Sometimes we find God’s truth and His ways unbelievable. We ask, “Why did He do that? Why did He choose me or that person?” God’s ways are not ours. His surpass ours in their perfection. One of the ways He expresses His perfection is in the way He deals with us, the way of love. His love is selfless, for our benefit, not His. Like God, our way of dealing with others, especially those we find difficult, should be for their benefit, not ours.
The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings
The blog post can be found here: Blog Post
Sometimes we are like the people in the first reading who hear God’s word and realize how far we are from the mark. Hopefully, we have encouragers in our lives as they did. Sometimes we are excited as were those in the gospel reading. However, as we shall see next week, their excitement turned to anger when they heard the full message. Regardless of what we see the other members of the Body of Christ doing, we are to do our part in the Body and encourage others to do theirs. This is an essential part of the gospel.
The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings
The blog post can be found here: Blog Post
“Do whatever he tells you” are Mary’s last words recorded in the scriptures. She speaks these words to us as well. If we obey what Jesus tells us to do, we can expect results as the servants at the wedding feast did—perhaps not as spectacular as the servants at the wedding feast did, but life-changing results in our lives and the lives of those around us. God loves us and wants to demonstrate His love for us. Sometimes that means doing things that don’t make sense to us.
The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings
The blog post can be found here: Blog Post
What we fail to realize at times is that, when we were baptized, the Spirit of God not only fell on us but also came to dwell in us; and God the Father said to us and those around us, “This is my beloved Son, Daughter”. These readings are an invitation to us to recall these facts and to thank the Father for loving us so much that we were baptized and that His Only-Begotten Son was sent, baptized, and lived out His mission so that we might join Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for all eternity.
The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings
The blog post can be found here: Blog Post
It is one thing to say that Jesus is Lord. It is another to acknowledge Him as Lord and King in the sense that the scriptures were written. Our modern minds reject the notion of anyone with absolute authority and power. Yet this is who the Savior is.
We are more like the Jewish leaders than the magi. We are so busy with daily life that we fail to recognize the One who is in our midst and treat Him as He deserves.
The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings
The blog post can be found here: Blog Post
The Church uses the readings to teach us God’s standards for family life—even among the messier things of family life: how one honors father and mother, how one treats spouse and children, how to love.
Even if these readings do not describe your family of origin, you are still expected to live up to these standards.
The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings
The blog post can be found here: Blog Post
“Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved”, the responsorial psalm proclaims. The face of God is the face of Jesus. Jesus is the light of the world. In that light we can see our lives and the world around us from God’s perspective. Then we are enabled to do whatever it is that God desires us to do. That is what Mary did in the Gospel. Though she had received shocking news that could have turned her focus inward, she turned her focus toward Elizabeth. She is an example not only of how we should live but also that such a life is possible.
The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings
The blog post can be found here: Blog Post
Happy Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is Latin for rejoice. The second reading tells us to rejoice always—even when one doesn’t think the circumstances call for rejoicing. From a biblical perspective, joy, like peace, is something only found internally, not externally. There can be seeming peace and joy all around us, and we can still not be peaceful and joyful. Let us pray for God’s peace and joy.
The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings
The blog post can be found here: Blog Post
God desires to take us from where we are, with whatever miseries and bondages we are experiencing, into the midst of His Kingdom. He is our deliverer, our redeemer. That is why He has throughout the ages sent human messengers to proclaim His desire for us, and He still does that today. During Advent John the Baptist is the messenger that we hear about most. What many of us fail to comprehend is that we need to accept our deliverance and become John the Baptist to others
The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings
The blog post can be found here: Blog Post
The First Sunday of Advent begins a new liturgical year—the year in which the primary source for the gospels is Luke. The Church ended its liturgical year by urging us to be prepared for Christ’s second coming, to live our lives each day, each moment, as if it were our last. In preparing to celebrate His first coming, the Church uses readings that deal with the second coming to remind us to begin with the end in mind—our earthly death and entry into eternal life.
