Daily Retreat 08/13/07
2007 Aug 13 Mon/ Pontian, pp, mt, and Hippolytus, p, mt
Dt 10:12-22/ Ps 147/ Mt 17:22-27
From today’s readings: “ In His love for your fathers the LORD was so attached to them as to choose you, their descendants, in preference to all other peoples.... Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.... From whom do the kings of the earth take tolls or census tax? From their subjects or from foreigners?”
Chosen People
The rhetoric of the book of Deuteronomy is divine - the words of Moses again and again explain why and how to put God first in our lives, to “fear the LORD, your God, and follow His ways exactly, to love and serve the LORD, your God, with all your heart and all your soul, to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD.... He is your glory, He, your God, who has done for you those great and terrible things which your own eyes have seen!”
There are many reasons to put God first in our lives - even if there weren’t other reasons, just the mere fact that He is Almighty God is, of course, a sufficiently compelling reason to love, worship and obey Him. But Moses reminds the Israelites (and us) that an even more compelling reason exists to love, worship and obey God, for although “the heavens, even the highest heavens, belong to the LORD, your God, as well as the earth and everything on it... yet in His love for your fathers the LORD was so attached to them as to choose you, their descendants, in preference to all other peoples, as indeed He has now done!”
In other words, God chose us to be His people - even though we had no intrinsic merits to commend ourselves, God chose us! On the other hand, God certainly does have every merit to commend Himself to us, so how unthinkable it would be that we should not gratefully choose Him who has graciously chosen us!
Dt 10:12-22/ Ps 147/ Mt 17:22-27
From today’s readings: “ In His love for your fathers the LORD was so attached to them as to choose you, their descendants, in preference to all other peoples.... Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.... From whom do the kings of the earth take tolls or census tax? From their subjects or from foreigners?”
Chosen People
The rhetoric of the book of Deuteronomy is divine - the words of Moses again and again explain why and how to put God first in our lives, to “fear the LORD, your God, and follow His ways exactly, to love and serve the LORD, your God, with all your heart and all your soul, to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD.... He is your glory, He, your God, who has done for you those great and terrible things which your own eyes have seen!”
There are many reasons to put God first in our lives - even if there weren’t other reasons, just the mere fact that He is Almighty God is, of course, a sufficiently compelling reason to love, worship and obey Him. But Moses reminds the Israelites (and us) that an even more compelling reason exists to love, worship and obey God, for although “the heavens, even the highest heavens, belong to the LORD, your God, as well as the earth and everything on it... yet in His love for your fathers the LORD was so attached to them as to choose you, their descendants, in preference to all other peoples, as indeed He has now done!”
In other words, God chose us to be His people - even though we had no intrinsic merits to commend ourselves, God chose us! On the other hand, God certainly does have every merit to commend Himself to us, so how unthinkable it would be that we should not gratefully choose Him who has graciously chosen us!
posted by FrPitstick | 8/12/2007
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