[ Today's Readings ]
can you say that the one
whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world
blasphemes because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?
We know that we can't say this in the same way you can, Jesus. God the Father is your Father like he is no one else's. He himself speaks this truth.
He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” (see Matthew 17:5).
You do his works. You reveal his love and his mercy. It is precisely in the power of your goodness and love that you reveal that you are the child of the Father. But it is in this same revelation that we realize how far we have to go.
Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father.
For which of these are you trying to stone me?”
We say we are not trying to stone you for your goodness. But really, we are. Because then we won't have to admit that the Father is your Father and that we need so much mercy and change in our lives.
Jesus, your works are love. They are meant so that we "may realize and understand that the Father is in" you and you in him. Help us to lay down our stones. Help us to receive the Spirit that makes us sons of the Father. Help us to receive your own Spirit of Sonship and become children of our heavenly Father.
And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (see Galatians 4:6)
You then transform us to do the same sorts of good works from your Father that you yourself perform.
But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil (see Luke 6:35).
When we become children of the Father the world hates us just as it hates you. But just as you find refuge and help in the Father so can we.
But the LORD is with me, like a mighty champion:
my persecutors will stumble, they will not triumph.
We need to trust you so much that we call you when we are in distress before we try anything else. Even if the "breakers of death" are surging about us and "the destroying floods" are overwhelming us, even if the very "cords of the nether world" ensnare us and "the snares of death" overtake us you are ready and waiting to help. We discover a Father who loves his children and does not abandon them.
“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you (see Isaiah 49:15).
When we lack good works and feel threatened by you, help us to cry out for help. When your good works are manifest in us and the world feels threatened, help us to cry out for help.
In my distress I called upon the LORD
and cried out to my God;
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry to him reached his ears.
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