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Friday, February 13, 2015
How to make this your holiest Lent yet
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Today's Mass Readings - Sunday, February 8, 2015 with Reflection
1ST READING - Job 7:1-4, 6-7
1 Job spoke, saying: Is not man’s life on earth a drudgery? Are not his days those of a hireling? 2 He is a slave who longs for the shade, a hireling who waits for his wages. 3 So I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights have been allotted to me. 4 If in bed I say, “When shall I arise?” then the night drags on; I am filled with restlessness until the dawn. 6 My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they come to an end without hope. 7 Remember that my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again.
P S A L M - Psalm 147:1-2, 3-4, 5-6
R: Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted.
1 Praise the Lord, for he is good; sing praise to our God, for he is gracious; it is fitting to praise him. 2 The Lord rebuilds Jerusalem; the dispersed of Israel he gathers. (R) 3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. 4 He tells the number of the stars; he calls each by name. (R) 5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power; to his wisdom there is no limit. 6 The Lord sustains the lowly; the wicked he casts to the ground. (R)
2ND READING - 1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23
16 Brothers and sisters: If I preach the gospel, this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation has been imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not preach it! 17 If I do so willingly, I have a recompense, but if unwillingly, then I have been entrusted with a stewardship. 18 What then is my recompense? That, when I preach, I offer the gospel free of charge so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel. 19 Although I am free in regard to all, I have made myself a slave to all so as to win over as many as possible. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win over the weak. I have become all things to all, to save at least some. 23 All this I do for the sake of the gospel, so that I too may have a share in it.
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION
Christ took away our infirmities and bore our diseases.
Mark 1:29-39
29 On leaving the synagogue Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. 30 Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever. They immediately told him about her. 31 He approached, grasped her hand and helped her up. Then the fever left her and she waited on them. 32 When it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons. 33 The whole town was gathered at the door. 34 He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons, not permitting them to speak because they knew him. 35 Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed. 36 Simon and those who were with him pursued him 37 and on finding him said, “Everyone is looking for you.” 38 He told them, “Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For this purpose have I come.” 39 So he went into their synagogues, preaching and driving out demons throughout the whole of Galilee.
| SABBATH | ||
CHRISTIANS ARE NOT SHY PEOPLE
In today’s Gospel, Mark narrates once more a typical day in the public ministry of the Lord — teaching the people, meeting the sick and healing them of their infirmities, expelling demons. One curious fact in the life of the Lord is that He always seems to “shy away” from the limelight every time the crowd gets excited over the wonders He performs. It’s not unusual to read in the Gospel how Jesus, after rounds of healing and miracles, withdraws to a lonely place in the desert.
Today, Simon had to track down Jesus and, when found, told the Lord, “Everybody is looking for you!” (v. 37). It was the day after another instance of miraculous healings. Perhaps there was a band ready to serenade Him. The press might have been invited for a news conference. But Jesus was not interested. Instead, He said, “Let us move on to the neighboring village so that I may proclaim the good news there also.”
Jesus here is not being aloof or painfully shy. He is not playing hard to get. The irony is, while Jesus often avoids the limelight, He does present Himself when needed, “Let us move on to the neighboring village, that I may proclaim the good news there also” (v. 38). In fact, many times in the Gospel, Jesus boldly calls attention to Himself and gives Himself titles like “I am the Good Shepherd,” “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life,” “I am the Bread of Life…” and so on.
I believe Jesus here is teaching us something about self-promotion. Self-promotion is not bad. It can actually be a Christian duty. But self-promotion is good only when placed at the service of charity and duty. Otherwise, self-promotion becomes vanity, nothing but an ego trip, an ego massage, and therefore fruitless.
Yes, Christians, broadcast yourself. Promote yourself. Mark out yourself. But only for the sake of service and charity — and that, in all
things, the Lord may be praised! Fr. Joel Jason
REFLECTION QUESTIONS: Deep in your heart, answer these questions: Do I feel the need to call attention to myself? Do I seek self-promotion for its own sake?
“Lord, teach me to be generous…to labor and ask not for reward. Save that of knowing that I do Your most holy will. Amen!”
St. Josephine Bakhita, pray for us.
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Friday, February 6, 2015
Overcome sinful anger
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Thursday, February 5, 2015
a little prayer....
Banish unhealthy terror in my heart, O Lord, and keep me in awe of Your love and mercy. Amen.
