One of the greatest challenges for someone who has begun to pray regularly is detachment from any measurable effects of prayer. There can be nagging thoughts questioning the quality or effectiveness of our prayer. There could be the longing for something extraordinary to happen while we pray: a great feeling, a vision, extacy, transports of love, a voice, etc. There could be disappointment if the intentions we carried with great fervor are not answered perceptibly. These let downs can exasperate us to the point that we give up on anything beyond rote prayer.
Thursday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
Anger is an emotion or a passion that is part of our life as human beings. Jesus speaks out strongly against giving this emotion free reign in our lives however. He wants us to see that if anger goes unchecked, it will inevitably lead to murder. We can certainly distinguish between our thoughts and our actions, but the starting place of all human action is reason. When reason takes its cues from anger, the resulting action is a violent rectification. We must learn to distinguish between what needs to be corrected because it is unjust or untrue, and what we would simply like to change because it goes against our own ideas or perspectives.
Saint Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church
Jesus’ attitude towards the Law is not obvious at first sight. It would seem on the one hand that He moves away from a strict observance of the details of the Law and towards a deeper conversion of heart and adherence to the principles of the Law. “You strain out the gnat but swallow a camel!”, “You have heard it said[…], I say to you […]” However, in today’s Gospel, Jesus makes sure that His insistence on the essence of the Law does not encourage His followers to abandon the details altogether.