The Catholic Calendar for Friday, August 12, 2005
Friday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
St. John Eudes, priest

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Joshua 24:1-13
Psalm 136:1-3, 16-18, 21-22 and 24
Matthew 19:3-12

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

"Because of the hardness of your hearts,
Moses allowed you to divorce your wives. . ." (Matt. 19:8)

Because of the hardness of our hearts, the perfection of God's law was denied in this. How many times each day is the perfection of God's law denied? How many provisions must be made for the weakness of human feeling and flesh?

But God does make these provisions. He does not want His law to break us, but rather to make us. He wants it to bring us to Him in love, in wonder, in beauty and in worship. His law is perfection, our practice of it imperfection. His law is love, our practice of it often mere legalism. How often do we find ourselves judging another over matters that are not central to the faith--by the music one listens to, by the books one reads, by the movies one watches.

We should not flaunt our freedoms and cause scandal to others. But neither should we hide our freedom to engage the world. The world has a heart that is hard enough for us all--we needn't make it harder by adding to the burden of judgment that is already rife in our society. Let us not cause God's laws to change by the hardness of our hearts, but let the laws break hard hearts, change them into fleshly hearts. A hard heart cannot worship God in love--it is too lost in judgment. But God can change the hardest heart into a heart of love.

- JuandelaCruz
(http://floscarmeli.stblogs.org/)

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