The grace of God is like rain, like water poured out to slake the thirsty ground of our soul and cause life to spring up there and thrive. In the first reading, we have this consoling image of the infallible power of God’s Word: you can try to protect yourself from the rain, you can stay indoors, but eventually the water finds a way to get you wet. Just as the rain cycles back to the sky after watering the earth, so the grace of God raises our heart back to heaven as the Word accomplishes the mission for which it was sent.
Monday of the First Week of Lent
Quotes:
” “You shall not be partial to the poor,” a precept given lest under pretext of showing pity we should judge an unjust judgment. For each individual is to be judged not by his personal importance but by the merits of his case. His wealth need not stand in the way of the rich man, if he makes a good use of it; and poverty of itself can be no recommendation to the poor if in the midst of squalor and want he fails to stay away from wrongdoing.”
“So then, people on earth are intermingled, and not only intermingled in that the righteous live side by side with the wicked, but they are also indistinguishable. Between the righteous and the wicked there is no apparent difference. Even as in wintertime you cannot tell the healthy trees apart from the withered trees but in beautiful springtime you can tell the difference, so too each person according to his faith and his works will be exposed.”
First Sunday of Lent
Quotes:
‘The fact that God Himself would look at the bow and remember His covenant, was “a glorious and living expression of the great truth, that God’s covenant signs, in which He has put His promises, are real vehicles of His grace, that they have power and essential worth not only with men, but also before God”’
“The Hebrew term for a rainbow is the same term used for a hunting (27:3) or military bow (Lam 2:4). This has given rise to different explanations of the sign. (1) Some see the rainbow as a sign of peace. They picture God hanging up his bow in the sky, retiring it from service and signifying that he has ended his battle with the sinful world. (2) Others interpret the rainbow as a sign of God’s covenant oath. They envision the bow pulled back and pointed up at heaven, signifying that God will be forever faithful to his pledge, for he threatens himself with a curse should he fail to uphold the terms of the Noahic covenant.”