Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? -- Matthew 20,16HERE ARE YOU WHO have been a daily communicant all these years, living in the fear of God, practising meditation; the whole of your past years seem a vista of first Fridays, and yet your prayers are so cold, so dull, so destitute of spiritual consolation! And there is So-and-so, yesterday's convert, with a past which charity forbids you to contemplate, overwhelmed with sweetness and tenderness and every sort of sensible devotion. Must not there be some flaw here in the divine economy? Well, you have your answer. Is it not lawful for God to do what he wills with his own? Must you frown because he smiles, criticize because he lavishes his rewards? His grace is free, else what would be your own's position? His grace is free; how then should your unworthiness limit it?
Hear, if you will, attentively, faithfully, fruitfully; hear, if you will, incredulously, scornfully, with hostility; but do not say that Christ our Lord left us with nothing but a string of moral maxims or a series of devotional considerations, do not pretend that no theology comes from Galilee: in secret he has said nothing. The claim he made for himself and for his Church was enough to make the Jews crucify him; we, too, if we will only listen, must either crucify or adore.
- Ronald Knox
No comments:
Post a Comment