‘It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father.’
Gospel according to Matthew 10:16–23

At that time: Jesus instructed his Apostles: ‘Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.’

The Gospel of the Lord

Lamb or Wolf?

Today the Lord gives us a warning, and the question we must ask ourselves is… Am I a lamb or a wolf in my marriage?
If I stay close to God and the Lord is my Shepherd, then I will listen to my spouse, I will be open to what they say, I will sow peace in our home and, ultimately, I will know the joy of loving and being loved, like a lamb with its shepherd.
If, however, I drift away from the Lord, my heart becomes increasingly selfish, arrogant and proud. I will want to be right, I will sow discord in our home and, in the end, I will become a wolf.
And you, what do you want to be—a wolf or a lamb?

Applied to Married Life:

Amelia: I thought I had everything under control… But then our arguments began, after that we both lost our jobs, and then came the financial difficulties…
Jonathan: Yes, Amy, I remember. And on top of that, we tried to solve our problems in a thousand different ways. We even tried every kind of therapy to save our marriage…
Amelia: Yes, and all those solutions only fed my pride, and I was still angry. Then the problems kept coming: our son was struggling at school…
Jonathan: And I became more and more sad and depressed. Our home was filled with nothing but shouting and silence, with each of us living our own separate life.
Amelia: Until my friend Catherine invited us to a Marriage in Love Project retreat. It was there that we realised the real cause of our bad temper, our anger and our crises: we had not allowed God to be with us or at the centre of our marriage…
Jonathan: That’s right. We had been building our marriage, our family and everything around us according to our own ideas.
Amelia: And what joy! What hope we found when we began to let the Lord work within us!
Jonathan: Yes, we started going to the catecheses and Eucharistic Adoration together… And everything gradually began to fall into place, didn’t it?n
Amelia: Now all I can do is thank God for everything—even for the difficulties He allowed, because they helped us to see that without Him there is darkness and sadness, but with Him everything changes!

Mother,
Help us to be lambs, united to Your Son. Praised be the Lord.