St. Augustine, bishop and doctor of the Church
H. Francisco J. Posada, L.C.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Christ, our King, Thy Kingdom come!
Preparatory prayer (to put me in the presence of God)
Lord, give me the grace to know myself more deeply in order to recognize who I am in my innermost being.
Gospel of the day (to guide your meditation)
From the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew 23:27-32
At that time, Jesus said to the scribes and Pharisees, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inside they are full of bones and rottenness. So are you also: outwardly you appear righteous, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had lived in the time of our fathers, we would not have been their accomplices in the murder of the prophets’! By this you are acknowledging that you are the children of the murderers of the prophets, so stop doing what your fathers started!”.
Word of the Lord.
Meditate on what God tells you in the Gospel
The Lord wants us to be sincere because a life of appearance is not a life, wanting to appear to be what we are not is destroying us little by little. In today's society in which the image and the impression that others have of us is so important, the danger of wanting to give a good image at all costs is present everywhere. That is why Christ invites us to be transparent and let them know us as we are because what we are worth is within us.
Clearly our mistakes are difficult to hide and we would like no one to realize that we don't know how to do things well, but the reality is that imperfection is part of being human and Christ wants to help us. Knowing that He loves us as we are because He knows us in our innermost being is a great comfort.
If we recognize how we are, we will have the certainty that we do not need to appear to people to be accepted, but only to be ourselves, accepting and living the gift of our life.
«There is corruption, like those doctors of the law who become corrupt by highlighting only the appearance and not what is inside. Corrupt of vanity, of appearance, of external beauty, of external justice. They have become corrupt because they were concerned only with cleaning, with beautifying the outside of things, they did not go inside: inside is corruption. As in the tombs. These pagans became corrupt because they exchanged the glory of God, which they could have known by reason, for idols: the corruption of idolatry, of so many idolatries. Not only the idolatries of ancient times, but also the idolatry of today: the idolatry, for example, of consumerism; the idolatry of seeking a comfortable god.»
(Homily of H.H. Francis, October 17, 2017, in Santa Marta).
Dialogue with Christ
This is the most important part of your prayer, prepare yourself to talk with much love with the One who loves you.
Purpose
Propose a personal one. The one that involves the most love in response to the Beloved... or, if you believe that this is what God is asking of you, live what is suggested below.
Ask for the grace to be sincere all the time.
Farewell
We thank You, Lord, for all Your benefits, You who live and reign forever and ever.
Amen.
Christ, our King!
Thy Kingdom come!
Most prudent Virgin, Mary, Mother of the Church.
Pray for us.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
