YOU DID NOT DANCE…

Isaiah 48:17-19

17 Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go.
18 O that you had hearkened to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea;
19 your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.”

Matthew 11:16-19

16 “But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their playmates,17 ‘We piped to you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’;19 the Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”  

MEDITATION

ISAIAH PROPHETISE that Yahweh desires that we benefit from His teachings and commandments that are ordered to bring us peace and  to be in right standing with Him.

THE GOSPEL READING: It has become apparent to Christ that the Hebrew people did not have the wherewithal to objectively discern between the states of: happiness and joy; misery and compassion; right and wrong; good and evil to the extent that they have been preconditioned to reject anyone whose way of life does not comport with their interpretation of the commandments.

Catec 2847 The Holy Spirit makes us discern between trials, which are necessary for the growth of the inner man, and temptation, which leads to sin and death. We must also discern between being tempted and consenting to temptation. Finally, discernment unmasks the lie of temptation, whose object appears to be good, a “delight to the eyes” and desirable, when in reality its fruit is death.God does not want to impose the good, but wants free beings. . . . There is a certain usefulness to temptation. No one but God knows what our soul has received from him, not even we ourselves. But temptation reveals it in order to teach us to know ourselves, and in this way we discover our evil inclinations and are obliged to give thanks for the goods that temptation has revealed to us.

Catec 1785 In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path, we must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. We must also examine our conscience before the Lord’s Cross. We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church.

Believers are certainly not expected to live our lives as if we have been handcuffed and shackled to the extent that our faith and beliefs have shut down our natural human instincts to be expressively joyful, filled with laughter and dance whilst discerning when we aught to be, silent respectful, mournful and conscious and responsive to the needs of those who experience pain, suffering and poverty.  

LET US PRAY:Psalms 1:1-4,6

1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 2 but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff which the wind drives away.6 for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Author. Henry R SYLVESTER 
Note: The daily scripture readings are taken from the Roman Missal which the Catholic Church use in the daily Celebration of the Holy Eucharist throughout the world.Some weekly readings may differ because of the celebration of local feast days.