaf. His brethren answered: Shalt thou be our king? or shall we be subject to thy dominion?

Therefore, this matter of his dreams and words ministered nourishment to their envy and hatred. He dreamed also another dream, which he told his brethren, saying: I saw in a dream, as it were, the sun, and the moon, and eleven stars worshipping me. And when he had told this to his father, and brethren, his father rebuked him, and said: What meaneth this dream that thou hast dreamed? shall I and thy mother, and thy brethren worship thee upon the earth?

His brethren therefore envied him: but his father considered the thing with himself. And when his brethren abode in Sichem, feeding their father’s flocks, Israel said to him: Thy brethren feed the sheep in Sichem: come, I will send thee to them. And when he answered: I am ready; he said to him: Go and see if all things be well with thy brethren, and the cattle: and bring me word again what is doing. So being sent from the vale of Hebron, he came to Sichem: and a man found him there wandering in the field and asked what he sought. But he answered: I seek my brethren, tell me where they feed the flocks. And the man said to him: They are departed from this place: for I heard them say: Let us go to Dothain. And Joseph went forward after his brethren and found them in Dothain. And when they saw him afar off, before he came nigh them, they thought to kill him. And said one to another: Behold the dreamer cometh. Come, let us kill him, and cast him into some old pit, and we will say: Some evil beast hath devoured him: and then it shall appear what his dreams avail him: and Ruben hearing this, endeavored to deliver him out of their hands, and said: Do not take away his life, nor shed his blood: but cast him into this pit, that is in the wilderness, and keep your hands harmless: now he said this, being desirous to deliver him out of their hands, and to restore him to his father.

GOSPEL. Matt. xxi. 33-46.

At that time Jesus spoke this parable to the multitude of the Jews and the chief priests: There was a man a householder who planted a vineyard, and made a hedge round about it, and dug in it a press, and built a tower, and let it out to husband men: and went into a strange country. And when the time of the fruits drew nigh, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits thereof. And the husband men laying hands on his servants, beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the former: and they did to them in like manner. And last of all he sent to them his son, saying: They will reverence my son. But the husbandmen seeing the son, said among themselves: This is the heir, come, let us kill him, and we shall have his inheritance. And taking him, they cast him forth out of the vineyard, and killed him. When, therefore, the lord of the vineyard shall come, what will he do to those husbandmen?

They say to Him: He will bring those evil men to an evil end: and will let out his vineyard to other husbandmen, that shall render him the fruit in due season. Jesus saith to them: Have you never read in the Scriptures: The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner? By the Lord this hath been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes. Therefore, I say to you, that the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and shall be given to a nation yielding the fruits thereof. And whosoever shall fall on this stone, shall be broken but on whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder. And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard His parables, they knew that He spoke of them. And seeking to lay hands on Him, they feared the multitudes: because they held Him as a prophet.

Confidence and Union with God in Temptation[3]

Nothing is more efficacious against temptation than the remembrance of the Cross of Jesus. What did Christ come to do here below if not to "destroy the works of the devil"? And how has He destroyed them, how has He "cast out" the devil, as He Himself says, if not by His death upon the Cross?

Let us then lean by faith upon the cross of Christ Jesus, as our baptism gives us the right to do. The virtue of the cross is not exhausted. In baptism we were marked with the seal of the cross, we became members of Christ, enlightened by His light, and partakers of His life and of the salvation He brings to us. Hence, united to Him, whom shall we fear? Dominus illuminatio mea et salus mea; quern timebo? Let us say to ourselves: "He hath given His angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways."

"Because he hoped in Me (says the Lord) I will deliver him; I am with him in tribulation, I will deliver him, and I will glorify him. I will fill him with length of days, and I will show him My salvation."