9th of December (English)

Scripture: 

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."

Old Testament Reading: 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 harkened 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.”

Psalm 1:1-6

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. 
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; 
6 for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

The contemplation

Since we have the conversion and hope as the theme for the week, I wish to propose to you, all the readings of the day. When we meditate these readings, the heart of the teaching is that we start to listen to the guidance of the Lord and if we listen to the Word of God and put them in practice as Jesus always exhorted us to do, we will be like the plant planted though in the desert, will be greenish giving the desired fruit in time. In God we find our sustenance and the heritage. Thus our conversion is related to this promise and our hope finds it reason to exist in this changing and precarious world. Par consequence, we will have the courage to withstand to the pressure and temptation of the world, remaining faithful to the evangelical teachings which will become de facto our way of living. We don’t dance to the tune of material desires and pleasures. Our only model will be Christ to reach to the Father and if we find difficult to imitate Christ radically, through His mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, our earthly model par excellence we can teach to her son.