I chose you from the world
to go out and bear fruit,
fruit that will last,
says the Lord. JN 15:16
COLOSSIANS 2:6-15
My Soul's Beloved,
Why have we Catholics made such a poor job as parents, adults, and the Church herself in handing down the richness of our Catholic faith? All have failed and failed miserably. Few who have been educated and raised in the wondrous teachings and the life of the Church ever depart from it, for then it would have been part of our identity, of who we truly are.
Yet, O Lord, we cannot wring our hands in despair and give up. If we did, then we would deny the power of grace, the power of God, the power of the Holy Spirit in breathing life into dead bones. Those of us who are aware of our own shortcomings in raising good, holy, Catholic children into adults can now spend the years God will grant us in fasting, prayer, and sacrifice, pleading before the throne of grace and mercy to penetrate their souls and regenerate them by Your saving grace.
You must live your whole life according to the Christ you have received – Jesus the Lord; you must be rooted in him and built on him and held firm by the faith you have been taught, and full of thanksgiving.
Make sure that no one traps you and deprives you of your freedom by some second-hand, empty, rational philosophy based on the principles of this world instead of on Christ.
In his body lives the fullness of divinity, and in him you too find your own fulfilment, in the one who is the head of every Sovereignty and Power.
In him you have been circumcised, with a circumcision not performed by human hand, but by the complete stripping of your body of flesh. This is circumcision according to Christ. You have been buried with him, when you were baptised; and by baptism, too, you have been raised up with him through your belief in the power of God who raised him from the dead. You were dead, because you were sinners and had not been circumcised: he has brought you to life with him, he has forgiven us all our sins.
He has overridden the Law, and cancelled every record of the debt that we had to pay; he has done away with it by nailing it to the cross; and so he got rid of the Sovereignties and the Powers, and paraded them in public, behind him in his triumphal procession.
PSALM 144(145):1-2,8-11
How good is the Lord to all.
I will give you glory, O God my king,
I will bless your name for ever.
I will bless you day after day
and praise your name for ever.
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.
You must live your whole life according to the Christ you have received – Jesus the Lord; you must be rooted in him and built on him and held firm by the faith you have been taught, and full of thanksgiving.
Make sure that no one traps you and deprives you of your freedom by some second-hand, empty, rational philosophy based on the principles of this world instead of on Christ.
In his body lives the fullness of divinity, and in him you too find your own fulfilment, in the one who is the head of every Sovereignty and Power.
In him you have been circumcised, with a circumcision not performed by human hand, but by the complete stripping of your body of flesh. This is circumcision according to Christ. You have been buried with him, when you were baptised; and by baptism, too, you have been raised up with him through your belief in the power of God who raised him from the dead. You were dead, because you were sinners and had not been circumcised: he has brought you to life with him, he has forgiven us all our sins.
He has overridden the Law, and cancelled every record of the debt that we had to pay; he has done away with it by nailing it to the cross; and so he got rid of the Sovereignties and the Powers, and paraded them in public, behind him in his triumphal procession.
PSALM 144(145):1-2,8-11
How good is the Lord to all.
I will give you glory, O God my king,
I will bless your name for ever.
I will bless you day after day
and praise your name for ever.
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.
How good is the Lord to all.
LUKE 6:12-19
My Soul's Beloved,
You have given us a perfect example of how we ought to approach anything of importance. You spent the whole night in prayer with Your Father before You chose the Twelve who would be the bedrock on which You would build Your Church. Were they perfect men? No. They were flawed just as every human being is, except You, the perfect Man. Simon, the man You would choose to be Your Vicar on earth, was a rough fisherman, prone to act impulsively and speak brashly; the others, too, were not the kind of men that the world would pick to be leaders of men. All but one would flee at the first sign of real danger, and one would betray You treacherously, resulting in Your passion, crucifixion, and excruciating death. But You picked them after long hours of prayer despite knowing their flaws and weaknesses.
Once You came down the hills to where a large crowd from every region was waiting for You to touch and heal them, You did. No one who came to You was sent away without experiencing the touch of God.
Thank You, Lord, for calling us out of darkness into Your own marvelous light. Thank You for never tiring of healing us and filling us with Your power. Thank You, for the hope we have in You.
Jesus went out into the hills to pray; and he spent the whole night in prayer to God. When day came he summoned his disciples and picked out twelve of them; he called them ‘apostles’: Simon whom he called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot who became a traitor.
He then came down with them and stopped at a piece of level ground where there was a large gathering of his disciples with a great crowd of people from all parts of Judaea and from Jerusalem and from the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon who had come to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. People tormented by unclean spirits were also cured, and everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him because power came out of him that cured them all.
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