From "Devout Instructions" by Fr GoffineEPISTLE (Joel ii. 23-27) Thus saith the Lord God: O children of Sion, rejoice, and be joyful in the Lord your God: because he hath given you a teacher of justice, and he will make the early and the latter rain to come down to you as in the beginning. And the floors shall be filled with wheat, and the presses shall overflow with wine and oil. And I will restore to you the ears which the locust, and the bruchus, and the mildew, and the palmerworm have eaten; my great host which I sent upon you. And you shall eat in plenty, and shall be filled: and you shall praise the name of the Lord your God, who hath done wonders with you, and my people shall not be confounded for ever. And you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel: and I am the Lord your God, and there is none besides: and my people shall not be confounded for ever.
GOSPEL (Luke v. 17-26) At that time: It came to pass on a certain day, as he sat teaching, that there were also Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, that were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judea and Jerusalem: and the power of the Lord was to heal them. And behold, men brought in a bed a man, who had the palsy: and they sought means to bring him in, and to lay him before him. And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in, because of the multitude, they went up upon the roof, and let him down through the tiles with his bed into the midst before Jesus. Whose faith when he saw, he said: Man, thy sins are forgiven thee. And the scribes and Pharisees began to think, saying: Who is this who speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone? And when Jesus knew their thoughts, answering, he said to them: What is it you think in your hearts? Which is easier to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee; or to say, Arise and walk? But that you may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (He saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say to thee, Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house. And immediately rising up before them, he took up the bed on which he lay; and he went away to his own house, glorifying God. And all were astonished; and they glorified God. And they were filled with fear, saying: We have seen wonderful things today.
"The Way of the Cross" fragments from "Divine Intimacy" by Fr Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen OCD
....By couragously practicing self-denial, we begin the way of conformity to Jesus Crucified; but here, too, our initiatives are disproportionate to the end to be attained; the acts of mortification and self-denial which we make are wholly insufficient to strip us of the old man and clothe us with Christ, with Cgrist Crucified. That is why the Holy Spirit, after setting us on the road of the Cross by His inspirations - which tend to make us accept, for the love of God, all that is hard and painful to nature - takes it upon Himself to complete our purification....
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