Unfailing Love

Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
Ps.89:14

Moses is praying to God, stating that all joy has its foundation in the knowledge of God's love.

The NIV Bible heads up Psalm 89 (90) as "A Prayer of Moses the Man of God". It's a prayer that reinstates God as God and man as his creation. There's a peace and a joy that comes from knowing this. No matter what happens today, God is God over all and he loves me.

I'm looking out over the school field across the road, watching the sun slowly rise into a pink-into-blue cloudless sky. God is God, and he loves me...

Abba, Father. Your abounding love is evident all around me.  Thank you for reminding me.
Saint Monica, please pray for me.

Clean the Inside

"Clean the inside of cup and dish first so that the outside may become clean as well."
Mt.23:26

Jesus is is weighing in to the hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees, leaders drawing others in the wrong direction like blind guides. Their focus is on appearances rather than on the heart.

The Kingdom of God is so different to the world. It is small, weak in appearance and interior. But when it works its way out, wow! It changes everything. And the only way it can work is from the inside out, not from the outside in. It cannot be enforced by external law. It comes from a change of heart, from cleaning the inside of the cup.

I find when my cup is clean on the inside from daily prayer, from receiving the sacraments, I sin less. When my prayer-life is weak, I sin more. Funny that. I need to recommit to morning prayer, to cleaning the inside of my cup. Then the outside will take care of itself.

Lord Jesus, you know my tendency to focus more on the outside. Help me clean the inside of my cup that I may become a more authentic witness for you.

Little Flower, please pray for me.

One Flesh

He answered, ‘Have you not read that the creator from the beginning made them male and female and that he said: This is why a man must leave father and mother, and cling to his wife, and the two become one body? They are no longer two, therefore, but one body. So then, what God has united, man must not divide.’
Mt.19:5,6

The Pharisees are trying to trick Jesus on the age-old question of divorce. Jesus' answer lays the foundation for marriage that is quoted in marriage ceremonies to this day, "what God has united, man must not divide".

There is confusion about marriage today only when God is taken out of the picture.  A marriage is a permanent commitment between a man and a woman, open to life, because God designed it so. Sex is God's idea, not the Devil's, and marriage is his plan to control it and employ it for its proper purpose.  Jesus even goes further to say celibacy is an accepted legitimate response to sexuality.

My marriage is a blessing from God. Today seems a good day to celebrate that.

Lord Jesus, thank you for the gift of marriage in general and the gift of my marriage in particular. Bless Kate and I that we my let our sacrament shine. 
Saint Thomas Moore, pray for us.

God is with Us

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
Mt.18:20

Jesus has just outlined how to deal with sin in the Church.  In presenting the antidote to this very human of problems he gives a wonderful promise to encourage us to pray. "Where two or more pray in my name, I will be in the midst of them".

I have the wonderful privilege of hosting a men's prayer group each Monday morning. The "group" lately has only consisted of two of us. This Monday my regular partner emailed he was sick and unable to come. I was expecting a loan vigil until an irregular attendee arrived to join me. I was very grateful as I sensed that a quorum was established and the Lord was present.

I am not meant to be a Lone Ranger Christian. Jesus wants me to pray and not only pray alone but pray in a group.  There is a mystery to the power of "Church" that can only be explained by Jesus' promise given in today's Gospel. I'm looking forward to family prayer time tonight.

Thank you Jesus that you are Emanuel, God with us. 
Little Flower, please pray for us.

Go Tell Jesus

John’s disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went off to tell Jesus.
Mt.14:12

John the Baptist is beheaded at the whim of King Herod who is manipulated by his adulterous mistress, Herodias. After burying John's body, all John's grief-stricken followers could think to do was "go tell Jesus".

Following scripture records how, on hearing the news of his cousin's death, Jesus tries to retreat to a solitary place but is mobbed by a crowd of over five thousand. What follows is the teaching then feeding of the five thousand, the rescuing of the bumbling disciples from a boat-wreck and then the healing of more sick and demon-possessed. Jesus is not given the time in that twenty-four hours to grieve the loss of his murdered cousin.

"Bad days" happen. Jesus shows me how to always keep my eye on the big picture. Bad things, no matter how painful at the time, are always the lesser things when placed in the big picture, the God's eye view of my life so to speak.

Lord, give me grace to look to you, to "go tell you", when bad things happen.
Little Flower, please pray for me.