Tuesday In the Fourth
Week of Easter
CINCO DE MAYO-
Jeremiah,
Chapter 30, Verse 5
Thus,
says the LORD: We hear a cry of fear: terror, not peace.
Do you always believe what you hear? Is our God a God
of terror or peace? God promised His people the Jews that he would restore them
in the Promised Land. Israel exists today as a fulfillment of that promise. The
only terror God gave was on Himself by the sacrifice of Christ. Pray for the
conversion of Israel that they may know the truth being like Rahab.
In her time Rahab saved the spies of Israel. Why? She knew the truth that God was with Israel.
Rahab was a survivor and a sinner; she knew God had given the land to Israel.
If you know the truth you do not swerve from it. Rahab was saved from the fate
of Jericho because of her action not just good will toward Israel. James in his
epistle puts it this way:
20Do you want proof, you ignoramus,
that faith without works is useless? 21 Was
not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered his son Isaac upon
the altar? 22 You see that faith was active
along with his works, and faith was completed by the works. 23
Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and
it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called “the friend of
God.”24 See how a person is justified by
works and not by faith alone. 25 And in the
same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified
by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by a different
route?
Rahab was saved by her faith and actions by the God of
Israel and as a result she is not only saved but the Christ the Messiah
descends from Boaz her son.
Today is Cinco de Mayo; sometimes referred to as Cinco
de Drunko, due to the heavy consumption of alcohol connected with the hedonistic
celebration. Cinco de Mayo is a relatively minor holiday in Mexico. However, in
America it is up there with some of our most celebrated: like the Fourth of
July and St. Patrick’s Day. The holiday has reinvented itself in America, from
celebrating Mexico's win at the Battle of Puebla, to celebrating Mexican
culture, and beer, and tequila. If we're being completely honest though, the
actual meaning of Cinco de Mayo in America is pretty lost on us, but so is the
meaning of St. Patrick’s Day. Today instead of following this hedonistic
celebration try and make it to Mass today.
- Attend a
Cinco de Mayo Festival. Popular such festivals can be found in San
Antonio, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston.
- Go eat or
have drinks at a Mexican restaurant.
- Make Margaritas with Mexican
tequila.
- Attend a
Parade.
- Make a piñata
with your friends. Piñatas usually contain sweets or treats that fall out
once it has been smashed open.
Instruction on Intemperance[3]
“Be sober and watch.” I. Peter v. 8.
St. Peter prescribes sobriety and
watchfulness as necessary means for resisting the attacks of the devil, who by
day and night goes about seeking whom he may devour. Woe to those who, by
reason of their drunkenness, (The term drunkard applies to any person who is
caught up in the addiction cycle, whether it is drink, gambling, drugs or sex.)
live in a continual night and lie in the perpetual sleep of sin! How will it be
with them if, suddenly awakened from this sleep by death, they find themselves
standing, burdened with innumerable and unknown sins, before the judgment-seat
of God? For who can number the sins, committed in and by reason of drunkenness,
which the drunkard either accounts as trifles, easily pardoned, or else, not
knowing what he has thought, said, and done in his fit of intoxication,
considers to be no sins at all? Will the divine Judge, at the last day, thus
reckon? Will He also find no sin in them? Will He let go unpunished the
infamous deeds and the scandals of their drunkenness?
He Who demands strict account of
every word spoken in vain, will He make no inquiry of so many shameful,
scandalous, and blasphemous sayings, of so much time wasted, of so much money
squandered, of so many neglects of the divine service, of the education of
children, of the affairs of home, and of innumerable other sins? Will they be
able to excuse themselves before this Judge by saying that they did not know
what they were doing? Or that what they did was for want of reflection, or in
jest? Or that they were not strong, and could not bear much? Will not such
excuses rather witness against them that they are the worthier of punishment
for having taken more than their strength could bear, thereby depriving
themselves of the use of reason, making themselves like brutes, and, of their
own free will, taking on themselves the responsibility for all the sins of
which their drunkenness was the occasion? What, then, awaits them? What else
than the fate of the rich glutton who, for his gluttony, was buried in hell?
(Luke xvi. 22.) Yes, that shall be the place and the portion of the drunkard!
There shall they in vain sigh for a drop of water. There, for all the pleasures
and satisfactions which they had in the world, as many pains and torments shall
now lay hold of them (Apoc. xviii. 7); there shall they be compelled to drain
the cup of God’s anger to the dregs, as they, in life, forced others into
drunkenness. This is what they have to hope for, for St. Paul says expressly
that drunkards shall not possess the kingdom of God (i. Cor. vi. 10). What then
remains for them but to renounce either their intemperance or heaven? But how
rare and difficult is the true conversion of a drunkard! This is the teaching
of experience. Will not such a one, therefore, go to ruin?
Daily
Devotions
[3]
Goffine’s Devout Instructions, 1896
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