Lk. 15: 1-10 Robinson Crusoe Joy Repentant Sinner

Thursday, 08 November 2012 31st week Ord. Time  

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 15:1-10. Tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."    

Thursday, 08 November 2012 Blessed John Duns Scotus, O.F.M. (c.1266-1308)
COMMENT: Father Charles Balic, O.F.M., the foremost 20th-century authority on Scotus, has written: "The whole of Scotus's theology is dominated by the notion of love. The characteristic note of this love is its absolute freedom. As love becomes more perfect and intense, freedom becomes more noble and integral both in God and in man" (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 1105).

This morning, the commentary on the Mass from MAGNIFICAT was unusual,

Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday

 An excerpt from Robinson Crusoe c. 6&7 by Daniel Defoe (+ 1731). 

MAGNIFICAT - MEDITATION OF THE DAY

Joy over the Repentant Sinner

While I was thus gathering strength, my thoughts ran exceedingly upon this Scripture, "I will deliver you"; and the impossibility of my deliverance lay much upon my mind, in bar of my ever expecting it; but as I was discouraging myself with such thoughts, it occurred to my mind that I poured so much upon my deliverance from the main affliction, that I disregarded the deliverance I had received, and I was as it were made to ask myself such questions as these - viz. Have I not been delivered, and wonderfully too, from sickness - from the most distressed condition that could be, and that was so frightful to me? And what notice had I taken of it? Had I done my part? God had delivered me, but I had not glorified him - that is to say, I had not owned and been thankful for that as a deliverance; and how could I expect greater deliverance? This touched my heart very much; and immediately I knelt down and gave God thanks aloud for my recovery from my sickness.

In the morning I took the Bible; and beginning at the New Testament, I began seriously to read it, and imposed upon myself to read a while every morning and every night; not tying myself to the number of chapters, but long as my thoughts should engage me. It was not long after I set seriously to this work till I found my heart more deeply and sincerely affected with the wickedness of my past life. The impression of my dream revived; and the words, "All these things have not brought you to repentance", ran seriously through my thoughts. I was earnestly begging of God to give me repentance, when it happened providentially, the very day, that, reading the Scripture, I came to these words: "he is exalted a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance and to give remission." I threw down the book; and with my heart as well as m¥ hands lifted up to heaven, in a kind of ecstasy of joy, I cried out aloud, "Jesus, you Son of David! Jesus, you exalted Prince and Saviour! Give me repentance!" This was the first time I could say, in the true sense of the words, that I prayed in all my life; for now I prayed with a sense of my condition, and a true Scripture view of hope, founded on the encourage­ment of the Word of God; and from this time, I may say, I began to hope that God would hear me.

Now I began to construe the words mentioned above, "call on me, and I will deliver you", in a different sense from what I had ever done before; for then I had no notion of anything being called deliverance, but my being delivered from the captivity I was in; for though I was indeed at large in the place, yet the island was certainly a prison to me, and that in the worst sense in the world. But now I learned to takeit in another sense: now I looked back upon my past life with such horror, and my sins appeared so dreadful, that my soul sought nothing of God but deliverance from the load of guilt that bore down all my comfort. As for my solitary life, it was nothing.