Accept my works if you cannot accept my words

Jesus made two claims in his response to his enemies: He was consecrated by the Father to a special task and he was sent into the world to carry out his Father's mission. Jesus challenged his opponents to accept his works if they could not accept his words. One can argue with words, but deeds are beyond argument. Jesus is the perfect teacher in that he does not base his claims on what he says but on what he does.

Jesus shows us the way to walk the path of holiness. He anoints us with his power to live the gospel with joy.

The Father in Jesus and he in the Father

John 10:31-42

Servile love acts like a domestic servant who is hired to clean out dirty jugs. A child loves a father not with a mercenary love, that is, for any advantage to be had from him. Nor does a child fear to offend a father for dread of punishment, but only for the father's goodness and love.

So it is nature and the power of love that compel a true child to love and serve a father. Nothing else deserves to be loved except in God; but to love all creatures in him and for him is to love the Father.

Jesus says that we must understand that the Father is in him and he is in the Father.

St Catherine of Siena

Fr Nivard's Blog 24 March 10

Monday 15th. March 2010

MEDITATION OF THE DAY John 4:43-54.

The royal official said to him, "Sir, come down before my child dies."

We are not alone in the hour of death; we have nothing to fear in the hour of death: because when th e time comes Christ identifies himself with us so closely that fear gives way to trust and anguish to peace. He has lived all of our lives, died all of our deaths; to all of us he has given his peace. It is in the hour of death that our fear, our anxiety, our loneliness, will end ...

Death is too big a thing for anyone of us to face alone. It separates us, for a time, from those we love on earth. It is difficult for us earthbound, rooted crea­tures to want heaven; it is impossible for us to realize what the glory of God will be to us. It is loving God, and that only, that can make heaven, heaven. Here imagination does not help us: we cannot really imagine ourselves loving the "Supreme Spirit" - we even want to cling to our human frailties and comforts, to our human weakness.

It is now that Christ takes over. He has died all our deaths on the cross; now we are going to die his; it is Christ in us who surrenders to God. It is not with our own heart and our own will that we can long for God, but with Christ's. And Christ has given his heart and will to us. In this is the supreme mercy that comes to us in the hour of death ...

Now I love God with Christ's will, with Christ's heart, with Christ's trust; and because he has taken whole possession of me, in the hour of my death I shall at last love my friends too with his love.

Caryll Houselander (+ 1954) was a British mystic, poet, and spiritual teacher.
Magnificat Missalette