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Casting Out Devils From Your Life
Jesus said with the utmost clarity: “Some devils can only be cast out by prayer and fasting.”(Mt. 17:21) Often the devil or devils have a real stronghold in our lives, and to make things worse, we are not even aware of it. One of the greatest victories of the devil is to hide or camouflage himself, or better yet, trick us into believing that he does not even exist!
Saint Ignatius of Loyola, in his rules for discernment (Rule 13, first week of Rules for discernment) states that devil likes to work in secrecy and strives to get us to keep our interior lives secret to everybody. This secrecy even includes hiding our state of soul to our Confessor or Spiritual Director.
The same saint emphasizes the fact that when we are going through tough times of desolation a tactic of the devil is that he convinces us to keep it under lock and key, keep it to ourselves—top secret! As such the devil will magnify and accentuate our problem transforming it from a mole-hill into a mountain. A small cut can get infected, and eventually turn gangrenous and even lead to an amputation. Spiritual maladies have to be brought to the Spiritual doctor— that is to say, a good Confessor or Spiritual Director.
An essential tool to be used frequently, prudently, and with proper spiritual direction is the tool of penance; and fasting is one of the primary applications of the penitential life.
On one occasion while I was taking a walk, a big black bird was in my path. As I drew closer, I expected the big bird to take flight, but he did not. At first, it occurred to me that maybe I was a modern Saint Francis, but that was not the case at all. The bird was land-bound for the simple reason that he had either wounded or even broken one of his wings!
A spiritual reflection flashed across my mind and it was this: we can be compared to that black bird! The bird is created to fly high into the deep blue sky! Likewise the human person, created in the image and likeness of God and baptized into the family of God, is called to fly high in the spiritual life, and eventually reach heaven.
However, for the human person to soar high into the mystical heights he needs two strong wings, to loft him on high: 1) Fervent prayer, and 2) constant penance. The Spiritual writers call these two dimensions of the spiritual life the Ascetical life which leads to the Mystical life!
This being said, we would like to outline some of the basic reasons why the human person should pray fervently all the days of his life, but at the same time cultivate a penitential life marked by the practice of fasting. Unless we have strong and sufficient reasons to motivate us we will never really undertake the practice seriously.
Here we go with the reasons to learn to fast:
1. Imitation of Christ. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Indeed He is our model! Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights in the desert, giving us an example to follow. (Mt. 4:1-11) Few if any of us can fast forty days and forty nights—the duration of the Lenten Season! But we all can do at least a little. The Saintly Cure of Ars said that fasting is hard just at the start and then it becomes a habit.
2. Personal Reparation. We are all born as sinners with Original Sin. Then during the course of our lives we commit actual sins. In justice we are obliged to repair for the sins we have committed in justice towards God. An old Midas muffler commercial put it succinctly: “Pay now or pay later.”Better for us to pay now than to do so later in Purgatory. Fasting indeed can be a powerful means to shorten our stay in Purgatory!
3. Family Reparation. We all know of family members, either in our blood family or family circles, of members who have simply walked away from God, no longer believe in God, are indifferent to God or even at times violently opposed to all that refers to God. These individuals who were redeemed by the Precious Blood of Jesus are in desperate need of prayer and fasting. Our Lady of Fatima warned us seriously: “Many souls are lost because nobody prays and offers up sacrifices for them.” Who knows, maybe our acts of penance could save immortal souls for all eternity!
4. Social Reparation. On the level of our nation we must apply ourselves to serious prayer and reparation and fasting due to the many moral evils that are afflicting our country—especially the scourge and plague of abortion. About every 20 seconds a baby is aborted, three a minute, and 4,000 a day in USA. Since Roe vs. Wade, Jan 22nd, 1973, approximately 45 million surgical abortions have been perpetrated. Due to the fact that this river of innocent blood of innocent babies has been shed, we all must feel it incumbent upon ourselves to carry out fervent prayers and fasting. Actually the Bishops of the United States have proclaimed January 22nd as a National day of prayer and penance (fasting) to repair for the sins of abortion as well as to prevent future abortions. Let us all do our part with generosity!
