Showing all posts in Biblical Meditations

Having shared in St. Paul’s sorrow that so many Jews did not recognize Jesus—neither in His own time nor through the preaching of the apostles—and still do not recognize Him to this day, I would like to let the Lord speak for Himself.

In Rabbi Eugenio Zolli, we came to know a Jew who found his way to Jesus. In Augustine, we encountered a seeker who allowed himself to be touched by the Word of God and subsequently oriented his entire life toward God. May many more people experience this: that they encounter the “Light of the World” (John 9:5) and the Word of God, who is the Lord Himself!

Jn 12:44-50

Jesus declared publicly: Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in the one who sent me, and whoever sees me, sees the one who sent me. I have come into the world as light, to prevent anyone who believes in me from staying in the dark any more. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them faithfully, it is not I who shall judge such a person, since I have come not to judge the world, but to save the world: anyone who rejects me and refuses my words has his judge already: the word itself that I have spoken will be his judge on the last day. For I have not spoken of my own accord; but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and what to speak, and I know that his commands mean eternal life. And therefore what the Father has told me is what I speak.

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We have already heard about the bodily resurrection from the dead in our previous reflections and have come to appreciate what a wonderful path God has planned for us. This led us to discuss the incorruptibility of the resurrected body. Once the Lord has reunited the believer’s soul and body, they will be able to live forever in the presence of God.

Our future body possesses four wonderful characteristics, as the Roman Catechism of Pius V teaches. It states:

“In addition to this, the bodies of the risen Saints will be distinguished by certain transcendent endowments, which will ennoble them far beyond their former condition. Among these endowments four are specially mentioned by the Fathers, which they infer from the doctrine of St. Paul, and which are called gifts.

The first endowment or gift is impassibility, which shall place them beyond the reach of suffering anything disagreeable or of being affected by pain or inconvenience of any sort. Neither the piercing severity of cold, nor the glowing intensity of heat, nor the impetuosity of waters can hurt them. It is sown, says the Apostle, in corruption, it shall rise in incorruption. (1 Cor. 15:42). This quality the Schoolmen call impassibility, not incorruption, in order to distinguish it as a property peculiar to a glorified body. The bodies of the damned, though incorruptible, will not be impassible; they will be capable of experiencing heat and cold and of suffering various afflictions.

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Beloved Mary Magdalene, you hurried to the Lord’s tomb early that morning to mourn Him, and you could not have imagined what would happen to you there. Your heart was filled with sorrow. Your beloved Lord had been taken from you and so cruelly put to death. Who could comfort you then? Read More

“Children, have you any fish?” (John 21, 5) Jesus asked His disciples when He appeared to them for the third time on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias. Read More

1 Kgs 11:4-13

When Solomon grew old his wives swayed his heart to other gods; and his heart was not wholly with Yahweh his God as his father David’s had been. Solomon became a follower of Astarte, the goddess of the Sidonians, and of Milcom, the Ammonite abomination. He did what was displeasing to Yahweh, and was not a wholehearted follower of Yahweh, as his father David had been. Then it was that Solomon built a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, on the mountain to the east of Jerusalem, and to Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who offered incense and sacrifice to their gods. Yahweh was angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from Yahweh, God of Israel, who had twice appeared to him and had forbidden him to follow other gods; but he did not carry out Yahweh’s order. Yahweh therefore said to Solomon, ‘Since you have behaved like this and have not kept my covenant or the laws which I laid down for you, I shall tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your servants. For your father David’s sake, however, I shall not do this during your lifetime, but shall tear it out of your son’s hands. Even so, I shall not tear the whole kingdom from him. For the sake of my servant David, and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen, I shall leave your son one tribe.’ Read More

Rev 11:19;12:1,10

God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, voices, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail. And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. Read More

Lk 10:38-42

‘In the course of their journey he came to a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. She had a sister called Mary, who sat down at the Lord’s feet and listened to him speaking. Now Martha, who was distracted with all the serving, came to him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister is leaving me to do the serving all by myself? Please tell her to help me. ‘But the Lord answered, ‘Martha, Martha,’ he said, ‘you worry and fret about so many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part, and it is not to be taken from her.’

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Note: According to the traditional liturgical calendar, today is the feast day of Saint Cyril of Alexandria. In his honour, the following Gospel is read, which we will meditate on today.

Mt 5:13-16

You are salt for the earth. But if salt loses its taste, what can make it salty again? It is good for nothing, and can only be thrown out to be trampled under people’s feet. You are light for the world. A city built on a hill-top cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp to put it under a tub; they put it on the lamp-stand where it shines for everyone in the house. In the same way your light must shine in people’s sight, so that, seeing your good works, they may give praise to your Father in heaven.

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Note: According to the traditional liturgical calendar, today is Sexagesima Sunday,  in preparation for the imminent beginning of Lent. We will reflect on the Gospel chosen by the Church for this occasion. Those who would prefer a meditation on the reading or the Gospel according to the new liturgical calendar can find the corresponding links at the end of the text.

Lk 8:4-15

When a great crowd came together and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable: “A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell along the path, and was trodden under foot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns grew with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew, and yielded a hundredfold.”

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The Church is rich in missionaries and martyrs in whom the victory of faith and love was accomplished. This is true of the Japanese blood witnesses Paul Miki and his companions, whose memorial day we celebrate today.

In 1542-1543 the Portuguese had discovered Japan and in 1549 St. Francis Xavier had begun his missionary work there. Thus, in 1590 there were approximately half a million Christians in Japan.

The initially tolerant Japanese ruler increasingly turned against Christianity and in 1596 arrested twenty-six Christians in Osaka: 3 Japanese Jesuits, 6 Spanish Franciscans, among them Peter Baptist, and 17 Japanese Franciscan Tertiaries, i.e. lay people who belonged to the Third Order of St. Francis, including 3 altar boys aged 12 to 14.

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