Pope's Intentions:
Universal: That the Church and society may respect the wisdom and experience of older people.
For Evangelization: That priests, religious, and lay people may work together with generosity for evangelization.
Wednesday of the Sixth week in Ordinary Time
Commentary of the day
Julian of Norwich (1342-after 1416), recluse
Revelations of divine love, ch. 52 (trans. copyright Calssics of Western Spirituality)
"Do you see anything?"
I saw that God rejoices that he is our Father, God rejoices that he is our Mother, and God rejoices he is our true spouse, and that our soul is his beloved. And Christ rejoices that he is our brother, and Jesus that he is our saviour...
During our lifetime here we have in us a marvellous mixture of both well-being and woe. We have in us our risen Jesus Christ, and we have in us the wretchedness and harm of Adam's falling... We are so afflicted in our feelings by Adam's falling in various ways, by sin and by different pains, and in this we are made dark and so blind that we can scarcely accept any comfort. But in our intention we wait for God and trust faithfully to have mercy and grace; and this is his own working in us. And in his goodness he opens the eye of our understanding, by which we have sight, sometimes more, sometimes less, according to the ability God gives us to receive. And now we are raised to the one, and now we are permitted to fall to the other.
This mixture is so marvellous in us that we scarcely know, about ourselves or about our fellow-Christians, what condition we are in, these conflicting feelings are so extraordinary. But what matters is that we say a holy “yes” to God which we make when we feel him, truly willing with all our heart to be with him, and with all our soul and all our might. And then we hate and despise our evil inclinations... And so we remain in this mixture all the days of our life.