Why Did Jesus Curse the Fig Tree?

Why Did Jesus Curse the Fig Tree?

Dr. Ray Pritchard

 https://www.christianity.com/jesus/death-and-resurrection/holy-week-and-passion/why-did-jesus-curse-the-fig-tree.html

Fig Monday: Bear Fruit at the End of our Spiritual Combat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBMI_ga09cw

Tell the World the GOOD NEWS

The Crucifixion of Christ

From the Moral Reflections on Job 

by Saint Gregory the Great, pope

The mystery of our new life in Christ

Holy Job is a type of the Church.  At one time he speaks for the body, at another for the head.  As he speaks of its members he is suddenly caught up to speak in the name of their head.  So it is here, where he says: I have suffered this without sin on my hands, for my prayer to God was pure.

Christ suffered without sin on His hands, for He committed no sin and deceit was not found on His lips.  Yet He suffered the pain of the cross for our redemption.  His prayer to God was pure, His alone out of all mankind, for in the midst of His suffering He prayed for His persecutors: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

Is it possible to offer, or even to imagine, a purer kind of prayer than that which shows mercy to one’s torturers by making intercession for them?  It was thanks to this kind of prayer that the frenzied persecutors who shed the blood of the Redeemer drank it afterward in faith and proclaimed Him to be the Son of God.

The text goes on fittingly to speak of Christ’s blood: Earth, do not cover over my blood, do not let my cry find a hiding place in you.  When man sinned, God had said: Earth you are, and to earth you will return.  Earth does not cover over the blood of the Redeemer, for every sinner, as he drinks the Blood that is the price of his redemption, offers praise and thanksgiving, and to the best of his power makes that Blood known to all around him.

Earth has not hidden away His blood, for holy Church has preached in every corner of the world the mystery of its redemption.

Blood of Christ

Notice what follows: Do not let my cry find a hiding place in you.  The Blood that is drunk, the Blood of redemption, is itself the cry of our Redeemer.  Paul speaks of the sprinkled blood that calls out more eloquently than Abel’s.  Of Abel’s blood Scripture had written: The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to me from the earth.  

The Blood of Jesus 

calls out more eloquently than Abel’s, 

for the blood of Abel asked 

for the death of Cain the fratricide, 

while the Blood of the Lord 

has asked for, and obtained, 

life for His persecutors.

If the sacrament of the Lord’s Passion is to work its effect in us, we must imitate what we receive and proclaim to mankind what we revere.  The cry of the Lord finds a hiding place in us if our lips fail to speak of this, though our hearts believe in it.  So that His cry may not lie concealed in us it remains for us all, each in his own measure, to make known to those around us the mystery of our new life in Christ.

Announce the Good News to everyone!

St. Lawrence of Brindisi, Priest and Doctor

Preaching 

is an 

Apostolic Duty

From a sermon by 

Saint Lawrence of Brindisi, priest

                                   1559 - 1619
Feast Day July 21

There is a spiritual life that we share with the angels of heaven and with the divine spirits, for like them we have been formed in the image and likeness of God.  The bread that is necessary for living this life is the grace of the Holy Spirit and the love of God.  But grace and love are nothing without faith, since without faith is impossible to please God.  And faith is not conceived unless the word of God is preached.  

Faith comes from hearing, 

and what is heard is the word of Christ.  

The preaching of the word of God, then, is necessary for the spiritual life, just as the planting of seed is necessary for bodily life.

Christ says: The sower went out to so his seed.  The sower goes out as a herald of justice.  On some occasions we read that the herald was God, for example, when with the living voice from heaven he gave the law of justice to a whole people in the desert. 

On other occasions, the herald was an angel of the Lord, as when he accused the people of transgressing the divine law at Bochim, in the place of weeping.  At this all the sons of Israel, when they heard the angel’s address, became sorrowful in their hearts, lifted up their voices, and wept bitterly.  Then again, Moses preached the law of the Lord to the whole people on the plains of Moab, as we read in Deuteronomy.  Finally, Christ came as God and man to preach the word of the Lord, and for the same purpose he sent the apostles, just as he had sent the prophets before them.

Preaching, therefore, is a duty that is apostolic, angelic, Christian, divine.  The word of God is replete with manifold blessings, since it is, so to speak, a treasure of all goods.  It is the source of faith, hope, charity, all virtues, all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, all the beatitudes of the Gospel, all good works, all the rewards of life, all the glory of paradise: 

Welcome the word that has taken root in you, 

with its power to save you.

For the word of God is a light to the mind and a fire to the will.  It enables man to know God and to love him.  And for the interior man who lives by the Spirit of God through grace, it is bread and water, but a bread sweeter than honey and the honeycomb, a water better than wine and milk.  

For the soul it is a spiritual treasure of merits 

yielding as abundance of gold and precious stones.  

Against the hardness of a heart that 

persists in wrongdoing, 

it acts as a hammer.  

Against the world, 

the flesh and the devil 

it serves as a sword that destroys all sin.

Homily About Saint Lawrence Of Brindisi By Father Elias, Franciscan

https://airmaria.com/2016/07/21/jul-21-homily-fr-elias-st-lawrence-of-brindisi-sower-of-the-faith/

Detailed Life of the Saint see this website 

http://www.catholictradition.org/Saints/saints7-13.htm

God's Mercy for Sinners

Remember to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet at least on Good Friday through to 2nd Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday) 
as Christ requested.

