Tuesday of Passion Week: Daily Lenten Meditations

MY GENEROUS FRIEND 

Was there ever a heart that did not respond to the strong appeal of generous love? When another spends himself for me, when another suffers for my welfare, my heart expands with feelings of gratitude and I long to prove my deep appreciation.

Yes, so it is with my friends here on earth. But is it always so with my Divine Friend? Never was there a friend so generously devoted as He. Never was there a friend who suffered so much to prove His affection. Utterly self-forgetting, He sets no bounds to His giving. All that I am or have He has given me out of His infinitely bountiful love. My very life is a gift from His generous hand. My body with its wonderful powers, my soul with its more wonderful faculties, all come to me from my Divine Friend.

And more than this! He not only gives me temporal gifts, but an eternity of unimaginable joys in His own bright heaven He has prepared for me when life’s day is over.

But He did not stop there. When, by my sins, I offended my heavenly Father and lost my rich inheritance, He took my guilt upon Himself and suffered and died to atone for my wickedness.

Such is the generous love of my Divine Friend. And how do I respond to His infinite goodness? Am I not shamefully shabby at times in my treatment of Him? How seldom I go out of my way to let Him know that I appreciate His bountiful love! And when He comes to ask favors of me, the merest trifles though they always are, how often I find it in my heart to seek excuses to avoid the giving! Shaming, is it not?

Dear Jesus, Divine Friend, have mercy on us.

EPISTLE AND GOSPEL:  Taken from the Angelus Press 1962 Roman Catholic Daily Missal

EPISTLE:  Dan. 14: 27-42

The Epistle foretells the approaching Passion of the Messias and the rejection of Israel. Daniel destroying Bel is the figure of Christ denouncing the crimes of the world.

In those days the Babylonians came to the king and said to him: Deliver us Daniel, who hath destroyed Bel, and killed the dragon; or else we will destroy thee and thy house. And the king saw that they pressed upon him violently: and, being constrained by necessity, he delivered Daniel to them. And they cast him into the den of lions, and he was there six days. And in the den there were seven lions, and they had given to them two carcasses every day, and two sheep: but then they were not given unto them, that they might devour Daniel. Now there was in Judea a prophet called Habacuc, and he had boiled pottage, and had broken bread in a bowl: and was going into the field to carry it to the reapers. And the Angel of the Lord said to Habacuc: Carry the dinner which thou hast into Babylon to Daniel, who is in the lion’s den. And Habacuc said: Lord, I never saw Babylon, nor do I know the den. And the Angel of the Lord took him by the top of his head, and carried him by the hair of his head, and set him in Babylon, over the den, in the force of his spirit. And Habacuc cried, saying: O Daniel, thou servant of God, take the dinner that God hath sent thee. And Daniel said: Thou hast remembered me, O God, and Thou hast not forsaken them that love Thee. And Daniel arose, and ate. And the angel of the Lord presently set Habacuc again in his own place. And upon the seventh day the king came to bewail Daniel: and he came to the den, and looked in, and behold, Daniel was sitting in the midst of the lions. And the king cried out with a loud voice, saying: Great art Thou, O Lord, the God of Daniel. And he drew him out of the lion’s den. But those that had been the cause of his destruction, he cast into the den, and they were devoured in a moment before him. Then the king said: Let all the inhabitants of the whole earth fear the God of Daniel: for He is the Savior, working signs and wonders in the earth; Who hath delivered Daniel out of the lion’s den.

GOSPEL:  Jn. 7: 1-13

Jesus denounces the crimes and the sins of the world; the Jews seek to kill Him.

At that time Jesus walked in Galilee, for He would not walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill Him. Now the Jews’ feast of Tabernacles was at hand. And His brethren said to Him: Pass from hence and go into Judea, that Thy disciples also may see Thy works which Thou dost. For there is no man that doth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly: if Thou do these things, manifest Thyself to the world. For neither did His brethren believe in Him. Then Jesus said to them: My time is not yet come; but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you: but Me it hateth, because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil. Go you up to this festival day, but I go not up to this festival day: because My time is not accomplished. When He had said these things, He Himself stayed in Galilee. But after His brethren were gone up, then He also went up to the feast not publicly, but as it were privately. The Jews therefore sought Him on the festival day, and said: Where is He? And there was much murmuring among the multitude concerning Him. For some said: He is a good man. And others said: No, but He seduceth the people. Yet no man spoke openly of Him, for fear of the Jews.