5. Cast Out Devils. As we said earlier in the essay Jesus said that some devils can be cast out only by prayer and fasting. Saint Pope John Paul II mentioned in one of his discourses that sin can even be institutionalized—that is to say embedded or deeply engrained in the fabric of society. How true even more so today. Abortion institutionalized since 1973, the legalization of Same-sex unions that have the same legal status as Traditional marriages, States legalizing Euthanasia—the killing of the elderly and infirm, widespread legalization of embryonic research resulting in killing of the little/tiny babies in laboratories, the deep encrustation of the pornographic culture destroying the minds and hearts and families at large. This institutionalization of sin can only be cast out and conquered by the strongest spiritual medicine—fervent prayer to Almighty God and rigorous and constant penance. One of the most convincing examples of prayer and fasting was the person of the Cure of Ars, Saint John Marie Vianney. He fasted many days by eating nothing, or eating once a day on two or three potatoes, and then sleeping only three hours a night. His fervent prayer was: “ Lord send me any suffering but save the souls of my parishioners.”
Let us pray that we would be imbued with the spirit of the saints and undertake in our lives fervent prayer but also fasting. Let us fast in this life so as to feast forever with God in heaven for all eternity!
By Fr. Ed Broom, OMV
Father Ed Broom is an Oblate of the Virgin Mary. He blogs regularly atFr. Broom's Blog.
Monday, February 2, 2015
To Go Deeper into the Life of Christ
by Father John McCloskey
Every Catholic should spend a minimum of fifteen minutes a day engaged in spiritual reading. Normally, this should include some reading of the New Testament to identify ourselves with the words and actions of our Savior and better conform our lives to His, perhaps followed by a passage from some classic book on a spiritual theme recommended by your spiritual advisor. (You do have one, do you not? If not, take steps to remedy that situation immediately.)
But far from contenting ourselves with the bare minimum, we should desire to go deeper – much deeper – into Christ's life. Otherwise, how can we even begin to imitate Him in our own life, so that, when the day comes for our own private judgment after death, we will be welcomed with open arms into heaven, avoiding any pit stops in Purgatory.
We know neither the day nor the hour of our death, any more than we know the time of Christ's Second Coming and the Final Judgment. Therefore we should aim to be semper paratus ("always prepared") for death, which may well arrive at a moment and in a way totally unexpected.
I would wager that there have been more books written on Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ than on anyone else in history. The great majority of these are (of course) out of print. But there are a number of things that can help guide us through this immense and sometimes wild literature.
I speak deliberately from a Catholic perspective, considering only books that are sound and known to be faithful to the perennial tradition of the Church and its tradition down through the ages. One thing to recognize at the outset is that a great many books about Christ are theological and scholarly in character. These are good and useful in their way, but are not primarily written for an audience seeking to come into closer contact with Jesus and his life for religious and devotional purposes.
So it's not hard to select a relatively few books on Jesus relevant to our purpose, which could be easily found, at least on Amazon, which, for good and not, rules the book world through its low prices and Kindle devices. Perhaps there are hidden treasures to be found in some Catholic bookstores, but I have not found them: There is lots of theology, but little of what we might call a type of sacred biography from our present perspective.
Here are some recommendations of good biographies of our Lord and Savior in no particular order:
1. The trilogy Jesus of Nazareth (Ignatius Press) by Benedict XVI. What a great gift from one of the best theologians ever, and also a heroic Roman pontiff. (And may he live long!) Despite Benedict's immense learning and keen intellect, he has produced a series that can be enjoyably and profitably absorbed by an ordinary reader.
2. Next, Romano Guardini's The Lord, a classic since it was first published in 1954, and a book that can profitably be read and reread. Guardini was one of the mentors of Joseph Ratzinger and a favorite of Pope Francis (who, at one point in his life, wanted to write a doctoral dissertation on Guardini, but was distracted by other duties).
3. Fulton Sheen's Life of Christ. Sheen needs no introduction to readers of this website, but only a final resting place when he is raised to the altars as one of the blessed someday soon.
4. Next, convert Fulton Oursler, whose The Greatest Story Ever Told was published to huge success in 1949 (around the time the two previous authors I've listed were writing their works).
5. We can't forget the work of another convert and one of the greatest evangelizers and publicizers of the faith in the twentieth century, Frank Sheed, whose work To Know Christ Jesus is highly recommended, next to...
6. G. K. Chesterton's classic The Everlasting Man. This book has made and continues to make many a convert to the Faith.
Of course, there are many others as well, and if you ask trusted clergy and friends, you won't ever lack for powerful readings.
