A great prophet has appeared among us;
God has visited his people. LK 7:16
1 CORINTHIANS 2:10-16
My Soul's Beloved,
St. Paul rightly says that it is the spirit of the person who knows that person better than anyone else and the Spirit of God knows all there is to know of God and it is this Spirit that knows Father and Son intimately proceeds from both Father and Son with the love that each bears for the other. The Spirit is the love of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father that is poured out into each by the Holy Spirit for there is nothing more lovable, more desirable, more fruitful than the love of God and the goodness of God draws us, His creatures, by the power of His Spirit into the love of God for we are His children. We are born of water and the Holy Spirit and the fire of God's love is poured into our hearts making us sons and daughters and it is this relationship that we have with our Daddy God that gives us the right and the freedom to call Him, 'Abba'.
Lord Jesus Christ, I can put on a mask with others and present a false image of who I am to them, but my spirit within me knows whether or not I am true to the person that God created me to be. I am a child of God. You generously accept me as Your sister, You espouse Yourself to me because I belong to the Church You established and You have espoused Yourself to her. She is Your Bride and so am I.
Grant me this grace, Beloved, to live as a child of grace and truth. Grant me the grace to choose to live a life of virtue and to do good in all circumstances. Grant me this grace, regardless of my selfish desires, to disregard the siren call of the world, the flesh, and the devil and to choose to walk in the Spirit. Take me by the hand today Lord, and lead me on the path to eternal life. I am Your now and forever, do with me what You will.
Now instead of the spirit of the world, we have received the Spirit that comes from God, to teach us to understand the gifts that he has given us. Therefore we teach, not in the way in which philosophy is taught, but in the way that the Spirit teaches us: we teach spiritual things spiritually.
A spiritual man, on the other hand, is able to judge the value of everything, and his own value is not to be judged by other men. As scripture says: Who can know the mind of the Lord, so who can teach him? But we are those who have the mind of Christ.
PSALM 144(145):8-14
LUKE 4:31-37
My Soul's Beloved,
PSALM 144(145):8-14
The Lord is just in all his ways.
The Lord is kind and full of compassion,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
How good is the Lord to all,
compassionate to all his creatures.
All your creatures shall thank you, O Lord,
and your friends shall repeat their blessing.
They shall speak of the glory of your reign
and declare your might, O God,
to make known to men your mighty deeds
and the glorious splendour of your reign.
Yours is an everlasting kingdom;
your rule lasts from age to age.
The Lord is faithful in all his words
and loving in all his deeds.
The Lord supports all who fall
and raises all who are bowed down.
The Lord is just in all his ways.
My Soul's Beloved,
We can only speak with conviction of things we know well and believe in. We speak with authority when we know what we are talking about and can answer as well as refute anyone who questions or challenges us. As St. Peter says, Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.
Too often, we are ignorant of what the Church teaches us, we are half-baked Catholics, we are ill-informed, badly formed, and hence can scarcely put up any kind of defence poor or otherwise when questioned about our faith or why we do what we do or believe as we do.
The demons knew who You were and challenged You. You stood up to them, silenced them, and commanded them to leave the person they had possessed and tormented and they obeyed. You have assured us that we too can do all that You did and even greater things because You go to Your Father and You have given us Your Holy Spirit. In the Church You founded, Lord abides the Holy Spirit in fullness and this is why in her alone is found the fullness of goodness, beauty, and truth regardless of whether or not her bishops, priests, religious, or laity are sinners or saints. You have poured Your life into her and she lives because she is Yours, receiving her life from You.
Whether or not those who have broken away from holy Mother Church and founded their own groups because they disagreed or found her teaching too hard and so gave in to their human desires and created a more palatable version of the Christian faith, as well as those of other faiths they still admire the fact that the Church has held fast on to her teaching on faith and moral and will not be swayed by the prevailing culture of the age which is sinful, tainted, unwholesome, and unworthy of anyone who knows that they are children of God and belong to the family of God.
In the synagogue there was a man who was possessed by the spirit of an unclean devil, and it shouted at the top of its 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 said sharply, ‘Be quiet! Come out of him!’ And the devil, throwing the man down in front of everyone, went out of him without hurting him at all. Astonishment seized them and they were all saying to one another, ‘What teaching! He gives orders to unclean spirits with authority and power and they come out.’ And reports of him went all through the surrounding countryside.
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