- 1 Corinthians 2:14-16 -
The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from
the
Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand
them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes
judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's
judgment:
"For who has known the mind of the Lord
that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.
______________________________________________________________
Non-Christians cannot understand God, and they cannot grasp the concept
that
God's spirit lives in believers. Don't expect most people to approve of or
understand your decision to follow Christ. It all seems silly to them.
Just
as a tone-deaf person cannot appreciate fine music, the person who rejects
God cannot understand God's beautiful message. With the lines of
communication broken, he or she won't be able to hear what God is saying
to
them.
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March 11th - St. Sophronius the Sophist
(Also known as Sophronius of Jerusalem)
Born in Damascus, Syria, c. 560; died in Alexandria, Egypt, c. 639. Saint
Sophronius traveled about the Near East with the mystic John Moschus, when
Moschus was collecting material for his famous ascetical work called "The
Spiritual Meadow." About 580 he and John Moschus entered the St. Sabas
monastery in Egypt, then he continued his journey in faith at St.
Theodosius
(Palestine). He spent ten years in Alexandria under Patriarch Saint John
the
Almsgiver. After making pilgrimages to monasteries and hermitages in
Egypt
and another to Rome (where John Moschus died about 620), reading
philosophy
and the Scriptures, and practicing austerities, Sophronius was elected
patriarch of Jerusalem in 634. During his episcopacy he contended with two
dangers to the Christian faith: one was heresy, the other the seemingly
relentless advance of the Saracens.
The heresy, finally condemned in 649 by the Lateran Council, is called
Monothelitism-the denial that Jesus had two wills, one human and the other
divine. In these early centuries, Christians were trying to understand how
Jesus could be both God and man. The question was debated for centuries
after Sophronius's death, but he was the most vigorous defender of the
view
that eventually was accepted by the Church: that Jesus had a divine and a
human will. He sent letters to the pope and to the patriarch of
Constantinople, begging them to give their weight to his side. So
im****tant
was the question of right doctrine to Saint Sophronius that he made his
assistant, Bishop Stephen of Dor, stay in Rome for ten years in order to
defend orthodoxy.
His second problem caused much pain. In 636, the Saracens took Damascus.
They reached Jerusalem two years later. At Christmas, Sophronius sadly
comforted his flock, who were unable to leave the besieged city for their
customary celebration of the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem. When Khalif Omar
took the city, Sophronius managed to win him to a greater tolerance of
Christians by personally conducting him around the holy sites of the city.
Nevertheless, Sophronius was banished and died soon after Omar conquered
Jerusalem.
In all this activity, Saint Sophronius remained a disciplined monk. Among
his writings is a panegyric of the Egyptian martyrs Cyrus and John. With
John Moschus he also wrote a biography of their friend Saint John the
Almsgiver, which has not survived. He also wrote several doctrinal theses,
homilies, and poems (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Delaney).
Saint Quote:
God loves our neighbors so much that He gave His life for them; and He is
glad even to have us leave Him to do them good. How grateful to Him,
then,
may we believe the services we render them! Ah, if we understood well how
im****tant is this virtue of the love of our neighbor, we should give
ourselves entirely to the pursuit of it.
-St. Teresa
Bible Quote:
8 Blessed is the rich man that is found without blemish: and that hath not
gone after gold, nor put his trust in money nor in treasures.
(Ecclesiasticus 31:8)
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A prayer for children on behalf of their parents:
Almighty and everlasting God, who, in the secret counsels of Thine
ineffable
Providence, hast been pleased to call us into life by means of our
parents,
who thus partake of Thy divine power in our regard, mercifully hear the
prayer of filial affection which we offer to Thee in behalf of those to
whom
Thou hast given a share of Thy fatherly mercy, in order that they might
lavish upon us in our journey through life the consoling gift of Thy holy
and generous love.
Dear Lord, fill our parents with Thy choicest blessings; enrich their
souls
with Thy holy grace; grant that they may faithfully and constantly guard
that likeness to Thy mystic marriage with Thy Church, which Thou didst
imprint upon them on the day of their nuptials. Fill them with the spirit
of holy fear, which is the beginning of wisdom, and continually move them
to
impart the same to their children; in such wise may they ever walk in the
way of Thy commandments, and may their children be their joy in this
earthly
exile and their crown of glory in their home in heaven.
Finally, Lord God, grant that both our father and our mother may attain to
extreme old age and enjoy perpetual health in mind and body; may they
deserve to sing Thy praises forever in our heavenly country in union with
us, their children, giving Thee most hearty thanks that Thou hast bestowed
upon them in this vale of tears the great gift of a share in the light of
Thine infinite fruitfulness and of Thy divine fatherhood. Amen.
Imprimatur: Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbp of New York, May 30, 1951.
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