But besides our own personal growth in holiness via Biblical and other spiritual reading, we should aim to share our holy Faith in our work, actions, friendship, and prayer in imitation of Christ. If we strive to imitate HIS life in our own, we play our part in bringing millions of people to the one true Church, becoming, as one saint put it, another Christ himself.
Rome is our true home. As what remains of the West crumbles at what appears to be an accelerating rate, it becomes increasingly apparent that all of us are part of the answer to the long-awaited New Evangelization foreseen by Pope St. John Paul the Great. Embrace that vocation. Take advantage of the many resources at your disposal to prepare yourself for this high calling.
First appeared on The Catholic Thing in January, 2015.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Today's Mass Readings - Sunday, February 1, 2015 with Reflection
1ST READING - Deuteronomy 18:15-20
15 Moses spoke to all the people saying: “A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise up for you from among your own kin; to him you shall listen. 16 This is exactly what you requested of the Lord, your God, at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let us not again hear the voice of the Lord, our God, nor see this great fire any more, lest we die.’ 17 And the Lord said to me, ‘This was well said. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kin, and will put my words into his mouth; he shall tell them all that I command him. 19 Whoever will not listen to my words, which he speaks in my name, I myself will make him answer for it. 20 But if a prophet presumes to speak in my name an oracle that I have not commanded him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, he shall die.’”
P S A L M - Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 7-9
R: If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
1 Come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord; let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us joyfully sing psalm to him. (R) 6 Come, let us bow down in worship; let us kneel before the Lord who made us. 7 For he isour God, and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides. (R) Oh, that today you would hear his voice: 8 “Harden not your hearts as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the desert,9 where your fathers tempted me; they tested me though they had seen my works.” (R)
2ND READING - 1 Corinthians 7:32-35
32 Brothers and sisters: I should like you to be free of anxieties. An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he mayplease the Lord. 33 But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, 34 and he is divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. A married woman, on the other hand, is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. 35 I am telling you this for your own benefit, not to impose a restraint upon you, but for the sake of propriety and adherence to the Lord without distraction.
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION
The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light; on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death, light has arisen.
Mark 1:21-28
21 Then they came to Capernaum, and on the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught. 22 The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. 23 In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit; 24 he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are — the Holy One of God!” 25 Jesus rebuked him and said, “Quiet! Come out of him!” 26 The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him. 27 All were amazed and asked one another, “What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.” 28 His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.
| SABBATH | ||
WELL DONE!
Let me share with you two words: orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Ortho is Greek for straight, upright, right or correct. Doxa is Greek for knowledge or teaching. So orthodoxy can be translated as correct or right teaching. Praxis can be rendered as action or living out. So orthopraxy is right living.
Today in the Gospel, Jesus meets a man possessed by an unclean spirit that shrieks. He shouts, “Jesus of Nazareth… I know who you are — the Holy One of God!” Jesus rebukes the evil spirit into silence. He would not hear anything from it. Notice that the devil, speaking through the man, knows who Jesus is. The devil is orthodox, so to speak. He has right knowledge and teaching. But while the devil has orthodoxy, he has no orthopraxy.
Before the episode with the unclean spirit, Jesus taught in the synagogue. People were spellbound by His teaching because He taught “with authority and not like the scribes.” The scribes were teachers who knew the law like the palm of their hands. As their name connotes, they write, transcribe and interpret the meaning of the Mosaic Law. Without a doubt, they had orthodoxy. But their teaching, orthodox as it may be, lacked an essential partner — orthopraxy. Their right teaching was estranged from right living. That was why their teaching had no authority.
Jesus, on the other hand, amazed people. They looked at each other and asked, “What does this mean? A completely new teaching in a spirit of authority?” What authority did Jesus have? The authority of the marriage between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. By definition, orthodoxy and orthopraxy are different. By vocation, they are meant to be spouses.
Ever heard of the maxim, “What is better than well said? Well done!”? Jesus was the incarnation of that maxim. The scribes would do well to remember that. It will do us well to remember it, too. Fr. Joel Jason
REFLECTION QUESTION: Is there a divorce between orthodoxy and orthopraxy in your life? Submit it to the healing power of regular confession, holy communion and daily perseverance.
Jesus, You are patient with my inconsistencies. Keep me in the path of the call to perfection.
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