S Hillary, pope: “Children, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God!"

“For men it is impossible, but not for God.
All things are possible for God.”

-- Mk 10:17-27

What God commands he makes possible by his grace.

-- CCC 2082

Sunday Wk 8: "do not worry"

Anxiety is born of materialism and obsession with money.

"The Lord grieves over the rich, because they find their consolation in the abundance of goods. 'Let the proud seek and love earthly kingdoms, but blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.' Abandonment to the providence of the Father in heaven frees us from anxiety about tomorrow. Trust in God is a preparation for the blessedness of the poor. They shall see God." (CCC 2547)

We do need to eat and the protection of clothing and shelter, but we are more than these. When we become mired in concern for earthly wants our deepest needs, for spiritual realities, for God, are unmet and we become unhappy. The answer for those who crave peace is to hand themselves over to the Father in total trust as does Christ.

" 'Our bread': The Father who gives us life cannot not but give us the nourishment life requires - all appropriate goods and blessings, both material and spiritual. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus insists on the filial trust that cooperates with our Father's providence. He is not inviting us to idleness, but wants to relieve us from nagging worry and preoccupation. Such is the filial surrender of the children of God:

"To those who seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, he has promised to give all else besides. Since everything indeed belongs to God, he who possesses God wants for nothing, if he himself is not found wanting before God." (CCC 2830)

The power of Faith is experienced in the strength to refuse worldly preoccupations that feed doubts which corrode our faith.

"The first commandment requires us to nourish and protect our faith with prudence and vigilance, and to reject everything that is opposed to it. There are various ways of sinning against faith: Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief. Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in believing, difficulty in overcoming objections connected with the faith, or also anxiety aroused by its obscurity. If deliberately cultivated doubt can lead to spiritual blindness." (CCC 2088)

To be strong in Faith is to reject the sources of anxiety that leave us vulnerable to the wiles of the evil One.

"When we ask to be delivered from the Evil One, we pray as well to be freed from all evils, present, past, and future, of which he is the author or instigator. In this final petition, the Church brings before the Father all the distress of the world. Along with deliverance from the evils that overwhelm humanity, she implores the precious gift of peace and the grace of perseverance in expectation of Christ's return By praying in this way, she anticipates in humility of faith the gathering together of everyone and everything in him who has 'the keys of Death and Hades,' who 'is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.'

"Deliver us, Lord, we beseech you, from every evil and grant us peace in our day, so that aided by your mercy we might be ever free from sin and protected from all anxiety, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ." (CCC 2854)

Art: Hildesheim Cathedral, Christussäule: The miraculous feeding of the multitude, ca. 1020.

Saturday, Wk 7: "God from the earth created man"

... and in his own image he made him.

-- Sir 17:1-15

" 'God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.' Man occupies a unique place in creation: (I) he is 'in the image of God'; (II) in his own nature he unites the spiritual and material worlds; (III) he is created 'male and female'; (IV) God established him in his friendship.

-- CCC 355

Friday, Wk 7: "A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter"

a man shall leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh.

-- Mk 10:1-12

Holy Scripture affirms that man and woman were created for one another: "It is not good that the man should be alone." The woman, "flesh of his flesh," his equal, his nearest in all things, is given to him by God as a "helpmate"; she thus represents God from whom comes our help. "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable union of their two lives by recalling what the plan of the Creator had been "in the beginning": "So they are no longer two, but one flesh."

-- CCC 1605

Thursday, Wk 7: "Rely not on your wealth"

Delay not your conversion to the LORD,
put it not off from day to day.

-- Sir 5:1-8

The beatitude we are promised confronts us with decisive moral choices. It invites us to purify our hearts of bad instincts and to seek the love of God above all else. It teaches us that true happiness is not found in riches or well-being, in human fame or power, or in any human achievement - however beneficial it may be - such as science, technology, and art, or indeed in any creature, but in God alone, the source of every good and of all love:

All bow down before wealth. Wealth is that to which the multitude of men pay an instinctive homage. They measure happiness by wealth; and by wealth they measure respectability. . . . It is a homage resulting from a profound faith . . . that with wealth he may do all things. Wealth is one idol of the day and notoriety is a second. . . . Notoriety, or the making of a noise in the world - it may be called "newspaper fame" - has come to be considered a great good in itself, and a ground of veneration.

-- CCC 1723

S Peter Damian: "All wisdom comes from the LORD"

There is but one, wise and truly awe-inspiring, seated upon his throne:
There is but one, Most High all-powerful creator-king and truly awe-inspiring one

-- Sir 1:1-10

God's almighty power is in no way arbitrary: "In God, power, essence, will, intellect, wisdom, and justice are all identical. Nothing therefore can be in God's power which could not be in his just will or his wise intellect."

-- CCC 271

"Give to the one who asks of you": aid to the poor and all in need demonstrates love for the poor Christ, present in His Body the Church

"Should anyone press you into service for one mile,
go for two miles.
Give to the one who asks of you,
and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow."

All that we have, both material and spiritual, are gifts from the heavenly Father, on loan as it were and to be shared with all.

" 'The Church's love for the poor . . . is a part of her constant tradition.' This love is inspired by the Gospel of the Beatitudes, of the poverty of Jesus, and of his concern for the poor. Love for the poor is even one of the motives for the duty of working so as to 'be able to give to those in need.' It extends not only to material poverty but also to the many forms of cultural and religious poverty." (CCC 2444)

Every human person is a sister or brother. The love of Christ demands of us that we treat them as such.

"The principle of solidarity, also articulated in terms of 'friendship' or 'social charity,' is a direct demand of human and Christian brotherhood.

"An error, 'today abundantly widespread, is disregard for the law of human solidarity and charity, dictated and imposed both by our common origin and by the equality in rational nature of all men, whatever nation they belong to. This law is sealed by the sacrifice of redemption offered by Jesus Christ on the altar of the Cross to his heavenly Father, on behalf of sinful humanity.' (CCC 1939)

Within our liturgy, the highest prayer of the Christian people, we have the collection and the offering of our gifts, to include monetary ones, as an expression of the love of Christ and a means of solidarity with everyone in need of any kind.

"From the very beginning Christians have brought, along with the bread and wine for the Eucharist, gifts to share with those in need. This custom of the collection, ever appropriate, is inspired by the example of Christ who became poor to make us rich:

"Those who are well off, and who are also willing, give as each chooses. What is gathered is given to him who presides to assist orphans and widows, those whom illness or any other cause has deprived of resources, prisoners, immigrants and, in a word, all who are in need."

(CCC 1351)