Podcasts about my catholic life

Read OnlineBut the leader of the synagogue, indignant that Jesus had cured on the sabbath, said to the crowd in reply, “There are six days when work should be done. Come on those days to be cured, not on the sabbath day.” The Lord said to him in reply, “Hypocrites! Does not each one of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his ass from the manger and lead it out for watering?” Luke 13:14–15Why would the leader of the synagogue be “indignant” that Jesus cured a woman on the sabbath? She was crippled for eighteen years! Imagine, especially, her family. They would have seen her many years of suffering and shared them with her through years of compassion. If they were present when Jesus healed her on the sabbath, would they have immediately thought, “How dare Jesus do this healing of our mother, wife or sister on the sabbath?” Of course not! They would have rejoiced and been filled with awe, gratitude, and even tears. This normal reaction that her family would have had upon witnessing this miracle is the right response. And, of course, the reaction of the leader of the synagogue was deeply disordered. Why would this leader of the synagogue do such a thing? Though he and many other scribes, Sadducess, Pharisees and scholars of the law struggled with envy and hypocrisy, others may sometimes react similarly to this leader of the synagogue for other reasons. One such reason is scrupulosity.Scrupulosity is the tendency to see God and His holy will through the lens of legalism. “Legalism” is not just being faithful to the Law of God, because that is a good thing. Legalism is a misinterpretation of God's Law by which one tends to put more emphasis upon themselves than upon God. A scrupulous person is preoccupied with themself. They tend to be far more concerned with sin than with God Himself. And though it's vital to be concerned with sin, when fear of sinning becomes a form of obsession, then that obsession has the effect of clouding the pure will of God and leaves a person heavily burdened and unable to joyfully live out the authentic will of God.Saint Thérèse of Lisieux was one saint who openly shared her struggles with scrupulosity in her autobiography. Of this struggle, which she referred to as “oversensitivity,” she said, “One would have to pass through this martyrdom to understand it well, and for me to express what I experienced for a year and a half would be impossible.” However, she eventually experienced what she called a “complete conversion” by which the heavy burden of oversensitivity was lifted. Though this oversensitivity oppressed her in various ways, one way it affected her was that she feared that even some of her random thoughts were mortal sins and that she would be condemned for them.Though the leader of the synagogue was most likely not struggling with “oversensitivity” in the same way as Saint Thérèse, he was acting with an extreme scrupulosity which led him to be harshly judgmental and condemning of our Lord for His good deed done to this crippled woman.Reflect, today, upon any tendency you may have with these heavy burdens. Do you worry in an irrational way about sin? Do you ever find yourself obsessing over decisions, worrying that you may make the wrong one? Do you think about yourself far more than you think about God and others? If so, you may also be carrying a similar heavy burden that our Lord wants to lift. Serving God and His holy will must become the deepest joy of our lives, not a heavy burden. If you find your Christian walk more of a burden, then turn your eyes away from yourself and look to the merciful God. Run to Him with the utmost confidence of a child, as Saint Thérèse eventually did, and allow yourself to love Him more authentically, freed of scrupulous and self-imposed burdens. My merciful Lord, You desire to free me from all that burdens me. You desire that I turn to You with the confidence of a child. Please do free me, dear Lord, from any way that I impose burdens upon myself by my obsessions and irrational worries. May I always understand Your infinite love for me and always walk freely and joyfully in Your ways. Jesus, I trust in You.Image: Museo Nacional de Arte, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read Online“Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous—or even like this tax collector.'” Luke 18:10–11What a sad prayer. Of course it wasn't even a prayer to God since the Pharisee “spoke this prayer to himself.” The prayer of the tax collector, however, was a perfect model for all prayer. We read that the tax collector “stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.'” Which prayer more resembles your own prayer?To honestly answer that question, let's examine both prayers. First of all, the contrast of these two prayers is a contrast between humility and pride. The Pharisee was clearly full of pride. Pride blinds us from true self-knowledge. Saint Teresa of Ávila teaches us that the very first thing we must do on our journey to God is obtain self-knowledge through humility. Without that, we will never grow in holiness.The sin of pride is obvious in the prayer of the Pharisee and, therefore, his lack of true self-knowledge is also evident. Note that even his physical posture of standing depicts pride. Throughout the Scriptures, kneeling, or even falling prostrate, is the disposition of the humble. In addition to standing, the Pharisee's prayer was a list of his own goodness. He very well may have fasted twice a week and paid tithes on his whole income. But his prayer suggests that he did this by his own effort. He did not ascribe those acts to the grace and strength of God, which means they were not true acts of charity. His prayer suggests that he doesn't need God in order to do good. This is also seen in the fact that he asks nothing of God. Instead, he simply thanks God for how good he is through his own effort. The result is that God gives him nothing, since he asked for nothing.True prayer must begin with the humble recognition of our weakness and need for God. The tax collector expressed this humility by bowing his head to the ground, not even daring to look up to Heaven. This reveals he did not consider