‘He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on rock…’ This is how the Lord speaks of the person who ‘hears and does’. For it really is a great deal: to hear and to do. At times it seems impossible to carry everything out faithfully in its spirit; it is only something we reach towards, something...
‘He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on rock…’ This is how the Lord speaks of the person who ‘hears and does’. For it really is a great deal: to hear and to do. At times it seems impossible to carry everything out faithfully in its spirit; it is only something we reach towards, something we try to attain with all our soul, with our whole life, and never actually attain in full. Hearing the Lord and understanding how difficult it is to fulfil what He commands, even the disciples ask: ‘Who then can be saved?’ (Mt 19:25). And yet only the person who hears and does builds their house on rock, and there is even more to it than that.
If we look closely at this image of the house, we will realise that, in fact, ‘hearing and doing’ is nothing other than the foundation. The two houses differ only in their foundations, not in their architecture, not in their interior decoration, not even in who lives in them or how they live, but solely in what they are built upon. Thus what seems to us so immense a task that it sometimes occupies all our thoughts and our whole life is only the foundation. ‘Hearing and doing’ is merely the base upon which a building can later be erected, a building in which some life will unfold. And how much thought do we give to a house’s foundation? It is unnoticed: if all is well, we pay no attention to it. What matters to us is the life taking place inside; that is what we live. Yet, for all its unobtrusiveness, it alone enables our house to stand and us to live in it.
8
8:1 We declare to you the grace of God - Which evidently appeared by this happy effect.
8:2 In a great trial of affliction - Being continually persecuted, harassed, and plundered.
8:4 Praying us with much entreaty - Probably St. Paul had lovingly admonished them not to do beyond their power.
8:5 And not as we hoped - That is, beyond all we could hope.They gave themselves to us, by the will of God - In obedience to his will, to be wholly directed by us.