“Worship the Lord in holy array; tremble before him, all the earth!” (Ps 96:9).
Showing all posts in September 2024
Not to live in self-delusion
1 Cor 3:18 -21
There is no room for self-delusion. Any one of you who thinks he is wise by worldly standards must learn to be a fool in order to be really wise. For the wisdom of the world is folly to God. As scripture says: He traps the crafty in the snare of their own cunning and again: The Lord knows the plans of the wise and how insipid they are. So there is to be no boasting about human beings: everything belongs to you, whether it is Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, the world, life or death, the present or the future – all belong to you; but you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God. Read More
To live spiritually
1 Cor 3:1-9
And so, brothers, I was not able to talk to you as spiritual people; I had to talk to you as people still living by your natural inclinations, still infants in Christ; I fed you with milk and not solid food, for you were not yet able to take it – and even now, you are still not able to, for you are still living by your natural inclinations. As long as there are jealousy and rivalry among you, that surely means that you are still living by your natural inclinations and by merely human principles. While there is one that says, ‘I belong to Paul’ and another that says, ‘I belong to Apollos’ are you not being only too human? For what is Apollos and what is Paul? The servants through whom you came to believe, and each has only what the Lord has given him. I did the planting, Apollos did the watering, but God gave growth.
THE PATIENCE OF THE LORD
“Like a drop of water from the sea and a grain of sand so are a few years in the day of eternity. Therefore the Lord is patient with them and pours out his mercy upon them” (Sir 18:10-11).
IT WILL NOT COME NEAR YOU
“A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand; but it will not come near you” (Ps 91:7).
Resistance against evil
Lk 4:31-37
In those days, Jesus went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and taught them on the Sabbath. And his teaching made a deep impression on them because his word carried authority. In the synagogue there was a man possessed by the spirit of an unclean devil, and he shouted at the top of his voice, ‘Ha! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God.’ But Jesus rebuked it, saying, ‘Be quiet! Come out of him!’ And the devil, throwing the man into the middle, went out of him without hurting him at all. Read More
The Lord in Nazareth
NOTE: We have added the previous verses to today’s Gospel to better understand the context.
Lk 4:16-30
He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day as he usually did. He stood up to read, and they handed him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll he found the place where it is written: The spirit of the Lord is on me, for he has anointed me to bring the good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord. Read More
THE INSTRUCTIONS OF THE LORD
“Blessed is the man whom thou dost chasten, O Lord,
and whom thou dost teach out of thy law” (Ps 94:12).
If we have entered into a friendship with our Father, we will not lack for instructions from Him, for our divine friend is at the same time our guide on the path of salvation. We could not expect the same from a human friend, and perhaps it would not even be appropriate. From our Heavenly Father, however, we receive this grace with certainty. Read More
Be doers of the word
Jas 1:17-18,21b-22,27
Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Read More
TRUE FRIENDSHIP
“No one can be a true friend of another without first being a friend of truth” (St. Augustine).
A wise saying of St. Augustine that reminds us of the authenticity of a true relationship. This requires a solid foundation. Human sympathy is not enough, nor is it permanent. Read More