The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings
The blog post can be found here: Blog Post
If you were told that you were to have a king, and absolute monarch, in your life, would you want it to be Jesus is that King. Life goes better if we recognize that He is King and we desire His kingship.
The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings
The blog post can be found here: Blog Post
Are you ready for the second coming of Christ? These scriptures seem to indicate that even the elect will not escape the calamities that are prophesied to happen before His return. We are called to be knowledgeable of what God has told us and alert for the signs.
The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings
The blog post can be found here: Blog Post
Many of us have decent relationships with God; however, few of us are trusting enough in God’s provision to do what the widows in these readings did, give everything they had to God and His representative. More amazing is that the widow of the first reading was probably a pagan.
The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings
The blog post can be found here: Blog Post
How many gods do you have in your life: money, power, position, or any of the others our world suggests that we should place before all else in our lives? Or do you place the LORD God first in your life? Do you have a loving relationship with Him? These readings call us to place the true God first in our lives and to love Him. Out of that love is to flow love for His children around us.
God as Father demonstrated His great love for us by sending His Son to redeem us. Jesus is the perfect High Priest. He continues that role by continuously interceding for us with the Father.
The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings
The blog post can be found here: Blog Post
Jesus came to heal and to free. That continues to be His role. Consider what inside you that needs to be healed. Where is your spiritual blindness? What is it that has you in bondage that you cannot be free to be the person that God not only created you to be but calls you to be every day?
Jesus has the answer. Jesus is the answer.
The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings
The blog post can be found here: Blog Post
What is it you ask of Jesus? Is it something as self-serving as James and John’s request? Unfortunately, too often we ask God for what we want to satisfy our desires, not God’s. We want, power, prestige, recognition, authority, wealth, and at the end eternal life; but I want these now. Jesus’ call to us is different.
“You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” (John 13:13–14, RSV2CE)
“If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” (John 15:10–14, RSV2CE)
The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings
The blog post can be found here: Blog Post
“[T]he wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity.” (James 3:17, RSV2CE) Why do we so often seek the wisdom of this world and the things that this world says we should? We allow ourselves to be deceived because we do not use the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, as a means of separating what is false from what is true.
We are to repent of, turn around from, our faulty way of thinking we must have our hearts and minds renewed by the Word that has been given to us, believe it, and live by it.
The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings
The blog post can be found here: Blog Post
Our culture says that marriage is a matter of convenience rather than a covenant relationship established by God. Genuine marriage is between two parties who are committed to laying down their lives for each other.
In Jesus’ day, the idea of a throw away marriage was common as well. Jesus reminds the religious leaders that it was because of the hardness of Hebrew hearts that Moses allowed divorce.
Our issue with God’s law may not lie with marriage, but most of us have areas of hardness in our hearts that question the truth of what God has said about one area or another of our lives.
Jesus laid down His life for His bride, the Church. If we are to be imitators of Christ Jesus, we must lay down our lives for our spouses.
The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings
The blog post can be found here: Blog Post
Our God is a God of surprises. He surprised the Israelite leaders in the first reading. He surprised the disciples in the gospel reading. And He didn’t ask anyone’s permission to pull off His surprise. Nor did He care if what He did didn’t follow and expected way of doing things.
Unwarranted disgust can result when God does not do things the way we expect Him to, especially if He choses to use someone we think not worthy of His choosing, someone who is not a member of the club.
We are much better disciples when we allow God to be God and satisfy ourselves for the part He has given us to play rather than comparing ourselves with other and judging their worth.
The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings
The blog post can be found here: Blog Post
The second reading calls us to account for our attitudes and actions, as does most of the Letter of James. He was a follower of Jesus; and surely, he observed the words and actions of the apostles as they jockeyed for position and attempted to force their views upon Jesus.
This should give us hope. If those who were closest to Jesus were unable to receive, understand, and live the message, why are we surprised that we are not consistent in our Christian life. It was only the Holy Spirit who changed their way of thinking, understanding, and living. The Holy Spirit can do the same for us.
The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings
The blog post can be found here: Blog Post