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.
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.
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."
Daily
Devotions
·
Manhood of the Master-Day 33
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