Divine Mercy article separate. But here is the link to the Chaplet that I spoke of

http://thedivinemercy.org/message/devotions/praythechaplet.php

The Mercy of God to the Penitent

From a letter by Saint Maximus the Confessor, abbot

Christ forgives sinner

God’s will is to save us, and nothing pleases him more than our coming back to him with true repentance.  The heralds of truth and the ministers of divine grace have told us this form the beginning, repeating it in every age. Indeed, God’s desire for our salvation is the primary and preeminent sign of his infinite goodness.  It was precisely in order to show that there is nothing closer to God’s heart that the divine Word of God the Father, with untold condescension lived among us in the flesh, and did, suffered, and said all that was necessary to reconcile us to God the Father, when we were at enmity with him, and to restore us to the life of blessedness from which we had been exiled.  He healed our physical infirmities by miracles; he freed us from our sins, many and grievous as they were, by suffering and dying, taking them upon himself as if he were answerable for them, sinless though he was.  He also taught using many different ways that we should wish to imitate him by our own kindness and genuine love for one another.

So is was that Christ proclaimed that he had come to call sinners to repentance, not the righteous, and that it was not the healthy who required a doctor, but he sick.  He declared that he had come to loof for the sheep that was lost, and that is was to the lost sheep of the house of Israel that he had been sent.  Speaking more obscurely in the parable of the silver coin, he tells us that the purpose of his coming was to reclaim the royal image, which had been coated with the filth of sin.  You can be sure there is joy in heaven, he said, over one sinner who repents.

To give the same lesson he revived the man who, having fallen into the hands of the brigands, had been left stripped and half-dead from his wound; he poured wine and oil on the wounds, bandaged them, placed the many on his own mule and brought him to an inn, where he left sufficient money to have him cared for, and promised to repay any further expense on his return.

Again, he told of how the Father, who is goodness itself, was moved with pity for his profligate son who returned and made amends by repentance; how he embraced him, dressed him once more in the fine garments that befitted his own dignity, and did not reproach him for any of his sins.

So too, when he found wandering in the mountains and hills the one sheep that had strayed from God’s flock of a hundred, he brought it back to the fold, but he did not exhaust it by driving it ahead of him.  Instead, he placed it on his own shoulders and so, compassionately, he restored it safely to the flock.

So also he cried out: Come to me, all you that toil and are heavy of heat.  Accept my yoke, he said, by which he meant his commands, or rather, the whole way of life that he taught us in the Gospel.  He then speaks of a burden, but that is only because repentance seems difficult.  In fact, however, my yoke is easy, he assures us, and my burden is light.

Then again he instructs us in divine justice and goodness, telling us to be like our heavenly Father, hold, perfect and merciful.  

Forgive, he says, and you will be forgiven.  

Behave toward other people 

as you would wish them 

to behave toward you.

taken from the Liturgy of the Hours Wednesday, 3rd Week of Lent

Be a Faithful and Courageous Witness

From a Commentary on Psalm 118 by Saint Ambrose, Bishop

"As there are many kinds of persecution, so there are many kinds of martyrdom.   

Every day you are 

a witness to Christ.  

A knight of Christ being tempted by the Spirit of Fornication

You were tempted by the spirit of fornication, 

but feared the coming judgment of Christ 

and did not want your purity 

of mind and body to be defiled:   

you are a martyr of Christ.  

Spirit of Avarice

You were tempted by 
the spirit of avarice

 to seize the property of a child 

and violate the rights of a defenseless widow, 

but remembered God’s law and 

saw your duty to give help, 

not act unjustly: 

you are a witness of Christ.   

Christ wants witnesses 

like this to stand ready, 

as Scripture says:  

Do justice for the orphan 

 










and 
defend the widow.   

Spirit of Pride

You were tempted 

by the spirit of pride 

but saw the poor and the needy and looked 

with compassion on them, and 

loved humility rather than arrogance:   

you are a witness of Christ.   

What is more, your witness 

was not in word only but also in deed.  

Mother Teresa of Calcutta a True Witness of Christ... WE CAN BE ONE TOO!

Who can give greater witness 

than one who acknowledges 

that the Lord Jesus has come in the flesh  

and keeps the commandment of the Gospel?   

One who hears but does not act, 

denies Christ.   

Even if he acknowledges Him by his words, he denies Him by his deeds.   

How many will say to Christ: Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy and cast out demons and work many miracles, all in your name?  

On that day He will say to them: Depart from me all you evildoers.  The true witness is one who bears witness to the commandments of the Lord Jesus and supports that witness by deeds.

 

How many hidden 

martyrs there are, bearing witness to Christ

each day 

and acknowledging 

Jesus as the Lord!   

The Apostle knew this kind of martyrdom, this faithful witness to Christ.  This is our boast, he said, the witness of our conscience.   

How many have borne witness in public 

but denied it in private!  

 Do not believe every spirit, he said, 

but know from their fruits whom you should believe.   

 

Be faithful and courageous 

when you are persecuted in public.   

Even in those unseen persecutions 

there are kings and governors, 

judges with terrible power.   

You have an example in the temptation 

endured by the Lord.

In another place we read:   

Do not let sin be king in your mortal body.   

You see the kings before whom you are made to stand, 

those who sit in judgment over sinners, 

where sin is in control.   

There are as many kings as there are sins and vices; 

it is before these kings that we are led 

and before these that we stand.    

These kings have their thrones in many hearts.   

But if anyone acknowledges Christ, 

he immediately makes a prisoner 

of this kind of king and 

casts him down from the throne of his own heart.   

How shall the devil maintain his throne

 in one who builds a throne 

for Christ in his heart?"

Taken from, The Liturgy of the Hours, according to the Roman Rite Catholic Book Publishing Corp.  New York 1975

Go to You Tube for a WITNESS OF FAITH that should blow you mind away...

 http://youtu.be/XJOJaFwxBeY

And I am certain that God, 

who began the good work within you, 

will continue his work until it is finally finished 

on the day when Christ Jesus returns.

                                                             Philippians 1:6