Dear William,
There is MEMO on my desk ...
This morning of the Night Office I completely missed the Second Reading. To the rescue of the loss, Fr. Raymond introduced to the Mass with very incisive sum up of Eckhart's philosophical (mystic) reading.
....Donald
Rw, Eckhart POSTIT
Fr. Raymond, PROVIDENCE
Master
Ekhart gave us this morning his own version of the classical teaching on
indifference to life’s ups and downs.
This is a wisdom that goes as far back as the book of Job where we learn
that ‘it is the Lord who gives and the Lord who takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.’ It comes to us even from the pagan
philosophers of Greece and Rome through the Stoicism of their own philosophers. But it reaches its perfection in the teaching
of St Paul who gives a clear and positive note to this teaching when he tells
us that “all these things work together for the good of those who love God.
On Monday, 22 September 2014, 20:35,
Donald ...> wrote:
Fr. Raymond,
Thank you for introducing to Eckhart at the Mass.
See below the whole Reading.. Sent to William J W.
Donald
PS. I first hiccuped the words;
"Whoever sees anything in God does not see God. A righteous man has no need of God. What I have, I am not in need of. He serves for nothing, he cares for nothing"; in the boiling pot I felt scalded by the lines!.
Picture:
Abbot General Eamon working in Assisi General Chapter.
+++++++++++
MONDAY 21 Sept 2014 Year II
First Reading
Tobit 2:1-3.6
Responsory Rom 11:2.29.12
God has not rejected his people, whom he chose as his own in time past. + The gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.
V. If their fall and defection meant the enrichment of the world, the Gentile world, how much more will their conversion mean? + The gifts ...
Second Reading
From the writings of Meister Eckhart (Sermon 65: Sermons and Treatises Il, 76-78)
A righteous person has no need of God
When it falls to some people to suffer or to do something, they say, "If only I knew it was God's will, I would gladly endure it or do it!" Dear God! that is a strange question for a sick man to ask, whether it is God's will that he should be sick. He ought to realize that if he is sick, it must be God's will. It is just the same with other things. And so a man should accept from God, purely and simply, whatever happens to him. There are some people who praise God and have faith in him when all goes well with them, inwardly or outwardly, as when somebody says, "I have got ten quarters of corn this year and as many of wine: I put my trust in God." "Indeed," I say, "you put your trust in the corn and the wine." The soul is created for a good so great and so high that she cannot rest in any mode: all the time she is hastening past all modes toward the eternal good which is God, and for which she was created. And this is not to be gained by storm, by a man's being obstinately determined to do this and leave that, but by gentleness and sincere humility and self-abnegation in that as in everything that befalls, notby a man saying to himself: "You will do this at whatever cost!" - that would be wrong, for that is an assertion of self. If anything happens to him that causes him grief or trouble or disquiet, again he would be wrong, for he would be giving way to self. If something were very repugnant to him, he should inwardly seek counsel of God, and, bending humbly before him, accept with quiet faith from him whatever might happen to him, and then he would be right. This is the gist of the matter, of all advice and teaching: that a man should let himself be advised and pay regard only to God, though this can be explained in many and various words. It promotes a properly ordered conscience to refuse attention to casual happenings, and for a man when he is by himself to give up his will wholly to God and then to accept all things equally from God: grace or whatever it may be, inward or outward.
Whoever sees anything in God does not see God. A righteous man has no need of God. What I have, I am not in need of. He serves for nothing, he cares for nothing: he has God, and so he serves for nothing. By so much as God is higher than man, so he is readier to give than man is to receive. Not by fasting and outward works can we gauge our progress in the good life: but a sure sign of growth is a waxing love for the eternal and a waning interest in temporal things. If a man had a hundred marks and gave them all for God's sake to found a cloister, that would be a fine deed. And yet I say, it would be greater and better to despise and naught himself for God's sake. In all a man does he should turn his will Godward and, keeping God alone in mind, forge ahead without qualms about its being the right thing or whether he is making a mistake. If a painter had to plan every brush-stroke with the first, he would paint nothing. And if, going to some place, we had first to settle how to put the front foot down, we should get nowhere. So, follow the first step and continue: you will get to the right place, and all is well.
Responsory Is 55:8-9; Heb 11:2
My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. + For as the heavens are high above the earth, so are my ways above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts.
V. It was for their faith that the people of former times won God's approval. +For as the heavens ...
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