< <  

Tuesday, August 9, 2022

  > >

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross


Ezekiel 2:8—3:4
Psalm 119:14, 24, 72, 103, 111, 131
Matthew 18:1-5, 10, 12-14

View Readings
Similar Reflections

“taste and see” (ps 34:9)

“Be not rebellious like this house of rebellion, but open your mouth and eat what I shall give you.” —Ezekiel 2:8

Picture a baby in a highchair. No matter what the parents do, the baby refuses to eat, shutting its mouth. That is the picture of many Christians today. We Christians are spiritually anorexic. We refuse to eat what God gives us because we are stuffed with the things the world has brainwashed us into eating (see Prv 13:19). The food of the “feel-good culture,” materialism and consumerism, is much more appetizing to us than God’s scroll with “lamentation and wailing and woe” written all over it (Ez 2:10).

However, the Lord is commanding us to repent of our eating habits and of anorexia. He commands: “Be as eager for milk as newborn babies — pure milk of the Spirit to make you grow unto salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good” (1 Pt 2:2-3). The Lord warns us: “Not on bread alone is man to live but on every utterance that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4; Dt 8:3). He commands: “Take this and eat it...this is My body” (Mt 26:26).

Eat what God puts before you, and don’t take candy from strangers. “Taste and see how good the Lord is; happy the man who takes refuge in Him” (Ps 34:9).

Prayer:  Father, may I eat right.

Promise:  “How sweet to my palate are Your promises, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” —Ps 119:103

Praise:  St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross was a Polish Jew who converted to Catholicism in her early twenties. She joined the Carmelites and was moved to the Netherlands where she and her sister were arrested by the Nazis. They were killed in a gas chamber in Auschwitz on August 9, 1942.

Reference:  (For a related teaching on Living in Reality, view, download or order our booklet or listen to, download or order our CDs 38-1, 38-3, 39-1 and 39-3 or DVDs 38 and 39 on our website.)

Rescript:  "In accord with the Code of Canon Law, I hereby grant the Nihil Obstat for the publication One Bread, One Body covering the time period from August 1, 2022 through September 30, 2022. Reverend Steve J. Angi, Chancellor, Vicar General, Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio January 31, 2022"

The Nihil Obstat ("Permission to Publish") is a declaration that a book or pamphlet is considered to be free of doctrinal or moral error. It is not implied that those who have granted the Nihil Obstat agree with the contents, opinions, or statements expressed.