Listen to God speaking to the prophet Jeremiah: “This is the new covenant I will make: Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts” (Jer 32: 31,33).  What is a covenant?  It is a relationship between God and the believing community.  It is both personal and communal.  God writes on the heart his Law…the Law of love…this is the new covenant.  This covenant is the eternal word that transcends time and culture…what was written perdures….it is eternal, God given, God sustained.  No evil…nothing has power over what God has written upon the heart, nothing can break this covenant…what is written is the transforming power of God’s love…which contains forgiveness and mercy. 

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways’, says the Lord” (Is 55:8). Well, these words from the prophet Isaiah should be humbling to say the least! If the way we think, or the many thoughts that flood our consciousness are not God’s thoughts, then how do we come to know the mind and heart of God? Added to this, we believe we know ways and means and yet often our ways are not God’s ways! How do we come to recognize in truth God’s ways? How do we sense that an idea or thought is from God, from the small still voice of the Spirit? Do we even ponder or reflect enough, asking ourselves what is God’s way or God’s thought on what to do in a specific situation? Are we ready to surrender our thoughts, to descend beneath the flow of thoughts, to dwell in the silence and to wait for the Word to speak?

Monday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
Saint Peter Chrysologus, Bishop of Ravenna, Doctor of the Church (d. ca.450)

Readings of the Day
RB: Ch 48:22-25
Mass: Jr 13:1-11; Resp Ps (Dt 32); Mt 13:31-35


You have forgotten God who gave you birth.(Dt 18a)

Thr