Sunday

**Due to a glitch the complete devotional is here.

Commentary provided by the Navarre Catholic Commentary…

1 Corinthians 2:1 …

And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the [a]testimony of God. 2 For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 3 I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. 4 And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of [b]human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

6 However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God [c]ordained before the ages for our glory, 8 which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

9 But as it is written:

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

Prayer:  Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.  Amen.

Monday
Navarre Commentary:

Every Christian, for his part, should try to see that those around him “desire to know Jesus Christ and him crucified and that they be firmly convinced and with the most heartfelt piety and devotion believe that no other name under heaven has been given to men by which we may be saved (cf. Acts 4:12), since he is the expiation for our sins (cf. 1 Jn 2:2)” (St Pius V Catechism, Introduction, 10).

 

Prayer:   I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.
From St. Patrick’s ‘Breastplate’ Tuesday

Navarre Commentary:
These words of Isaiah 64:2-3 sum up the content of God’s plan—all those gifts which man’s mind cannot grasp (cf. Eph 3:19) and which God has had ready from all eternity for those who love him. These gifts are nothing less than God’s love for men.
Because these gifts are only fully attained in the next life, Christian tradition sees in these words a description of heaven: “How blessed, how marvellous, are the gifts of God. Some of them, indeed, already lie within our comprehension—the life that knows no death, the shining splendour of righteousness, truth in freedom, trusting faith, the holiness of chastity. But what of the things that God has prepared for those who hope in him? Only the Creator and Father of eternity knows them. Let us strive earnestly to be counted among those who wait patiently in order to earn a share in his promised gifts” (St Clement of Rome, First Letter to the Corinthians, 35).
And the Pius V Catechism, for its part, teaches that “With this truth, the minds of the faithful should be deeply impressed—that the happiness of the saints is full to overflowing of all those pleasures which can be enjoyed or even desired in this life, whether they have to do with the powers of the mind or of the perfection of the body; although this must be in a manner more exalted than, to use the Apostle’s words, eye has seen, ear heard, or the heart of man conceived” (I, 13, 12).
Prayer: With the Saints, give rest, O Christ, to the souls of Thy servants, where there is no pain, no sorrow, no sighing, but life everlasting.
*Kontakion of the Departed

 

Thursday
1 Corinthians 2:10
But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
13 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the [d]Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. 16 For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death.

Friday
Navarre Commentary:
“God has revealed to us through the Spirit”: meaning the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Blessed Trinity, “which is from God” (v. 12) and knows the very depths of God (vv. 10-11). These words reveal to us the divinity of the Holy Spirit; knowing a person implies having intimacy with him; the Holy Spirit knows the depths of God because by nature he is God, equal to the Father and the Son (cf. Mt 11:25). “The Holy Spirit is equally God with the Father and the Son, equally omnipotent and eternal, infinitely perfect, the supreme good, infinitely wise, and of the same nature as the Father and the Son [. . .]. Scripture also attributes to him the power to sanctify, to vivify, to search the depths of God, to speak through the Prophets, and to be present in all places—all of which can be attributed to God alone” (St Pius V Catechism, I, 9, 4).
Jesus had told his Apostles that “when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth” (in 16:13); and on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit did open their minds to understand the truth revealed by Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit also acted in St Paul, so that he had the same knowledge of Revelation as the other Apostles (cf. Gal 2:1-10). The same Spirit continues to act in the Church

Prayer:
We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we worship Thee, we glorify Thee, we give thanks to Thee for Thy great glory.

Saturday
Navarre Commentary:
St John Chrysostom very graphically contrasts the capacity of the spiritual man and that of the unspiritual man as far as understanding God’s plan of salvation is concerned: “He who has sight sees everything, including the person who has no sight; but the sightless person cannot see the things of the person who has sight. We Christians know what our own situation is, and we also know the situation of unbelievers; the unbelievers, however, do not understand ours. Like them we know—and we know better than they do—the nature of things present; unbelievers do not know the sublimity of things to come, whereas we already see what will some day become of the world, and what sinners will suffer, and the righteous enjoy” (Hom. on 1 Cor, 7, ad loc.). And St Thomas Aquinas: “A conscious person rightly perceives both that he is awake and that the other person is asleep; but the person who is asleep cannot form a correct judgment concerning either himself or the one who is awake. Therefore, things are not the way they are seen by someone asleep: they are as they appear to be to a conscious person [. . .]. And so the Apostle says that ‘the spiritual man judges all things’: for a person whose understanding is enlightened and whose affections are regulated by the Holy Spirit forms correct judgments on particular matters to do with salvation. He who is unspiritual has a darkened understanding and disordered affection as far as spiritual things are concerned, and therefore the spiritual man cannot be judged by the unspiritual man, just as the sleeping person cannot judge the one who is awake” (Commentary on 1 Cor, ad loc.).
Prayer: Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. O, God, who taught the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever rejoice in His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord