Harpa Dei

Answering Questions Question: How can those who have a “normal” lifestyle become contemplative? Yesterday we said that the contemplation is a gift of God, which we can prepare through our spiritual path so that the inner transformation can arrive through the Spirit of God. Thus, a first answer to the question of how to practice […]

Answering Questions The month is drawing to a close and, as usual, I would like to answer questions from those who follow the speeches on a daily basis. Two of these questions relate directly to spiritual life and therefore fit well into the task of the speeches. Today, the first question concerns us. How can

Lk 21, 5-11 When some were talking about the Temple, remarking how it was adorned with fine stonework and votive offerings, he said. All these things you are staring at now — the time will come when not a single stone will be left on another; everything will be destroyed. And they put to him

Rom 5, 1-5 So then, now that we have been justified by faith, we are at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; it is through him, by faith, that we have been admitted into God’s favour in which we are living, and look forward exultantly to God’s glory. Not only that; let us

1 Macc 6,1-13 King Antiochus, meanwhile, was making his way through the Upper Provinces; he had heard that in Persia there was a city called Elymais, renowned for its riches, its silver and gold, and its very wealthy temple containing golden armour, breastplates and weapons, left there by Alexander son of Philip, the king of

Hos 2,16.17b-18.21-22 And in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will

1 Macc 2,15-29 The king’s commissioners who were enforcing the apostasy came to the town of Modein for the sacrifices. Many Israelites gathered round them, but Mattathias and his sons drew apart. The king’s commissioners then addressed Mattathias as follows, ‘You are a respected leader, a great man in this town; you have sons and

2 Macc 7, 1.20-31 It also happened that seven brothers were arrested with their mother. The king tried to force them to taste some pork, which the Law forbids, by torturing them with whips and scourges. But the mother was especially admirable and worthy of honourable remembrance, for she watched the death of seven sons

2 Macc 6, 18-31 Eleazar, one of the foremost teachers of the Law, a man already advanced in years and of most noble appearance, had his mouth forced open, to make him eat a piece of pork. But he, resolving to die with honour rather than to live disgraced, walked of his own accord to

I Macc 1, 10-15.41-43.54-57.62-63 From these there grew a wicked offshoot, Antiochus Epiphanes son of King Antiochus; once a hostage in Rome, he became king in the 107th year of the kingdom of the Greeks. It was then that there emerged from Israel a set of renegades who led many people astray. ‘Come,’ they said,