RB: Ch 11 Vigils or Night Office on Sunday
Mass: 1 Kgs 11:4-13; Resp Ps 106; Mk 7:24-30
How easy it is to get snared by idols and the trappings of the world, like King Solomon, whose heart turned to strange gods - his heart was not entirely with the Lord, his God (1 Kgs 11:4). The slope is slippery and it is easy to slide down the slope of worldliness without even knowing it. I think of an entry by Thomas Merton in The Sign of Jonas. Merton is commenting on the benefit of his "contacts with the outside-with the world of writers and of people who publish and of people who insult one another for the sake of art …" He adds: "To see how seriously men take things and how little they profit by their seriousness." Merton closes with this zinger: "Their tragedy makes our mediocrity all the more terrible" (p. 77, November 20, 1947).
Often we forget the Lord and deal with other gods: money, vanity, pride. Let us ask for the grace to understand when our hearts begin to slide into worldliness. God's grace and love will stop us if we ask in prayer.
(Pope Francis, Twitter, February 13, 2020)
© Gertrude Feick 2020
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