THE NOW WORD ON MASS READINGS
for Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent, March 3rd, 2015
Liturgical texts here
WHEN it comes to weeding out sin this Lent, we cannot divorce mercy from the Cross, nor the Cross from mercy. Today’s readings are a powerful blend of both…
THE NOW WORD ON MASS READINGS
for December 10th, 2013
Liturgical texts here
IT was a freak snowstorm in the middle of May, 1987. The trees bent so low to the ground under the weight of heavy wet snow that, to this day, some of them remain bowed as though permanently humbled under the hand of God. I was playing guitar in a friend’s basement when the phone call came.
Come home, son.
Why? I inquired.
Just come home…
As I pulled into our driveway, a strange feeling came over me. With every step I took to the back door, I felt my life was going to change. When I walked into the house, I was greeted by tear stained-parents and brothers.
Your sister Lori died in a car accident today.
HAS your heart grown cold? There’s usually a good reason, and Mark gives you four possibilities in this inspiring webcast. Watch this all-new Embracing Hope webcast with author and host Mark Mallett:
Open Wide the Draft of Your Heart
Go to: www.embracinghope.tv to watch other webcasts by Mark.
FAITH is the oil which fills our lamps and prepares us for Christ’s coming (Matt 25). But how do we attain this faith, or rather, fill our lamps? The answer is through prayer.
Prayer attends to the grace we need… —Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), n.2010
Many people begin the new year making a “New Year’s Resolution” — a promise to change a certain behavior or accomplish some goal. Then brothers and sisters, be resolved to pray. So few Catholics see the importance of God today because they no longer pray. If they prayed consistently, their hearts would be filled more and more with the oil of faith. They would encounter Jesus in a very personal way, and be convinced within themselves that He exists and is who He says He is. They would be given a divine wisdom by which to discern these days we live in, and more of a heavenly perspective of all things. They would encounter Him when they seek Him with a childlike trust…
…seek him in integrity of heart; because he is found by those who do not test him, and manifests himself to those who do not disbelieve him. (Wisdom 1:1-2)
ONE of the great graces of the Illumination is going to be the revelation of the Father’s love. For the great crisis of our time—the destruction of the family unit—is the loss of our identity as sons and daughters of God:
The crisis of fatherhood we are living today is an element, perhaps the most important, threatening man in his humanity. The dissolution of fatherhood and motherhood is linked to the dissolution of our being sons and daughters. —POPE BENEDICT XVI (Cardinal Ratzinger), Palermo, March 15th, 2000
At Paray-le-Monial, France, during the Sacred Heart Congress, I sensed the Lord saying that this moment of the prodigal son, the moment of the Father of Mercies is coming. Even though mystics speak of the Illumination as a moment of seeing the crucified Lamb or an illuminated cross, [1]cf. Revelation Illumination Jesus will reveal to us the Father’s love:
He who sees me sees the Father. (John 14:9)
It is “God, who is rich in mercy” whom Jesus Christ has revealed to us as Father: it is His very Son who, in Himself, has manifested Him and made Him known to us… It is especially for[sinners] that the Messiah becomes a particularly clear sign of God who is love, a sign of the Father. In this visible sign the people of our own time, just like the people then, can see the Father. —BLESSED JOHN PAUL II, Dives in misercordia, n. 1
Footnotes
| ↑1 | cf. Revelation Illumination |
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