Tag Archives: Office of Readings

Salvation and True Life ~ Saint John Eudes, priest

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Saint John Eudes, Priest
Memorial Feast:  August 19





From a treatise on the admirable Heart of Jesus 
by St. John Eudes, priest




The source of salvation and true life


I ask you to consider that our Lord Jesus Christ is your true head and that you are a member of his body. He belongs to you as the head belongs to the body. All that is his is yours; breath, heart, body, soul and all his qualities. All of these you must use as if they belonged to you, so that in serving him you may give him praise, love and glory. You belong to him as a member belongs to the head. This is why he earnestly desires you serve and glorify the Father by using all our faculties as if they were his.

He belongs to you, but more than that, he longs to be in you, living and ruling in you, as the head lives and rules in the body. He desires that whatever is in him may live and rule in you: his breath in your breath, his heart in your heart , all the faculties of his soul in the faculties of your soul, so that these words may be fulfilled in you: Glorify God and bear him in your body, so that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in you.

You belong to the Son of God but more than that you ought to be in Him as members are in the head. All that is in you must be incorporated into him. You must receive life from him and be ruled by him. There will be no true life for you except in him, for he is the one source of true life. Apart from him you will find only death and destruction. Let him be the only source of your movements, of the actions and the strength of your life.

He must be both the source and the purpose of your life, so that you may fulfil these words: None of us lives as his own master and none of us dies as his own master. While we live, we are responsible to the Lord, and when we die we die as his servants. Both in life and death we are the Lord’s. That is why Christ died and came to life again, so that he may be Lord of both the dead and the living.

Finally you are one with Jesus as the body is one with the head. You must then have one breath with him, one soul, one life, one will, one mind, one heart, And he must be your breath, heart, love, life, your all. These great gifts in the follower of Christ originate from baptism. They are increased and strengthened through confirmation and making good use of other graces that are given by God. Through the holy eucharist they are brought to perfection. 


Love desires to see God

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I feel very inspired to share this with you today it is a homily reading from the Liturgy of the Hours, usually something priests and religious pray but lay people are also welcome to pray this too.

Please remember our prayers are with you as you continue to follow Our Lord’s path for you and your family life. Hang on, do not let others upset the peace that Our Lord wants and desires for you and your spouse, Our Lord has a great plan for your lives trust in HIM!

Keep repeating “Jesus I trust in you…”

Peace, Hope and Love,
Hannah’s Tears Ministry

Reading
Love desires to see God
A sermon by St Peter Chrysologus
When God saw the world falling to ruin because of fear, he immediately acted to call it back to himself with love. He invited it by his grace, preserved it by his love, and embraced it with compassion.

Thus, when the earth had grown old in evil, God sent the flood both to punish and to release it. He called Noah to be the father of a new era, urged him with gentle words, and showed his trust in him. He instructed him about the present and reassured him about the future. God did not just issue orders but shared in the work of shutting into the ark all that was to be born into the world in the future. Thus by sharing in love he took away servile fear, and he protected with shared love whatever their shared labour had saved.

Thus God called Abraham out of the heathen world, lengthened his name from ‘Abram’, and made him our father in faith. He accompanied him on his journeys, protected him in foreign lands, enriched him with possessions, and honoured him with victories. He made promises to him, saved him from harm, accepted his hospitality, and astonished him by giving him the offspring he had despaired of. Abraham was favored with so many good things and drawn by the God’s sweet love so that he would learn to love, not fear: love, not fear was to inspire him to worship.

Thus when Jacob was fleeing, God comforted him with a dream and roused him to combat upon his return. He hugged him in a wrestler’s grip so that he would love the one who had given battle and not fear him.

Thus God called Moses as a father would. It was with fatherly affection that he invited him to become the liberator of his people.

But in all the events we have recalled, the flame of God’s love set human hearts on fire and intoxicated human senses. Wounded by love, men longed to see God with their bodily eyes.

How could our narrow human vision perceive one whom the whole world cannot contain? What will be, what ought to be, what can be – the law of love does not care about these things. Love does not have judgement, reason, strategy. Love refuses to be consoled when its goal proves impossible, refuses to be cured if its goal is difficult to achieve.

Love destroys the lover if he cannot obtain what he loves. It goes where it is led, not where it ought to go. Love gives birth to desire, it bursts into flame and that fire draws it to seek forbidden things. What more is there to say?

Love cannot accept not seeing the thing that it loves. That is why the saints counted whatever they deserved as being nothing if it did not mean that they could see the Lord.

Thus although a love that desires to see God may not be desiring something reasonable, but still its desire is a truly good thing.

Thus it was that Moses dared to say: If I have found favor in your eyes, show me your face.

Thus it was that the psalmist said: Show me your face. Even the pagans were obeying the same impulse when they made their idols: even though they were mistaken, they knew that they had to see with their eyes what they worshipped with their hearts.

From the Office of Readings