Please remember this evening that we are gathering to discuss envy and its antidote of pity through the story of the two thieves on the cross. If you have time, please read chapter 2 of ++ Sheen’s book (attached) as well as Luke 23:26-43. Think about how envy is the source of our wrong judgments about others (first thief) and how the only way to overcome envy is to show pity (second thief). Also, think about how it is the devil’s envy (the first and most pernicious fruit of his pride) that caused the Crucifixion.
Dinner is at 6. The menu is corned beef and cabbage. Discussion begins at 6:45. Please bring a friend. Hope to see you here.
“Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,
Wisdom 2:12-24
because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions;
he reproaches us for sins against the law,
and accuses us of sins against our training.
He professes to have knowledge of God,
and calls himself a child of the Lord.
He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;
the very sight of him is a burden to us,
because his manner of life is unlike that of others,
and his ways are strange.
We are considered by him as something base,
and he avoids our ways as unclean;
he calls the last end of the righteous happy,
and boasts that God is his father.
Let us see if his words are true,
and let us test what will happen at the end of his life;
for if the righteous man is God’s son, he will help him,
and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.
Let us test him with insult and torture,
that we may find out how gentle he is,
and make trial of his forbearance.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death,
for, according to what he says, he will be protected.”
Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray,
for their wickedness blinded them,
and they did not know the secret purposes of God,
nor hope for the wages of holiness,
nor discern the prize for blameless souls;
for God created man for corruption,
and made him in the image of his own eternity,
but through the devil’s envy death entered the world,
and those who belong to his party experience it.