Daily Gospel Reflection for July 19, 2023

Join us as we reflect, ponder, and pray together inspired by today's Gospel.

While reading about St. Hildegard — one of the more recently named doctors of the Church — I’ve come to appreciate that she has, as Régine Pernoud says, a view that is both “vast and minute.”

St. Hildegard is able to reveal God in the simplest elements of our world, that enlighten us to God’s great, expansive nature.

We only need look at a plant to grasp what St. Hildegard offers — and to appreciate what St. Matthew writes of childlike revelation.

The simplicity of an herb, such as a calendula, could spark a childlike wonder of its saturated colors or sticky leaves. Looking deeper as a learned horticulturalist we have knowledge of its chemical makeup as a medicinal herb, the structure and form of its seed, the mechanism of photosynthesis, and more.

This knowledge may inhibit wonder, or lead us to wonder more deeply — for it is from wondering that we often become wise in the ways of God.

Ponder:

Look at something in nature and imagine what a child could see, first. Then ask Our Lord to guide you in meditating on how He is revealing himself to you in that childlike view.

Pray:

Lord, open my mind so that I may know You in a simple, trusting way.

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St. Hildegard is able to reveal God in the simplest elements of our world, that enlighten us to God’s great, expansive nature. #DailyGospel

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