Our Lord, in the first reading today,
St. Paul reminds us of the way God treats us as his children.
My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord
or lose heart when reproved by him.
For whom the Lord loves, he disciplines.
He scourges every son he acknowledges.
St. Francis said something similar to that,
that those whom God loves tenderly, nothing goes unpunished.
And I think, you know, we who are striving for perfection
of experience, we are striving for perfection of experience.
We experience that, that the more we try to be good
and sensitive to sin, the more our faults get shown to the light
and we are humbled by our mistakes,
the mistakes that we make every day.
And God has ways of humbling us through other people,
through circumstances, through our own, our own, you know,
sadness over our lack of perfection, et cetera.
So God disciplines.
God disciplines us in those ways and kind of humbling us.
You can say it is humiliation or you can,
St. Francis used the word punish.
God punishes us for every little fault that we make.
It's a little strong.
He's trying to make a point there.
The scripture uses words discipline.
Jesus used the word pruning, pruning the branches that are not good.
So our Lord,
works with us as a loving father to his children,
to those children who are trying to be good.
Of course, if we're not trying to be good and we're doing bad things,
he's going to show a different face.
But God wants us to,
to be encouraged on the path to virtue and holiness and goodness.
He's always trying to encourage us and lift us up and help us on the path to holiness.
And he's telling us not to be discouraged,
and the second first reading tells us that as well.
And the time at the time discipline seems a cause not for joy,
but for pain.
Yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.
So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees make straight the pass for your feet.
Strengthen your drooping hands and weak knees because sometimes when we're humbled,
God humbles us in some way.
We get tempted to be discouraged,
maybe a little angry at God for humbling us.
But we have to see the effect of it.
God is making us better,
making us stronger,
making us more perfect and holy and more happy in the end with ourselves.
So we should strengthen our drooping hands and not use that as an excuse not to try as much
or not to,
or to,
to,
uh,
uh,
yeah,
not to work,
not to be discouraged makes us sort of slink back and not strive and not not work.
So we should strengthen our drooping hands and in our weak knees and and keep going,
keep going stronger,
stronger to the to the the path that God wants us to to go and to use that encouragement that God gives us.
And we go to confession and we're encouraged there by God's mercy.
And that's what his mercy is for,
especially is to encourage us not to enable us to sin or to make it easier or but to strengthen us,
strengthen us and encourage us.
And so we can't be,
uh,
you know,
taking advantage of our Lord.
Our Lord as a loving father is not a pushover and not somebody to be taken advantage of,
not a teddy bear kind of God.
But a holy God and God of infinite majesty.
We always have to remember his infinite holiness and his perfection at the same time.
We remember his infinite mercy and kindness and patience with us.
And we have,
of course,
our lady there guiding us along the way,
giving us that maternal aspect of God as well to encourage us even more.
And,
uh,
so we have,
so many things to strengthen us and encourage us on a path to virtue and a holy life.
And and God's grace is there so that us use all these means for a holy life,
a perfect life,
a life of striving for perfection,
not and uh and thank God along the way dedicate ourselves to thankfulness to God's goodness to us,
his grace,
his mother,
and his uh his mercy.
Oh,
huh.
Yeah.
Ooh.
Hey,
eat.
.
Oh,
Thanks for watching!