
SATURDAY JULY 29TH, 2023
“Dear brothers and sisters, the Lord does not seek skilled commentators of the Scriptures, as much as he seeks docile hearts that, welcoming his Word, allow themselves to be changed within. This is why it is so important to be familiar with the Gospel, to always have it at hand — even a small-sized Gospel in our pockets, in our purses to read and reread, to be passionate about it. When we do this, Jesus, the Word of the Father, enters into our hearts, he becomes intimate with us, and we bear fruit in Him. It is not enough to read it and understand that we should love God and our neighbour. It is necessary that this commandment, which is the “great commandment”, resound in us, that it be assimilated, that it become the voice of our conscience.”
Pope Francis
When I have a docile heart, the Lord becomes intimate with me and I bear fruit in Him.
It’s the birthday of writer Alexis de Tocqueville, born in Paris (1805). He was 25 years old when the French government sent him to America to study the prison system. He spent nine months touring towns and cities and taking notes. A few years later, he published his famous book, Democracy in America (1835).
During his tour, the aristocratic Tocqueville was impressed by the fact that American Democracy actually worked. He wrote: “There is one thing which America demonstrates invincibly, and of which I had been in doubt up till now: it is that the middle classes can govern a state. I do not know if they would come out with credit from thoroughly difficult political situations. But they are adequate for the ordinary run of society. In spite of their petty passions, their incomplete education and their vulgar manners, they clearly can provide practical intelligence, and that is found to be enough.”From The Writers Almanac for July 29’23
On Stanley Kuntz:
It was more than 10 years before he published his next book, The Testing Tree (1971), and slowly but surely, people began to take notice. He was appointed the poet laureate when he was 95 years old. He died at the age of 100.
He said: “It is out of the dailiness of life that one is driven into the deepest recesses of the self.”The Writer’s Almanac for July 29’23