The work of craftsmen on the south side of St. Michael's Cathedral.
...you are like the stone that must be chiseled and fashioned before being set in the building.
Thus you should understand that those who are in the monastery are craftsmen placed there by God to mortify you by working and chiseling at you. Some will chisel with words, telling you what you would rather not hear; others by deed, doing against you what you would rather not endure; others by temperament, being in their person and in their actions a bother and annoyance; and others by their thoughts, neither esteeming nor feeling love for you.
- St. John of the Cross speaks here of annoyances in monastery life but I suppose that it must apply to family life too. I wouldn't know, I never annoy my family.
There are lots to choose from, but here's a good one...
ReplyDeleteEt ecce mulier chananea --- a finibus illis egressa --- clamavit, dicens ei "miserere mei, Domine Fili David! Filia mea male, a daemonio vexatur!" Qui non respondit ei verbum, et accedentes, discipuli eius rogabant eum, dicentes "dimitte eam, quia clamat post nos!"
And then Our Lord seems to share with her a joke or two...
From a different perspective,
Dicebat autem et parabolam ad illos quoniam oportet semper orare et non deficere, dicens "Iudex quidam erat in quadam civitate qui Deum non timebat et hominem non verebatur. Vidua autem quaedam erat in civitate illa et veniebat ad eum, dicens 'vindica me de adversario meo.' Et nolebat, per multum tempus. Post haec autem dixit intra se, 'Et si Deum non timeo, nec hominem revereor, tamen quia molesta est mihi haec vidua! Vindicabo illam, ne in novissimo veniens suggillet me.'"