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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260220
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SUMMARY:Vigils Reading - Friday after Ash Wednesday
DESCRIPTION:THE UNBOUNDED LOVE \nOF GOD \nFrom “Seasons of Celebration” by Thomas Merton \n◊◊◊ \nIf we look carefully at the famous contrast made by St Paul between the \n“law of God in his mind” and “the law of sin in his body” we will see a little more \nin it than just these two. It is true\, St Paul says he is “delighted with God’s law \naccording to the inner man\,” with his “mind he serves the law of God but with \nhis lower nature the law which allures him to sin”. Ordinarily this text is not \ninterpreted fully. Very often for instance\, we take it to mean that there is nothing \nelse for us but to accept this inevitable conflict\, to try to keep the law of God in \nspite of the bias of concupiscence that draws us toward sin. To accept the \nconflict in a spirit of Christian resignation is all that is required of us as \nChristians. \nDo we not see that this leaves us purely and simply captives of the Law? If \nthis is all there is to it\, then Christ’s victory is not complete in our lives. There is \na third possibility\, and this is the right one. It is the grace of God in Christ our \nLord or\, to be more succinct\, it is Christ himself in us. It is our new life in Christ. \nBy our life of love and hope in Christ we rise above the dilemma and thus resolve \nit. The Christian solution is not merely to continue struggling against \ntemptation in order to live according to the Law. This is nothing new. It is \nexactly what had to be done before the coming of Christ. The Christian is no \nlonger bound by the law of the flesh\, and he is no longer obliged in a spirit of fear \nto keep the Law of God considered as a formal code imposed on him from \nwithout. \nHe may still be tempted by the flesh. He resists temptation and is saved \nnot by various practices and stratagems but by the spiritual force of love itself\, \nand of the new life that is in him. He lives by the “Spirit of him who raised Christ \nJesus from the dead\,” and by that Spirit he “puts to death the deeds prompted \nby the animal instincts\, and so lives. In other words\, it is not dutiful observance \nthat keeps us from sin\, but something far greater: it is love. And this love is not \nsomething which we develop by our own powers alone. It is a sublime gift of the \ndivine mercy\, and the fact that we live in realization of this mercy and this gift is \nthe greatest source of growth for our love and for our holiness. \nThis gift\, this mercy\, this unbounded love of God for us has been lavished \nupon us as a result of Christ’s victory. To taste this love is to share in his victory. \nTo realize our freedom\, to exult in our liberation from death\, from sin and from \nthe Law\, is to sing the Alleluia which truly glorifies God in this world and in the \nworld to come.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-friday-after-ash-wednesday/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
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