Sing to God, Praise God!

Prayer for the Day

O Lord, we ask for a boundless confidence and trust in Your divine mercy, and the courage to accept the crosses and sufferings which bring immense goodness to our souls and that of Your Church.

Help us to love You with a pure and contrite heart, and to humble ourselves beneath Your cross, as we climb the mountain of holiness, carrying our cross that leads to heavenly glory.

May we receive You with great faith and love in Holy Communion, and allow You to act in us, as You desire, for Your greater glory.

O Jesus, most adorable heart and eternal fountain of Divine Love, may our prayer find favor before the Divine Majesty of Your Heavenly Father. Amen (St. Padre Pio)

 Reflection

In Acts 20: 28-38, Paul reminds the church at Ephesus to watch over each other and protect each other from those who would pervert the truth they had come to know in the words of Jesus.  Paul’s letters to the churches are instructive to us today.  We are reminded that the Holy Spirit appoints us to oversee the Church of God.  This message to be vigilant in keeping the truths of the Church is not at all about maintaining rules.  The instructions are clear.  Help the weak and keep in mind that it is more blessed to give than receive.  (It’s even more blessed when you give freely and not involuntarily—but we’ll get to that in a moment.)

In John’s Gospel (John 17:11-19), Jesus prays that God will protect and guard all those given to Him in the Father’s name.  How can we go wrong, knowing that Jesus continues to pray on our behalf and that God continues to give us strength and power?  We shouldn’t think about our lives, then, in terms of our weaknesses, but in terms of our strengths.  But that is not so easy to do all of the time, especially as we grow older and have to acknowledge that we are physically weaker and our health is often challenged.  I have come to think, however, that during those times, God is even more with us.  It is during these times when we draw closer to God for strength that we are even more protected from evil.  While we may be weak in some ways, we can become stronger in truth in the Word.

Psalm 68 reminds us that God gives power and strength to His people.  We are to confess that power, sing to God, and praise the Lord for the power and strength we receive from God.  If we connect these words to the lessons Paul was teaching to the Ephesians in Acts and the words of Jesus in John’s Gospel, we should apply that power and strength to helping the weak before we help ourselves.  God gives us enough power to both, care for ourselves and care for others.

"As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world."-John 17:18

This world we live in is one that places high emphasis on interaction: our connections with others and the world itself.  While this can be seen as a nice utopia, the phrase “too much of a good thing can be a bad thing” could not be more appropriate.  We over evaluate our connections to the extent that our basis of being human is dependent solely on our standings in society, compared to those of our fellow brothers and sisters.  We have ventured away from demonstrating a level of love…we have instead become every man and woman for themselves.  

A sad but true fact is that this world we live in is not as constantly beautiful as we wish it were.  It is filled with lust, hatred, violence, greed, and any other act associated with the devaluing of God’s creation; I cannot turn on the evening news without seeing some mention of murder, acts of terrorism, etc.  All too often, it directly involves us personally or someone we love.   Marilyn and I woke up this morning to find that someone had found a way to use our ATM card number to make a large purchase!   A couple of phone calls and quite a bit of explaining got the charges reversed, but we shouldn’t have had to go through all of this.

This whole episode really put a damper on my day until I realized that as sad as the world is, it is every bit as promising and glorious.  And the glory lies within you and me through the power of the Holy Spirit and the promise of Jesus Christ that He will never leave us.

We will not get out of this life without a full realization of our weaknesses but that shouldn’t make us vulnerable to evil.  John says that Jesus didn’t ask for us to be taken out of the world, but rather to be protected from the evil one.  We are fully in God’s love and grace in the midst of this world’s challenges.  Our job on this earth is to keep watch over ourselves and others, especially the weak and the poor because this is what Jesus asked us to do.  To do this, God gives us power, the Holy Spirit calls us, and Jesus prays for us.  Following His example, we should pray for one another, as well.

Perhaps the hardest of challenges that are placed on our shoulders the instant we call ourselves Christians is the challenge of choosing God in public.   If we truly carry the cross as we claim we do, then it is inevitable for us to show the world our faith.  Our purpose on this Earth is simply not our purpose, but rather God’s.  It is pretty difficult at times to live a life of faith, but that is what faith is.