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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250922
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DTSTAMP:20260512T001457
CREATED:20250920T233443Z
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UID:13957-1758499200-1758585599@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading
DESCRIPTION:THE THANKS THAT SPRINGS \nFROM A PURE HEART \nFrom a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux \n◊◊◊ \n“In all things give thanks to God.” If you can credit yourself with wisdom \nor with virtue\, realize that the credit is due rather to Christ\, who is the Power \nand the Wisdom of God. \n“Who is so mad\,” you say\, “as to presume otherwise?” Actually nobody. \nEven the Pharisee gives thanks\, although his justice merits no praise from God. \nAnd if\, as the Gospel points out\, his act of thanksgiving does not increase his \ngrace\, why is this so? Because the pieties that our mouths proclaim will not \njustify the pride of our heart in the sight of him who is repelled by the arrogant. \n“God is not mocked\, O Pharisee. What do you have that was not given to you?” \n“Nothing\,” he says\, “and therefore I offer thanks to the giver.” But if there is \nreally nothing\, then you had no antecedent merit to warrant your reception of \nthe things of which you boast. And if you admit this\, then in the first place it is \nfutile to give yourself airs at the expense of the publican who does not possess as \nmuch as you because he has not received as much. \nSecondly\, make sure you realize that God’s gifts are entirely his own; if \nyou attribute to yourself some of the glory and honor that are his\, you may \ndeservedly be convicted of fraud\, of attempting to defraud God. If you brazenly \nboast of gifts as though they were your own\, I should prefer to believe you are \ndeceived\, not that you wish to defraud. It is an error I should hope to correct. \nBut when you make thanksgiving\, you manifest that you regard nothing as your \nown\, you wisely acknowledge that your merits are really God’s gifts. \nWhen you despise others\, however\, you betray the inner reality of your \ncondition\, you are speaking from a double heart\, with one lending your tongue \nto a lie\, with the other usurping the honor due to truth. Never would you judge \nthe publican more despicable than yourself if you did not consider that you are \nmore honorable than he. But how will you reply to the principle laid down by the \nApostle: ‘Honor and glory to the only God?’… \nDo you not perceive that the Pharisee\, in offering thanks\, honors God with \nhis lips but in his heart pays tribute to himself? And so\, through force of habit \nmore than by intention or inclination\, you will hear people of all sorts \npronouncing words of thanks\, for even the wickedest persons will offer a \nperfunctory thanks to God…for any kind of crime\, because things fell out well \nand prosperous\, at least according to their estimation\, when their perverse will \nwas fulfilled. For instance\, when the thief has bagged the loot for which he has \nplanned\, he celebrates in the privacy of his hide-out and says: “Thank God!”… \nIt is clear then that God will listen only to the thanks that spring from a \npure and genuine simplicity of heart. I say “pure heart\,” because when those \nwho boast of their evil conduct presume to thank God for it\, they bring him \ndown to the level of their own profligacy and make him share in their wicked \npleasures. God says to people of this kind: “Do you really think I am like you?”
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-353/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
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