Tag Archive for ‘suffering’
Friday 14 March
Ezekiel 18:21-28, Ps 130, Matthew 5:20-26 Pray for sinners On the face of it, murder and anger are poles apart. Yet where murder kills outright, hosting a poisonous anger against others is a sore on the same continuum. So while most of us are not murderers, we probably have to deal with destructive anger sometimes. […]
Wednesday 12 March
Jonah 3:1-10, Ps 51, Luke 11:29-32 Repent and forgive What would Jesus think of our generation? Do we even need to ask, when the sins of the world – like greed, indifference to suffering and war – crowd so heavily on so many innocent victims? Rather, we should consider our own part in the world’s […]
Saturday 8 March
Isaiah 58:9-14, Ps 86, Luke 5:27-32 Love the needy Why would Jesus make friends with people considered “lowlifes” by their peers? Tax collectors in Jesus’ time were considered a very low form of life indeed. Yet Jesus constantly sought them out. Why? Jesus explains this clearly – they require help and there is little sense […]
Friday 10 January
I can overcome any suffering and even death Trusting in Jesus is the only way I can love God, be happy and at peace [1 Jn 5:5-13]. With this assurance I can work on loving everyone and everything because God has all in hand [Psalm 147]. If Jesus can save someone with incurable leprosy he […]
Thursday 28 November
Daniel 6:12-28, Cant Daniel 3:7-3:12, Luke 21:20-28 Hold your heads high When Daniel was thrown into the Lions’ den he trusted in God, who sent his angel to deliver him. His deliverance led to the conversion of his captor. When Jesus faced his trial, suffering and death, he trusted in his Father who raised him […]
Monday 2 September
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Psalm 96, Luke 4: 16-30 Hope gives us strength One of the hallmarks of the Christian life is hope, yet often we become affected and depressed by attitudes of doom and gloom, encouraged by the financial crisis, natural disasters, revolutions and our own personal problems and suffering. The antidote to this depressing […]
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Extracts from Lumen Fidei, The Light of Faith
From Paragraph 4: The light of faith is unique, since it is capable of illuminating every aspect of human existence. A light this powerful cannot come from ourselves but from a more primordial source: in a word, it must come from God. Faith is born of an encounter with the living God who calls us […]
Sunday 11 August
Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time Wisdom 18:6-9, Ps.33, Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-19, Luke 12:32-48 What am I locking away from God? Jesus describes a determined thief breaking walls. We like to think we’re in control, that our possessions are our own. When we block out suffering and the needy as ‘not my responsibility’, we shut Jesus […]
Sunday 7 July
Fourteenth week Ordinary Time Isaiah 66: 10-14, Ps. 66, Galatians 6: 14-18, Luke 10: 1-12, 17-20 Sharing in the cross What part does the cross of Christ play in my discipleship? Here Paul writes of the scars suffering has left on his person. He tells me that it is through the cross that I become […]
Monday 24 June
BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST Isaiah 49:1-6, Ps 139, Acts 13:22-26, Luke 1:57-66, 80 In the shadow of his hand “…and he hid me in the shadow of his hand.” Until we have personally known deep trauma or fear or abandonment or loss or suffering, we cannot know the sublime consolation these words offer, “because,” […]