17th Week, Wednesday
Exodus 34:29-35 / Matthew 13:44-46
The face of Moses changes; The face of Moses became radiant.
The Cloud of Unknowing is a spiritual classic that dates back hundreds of years. Its author says that prayerfulness sometimes has an impact on one's appearance. A prayerful person often radiates an aura that makes even a plain-looking person look attractive. One of the great saints of the 13th century, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, was such a person. A letter dating from that century says that people "often saw her face shining marvellously and light coming from her eyes." Possibly this phenomenon prompted artists to paint a halo around the heads of saints. Today's reading appears to give support to these observations about holy people.
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Have we ever noticed anything special about a prayerful or holy person? Whoever prays much by night, his face is fair by day." Islamic saying
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The radiance on the face of Moses indicates his intimate relationship with God. He is the prophet, the leader, the mediator between the people and God, the reconciler.
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Our faces and our feet are at the different parts of our body, and depending on our height, they vary in the length apart. Yet, when our feet are hurting from the shoes we are wearing or whatever, somehow our face shows it. Oh yes, we can hide our feelings, but not for long. And more so if it is the feelings and emotions in our heart. What we feel in our hearts will show on our faces, and it will show through the make-up and the masks we might want to put on.
Moses couldn't hide the radiance and the glory of God which he experienced, and it showed on his face. What Moses experienced challenges us to look at ourselves and to ask what others see in us. We may not like what we see of ourselves in the mirror, maybe because it reminds us of the hurt, the pain, the resentment that is gripping our hearts.
Yet we must also remember that God has planted the treasures of His love in our hearts. In this Eucharist, let us ask the Lord to heal us so that we can let go of our sinfulness and to realize the treasures of God's love in us. And may God's love in us be reflected on our faces too.
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God is the greatest good and to belong to him is our most precious possession. Now we are the children of God. God dwells in us. We are the heirs of heaven. To accept it has to be the deliberate and free decision of every Christian. Every Christian has to be ready to become a martyr, to have his fortune confiscated, to be sent to a concentration camp 0r Prison. Few of us today will have this privilege. A Christian may have to face emigration to give up his home. This is every man's decision for God. Many show that they appreciate God as their greatest value, by following the evangelical counsels. In their vow of poverty, they tell God that he is their greatest treasure. In their vow of obedience, they choose God's will as theirs. In chastity, they choose God as their only love. Every Christian has to choose God when making his career. He may be tempted to make a compromise with his conscience, he may have to choose between God and a civil marriage.
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The two parables of today’s gospel stress, each in its own way, that one should give up everything in order to possess the kingdom. In the first parable, the kingdom is the treasure, in the second, not the pearl, not the thing, but the person in constant search of it. Our search should concern the things that really matter: God’s reign among people, which, in response to God’s grace, we prepare through our love, our justice, our service, our compassion and forgiveness, by which we let Christ’s death and resurrection become a reality in our day. But it is a search – an ongoing quest, never fully achieved, but always, so we hope, in growth and progress.
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Prayer
Lord God, our Father, our heart remains restless until it has discovered the peace you offer us in your Son Jesus Christ. Help us to put our trust and joy not in brittle, perishable things but in your Son, his good news and the kingdom he came to build among us. Make us poor and receptive, give each of us an attentive and wise heart that keeps seeking until we have found you in Jesus and in people. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen
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Saint Peter Julian Eymard Priest, Founder (1811-1868)
Early on in life, Pierre-Julien Eymard had a strong devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. However, weak health and paternal opposition were initial obstacles to his priestly vocation.
Eventually ordained Priest in 1834, he served in a parish at Grenoble until 1839 when his undying devotion to Mary led him to join the Marist Fathers, a congregation he served as spiritual director of its junior seminary at Belley and as rector of the College of La Seine-sur-Mer. He organized the Third Order of Mary and, in 1845, was named provincial superior at Lyons. A powerful preacher of Eucharistic devotions, his own Eucharistic spirituality began to mature and evolve to a new level, whereby, captivated by the love of God as manifested in Christ’s gift of himself in the Eucharist, he sought to form within the Marists a group specifically dedicated to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. However, with no scope in evidence for such activity within the Marian apostolate he obtained permission to leave the Marists and, in 1856, founded the Blessed Sacrament Fathers in Paris and was their Superior General for the rest of his life.
In 1858, in collaboration with Margurite Guillot, Eymard founded the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament, a cloistered contemplative congregation for women, with perpetual exposition and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament as its aim. He also founded the Priests’ Eucharistic League and the Blessed Sacrament Confraternity. He was canonized in 1962.
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