Friday. [I Cor. 4:5-8; Matt. 13:44-54]

   Arriving in Nazareth the Lord found no faith there. His visible simplicity hindered the Nazarenes from seeing His invisible glory and divinity. Does not the same occur with a Christian? Christian dogmas are very simple in appearance; but for the mind which enters into them, they represent an all-embracing harmonious system in and of themselves, which were not, nor ever could be generated by any creature’s mind. Proud-mindedness, casting a fleeting glance at the simplicity of the Gospels, is repelled by it and begins to build its own house of knowledge, which it deems enormous and full of broad horizons. It is in fact no more than a towering house of cards, and the horizons are no more than mirages, phantom products of a heated imagination. But there is no point in telling him. He and his brothers are ready with their critical attacks to immediately cast anyone from the mountain into the abyss who tries to dissuade them; but the truth always passes unharmed through their midst and goes on to other souls capable of receiving it.