Friday of the Third Week of Great Lent
Friday, March 06
Maronite Calendar
Letter to the Romans 3,1-7
What advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision?
Much, in every way. For in the first place the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.
What if some were unfaithful? Will their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God?
By no means! Although everyone is a liar, let God be proved true, as it is written, ‘So that you may be justified in your words, and prevail in your judging.’
But if our injustice serves to confirm the justice of God, what should we say? That God is unjust to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.)
By no means! For then how could God judge the world?
But if through my falsehood God’s truthfulness abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner?
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 12,16-21
Then he told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly.
And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?”
Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.
And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”
But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”
So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.’
“This night your life will be demanded of you”
Isaac the Syrian (7th century)
monk near Mosul
Ascetical discourses, 1st series, no. 38
O Lord, make me worthy of renouncing my own life for the life that is yours. The life of this world is like that of those who serve as letters for making up words. But the life of the world to come is like something written without a single mistake in books sealed with the royal seal in which there is nothing to add and nothing missing. And so, so long as we are in the midst of change, let us pay attention to ourselves. So long as we have control over the manuscript of our lives, over what we have written with our own hands, let us strive to add to it whatever good we have done and erase the mistakes of our former behavior. So long as we are in this world God does not set his seal on either good or evil. He does so only at the moment of our passing when our work has been accomplished, at the time we are about to leave.
As Saint Ephrem says: we must imagine our souls as being like a ship ready for the voyage but not knowing when the wind will come, or like an army that does not know when the trumpet will sound to call to battle. If this is what he says about the ship and the army waiting for something that will possibly never happen, how much more should we not prepare ourselves before that day comes suddenly, before the bridge is lowered and the harbor of the new world opened. May Christ, the mediator of our life, grant we may be ready.
الانجيل المقدس كاملا (متى، مرقس، لوقا، يوحنا) بالصوت والصورة من مزار سيدة لبنان حريصا
الانجيل المقدس كاملا (متى، مرقس، لوقا، يوحنا) بالصوت والصورة من مزار سيدة لبنان حريصا عمل يدعو للصلاة والتأمل في كلمة الرب
اداء: الاب فادي تابت رئيس المزار
اخراج: اسعد شديد
مرافقة موسيقية: بيار مطر وفادي ابي هاشم
Daily Bible Reading
According to the
Maronite Catholic Church Calendar