himself worthy of God's grace. Truth be told, he wasn't worthy of it. That's why God's grace is a mercy. It is all mercy in that He bestows that which we are not worthy to receive. And He only bestows it on those who know they are not worthy of it. The words spoken by the tax collector are the perfect model of prayer because his words depict these truths. As a sinner, he doesn't deserve mercy but begs for God's grace as an act of God's mercy.When you pray, how do you pray? What is the disposition of your heart and for what do you pray? Begin by considering the physical position in which you pray. Though we can pray standing, sitting, kneeling or even lying down, there is something very good about kneeling or even lying prostrate. It doesn't mean we have to do so the entire time we pray, but it is a good practice to kneel, bow your head or fall down prostrate before God at least for a moment each day. Do you do this? If not, consider making this a daily habit. When you pray, do you begin your prayer with humility? We begin the Mass by examining our conscience and confessing our sins. This is a good example of how to begin your prayer every time you pray. Humble yourself by calling to mind your sins and weaknesses. Confess them to God and acknowledge the fact that, because of your sins, you are unworthy of God's mercy. Humility like this will help you to see yourself as God sees you, and this will help you open yourself to the grace you need from God to grow in holiness.Reflect, today, upon the humility found in the prayer of this tax collector. As you do, look at your own practice of prayer and discern whether you imitate this tax collector's disposition and prayer. Try to commit to physically humbling yourself before our Lord every day. Kneel, bow your head, or fall down prostrate every day. When you do pray, beg for mercy as one who doesn't deserve anything from God. This is the humble truth on which all prayer must be based. The more you can humble yourself this way, the more God will lift you up and pour forth His mercy upon you. O God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I bow before You, most glorious and merciful God. I offer You my praise and gratitude for Your abundant mercy in my life. I am not worthy of You and Your grace, but You bestow it anyway. For that I thank You with profound gratitude and beg for the ongoing gift of Your grace. Jesus, I trust in You.Image via Adobe Stock: Featured, MainSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read Online“‘For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. So cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?' He said to him in reply, ‘Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down.'”  Luke 13:7–9How much good fruit is born from your life? This is an important question to answer honestly. One of the best ways to discern whether or not we are serving the will of God is to look at the fruit being born from our lives.Good fruit is born in various ways and manifests itself in various forms. However, the fruit you must look for is twofold. First, it is the fruit found within your own soul resulting from a life of true prayer and union with God. Second, we must look for the fruit that is born of charity in our actions toward others. When you look honestly at your own soul, what do you see? Often, you may see a sort of war within you in which your disordered passions and appetites fight against the Spirit of God. Good spiritual fruit will require interior purification. Through prayer, fasting, spiritual reading and the like, you must look for ways in which God's Spirit takes control of your disordered human nature and reorders it in accord with His holy will. Though we are all sinners and will all fall at times, we must work diligently to overcome every action, desire and temptation that we can objectively discern to be contrary to the will of God. At times, your fallen human nature can so forcefully draw you into sin that it can confuse your intellect and lead you to rationalization of your sins. But if you want the fruit of God's presence in your life, then you must continually choose to make your interior life a fruitful garden in which the virtues of God grow and are nourished in abundance. So, again, what do you honestly see as you look into your own soul?As God nourishes the virtues within us, and our disordered passions and appetites fall under the control of the Spirit of God, then we will also discover a need to allow the interior fruits of God's love to flow forth from our lives into the lives of others. We will begin to desire selfless and sacrificial living. We will begin to desire to put others first. We will consider others' lives as precious and filled with dignity. And we will overcome judgment, harshness, anger, and the like. We will find ourselves desiring the good of others and will supernaturally be drawn to do many small acts of kindness toward all. But it all starts with one's interior life which our Lord desires to cultivate and fertilize with His grace so that the interior fruits of His love will grow within and ultimately become very manifest in one's daily exterior actions toward all. Reflect, today, upon your soul being like this fig tree that has not been bearing fruit. See our Lord coming to you and asking you to allow Him to cultivate the ground and fertilize it. Know that this requires change on your part. If you are to bear good fruit, then you need this intervention by our Lord. Work with Him, be diligent, and do all you can to begin to bear an abundance of good fruit so that you are not among those who are ultimately cut down by God's justice. My laboring Lord, You never cease to work diligently to cultivate the soil of my soul so that the seeds of Your mercy will grow and produce the good fruit You desire to come forth from my life. Please give me the grace I need to be faithful to a daily life of prayer, a practice of penance and a search for Your holy Word. Transform me, dear Lord, and bring forth the good fruit of Your holy Kingdom in my life. Jesus, I trust in You.  Image: Carl Rahl, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read Online“Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? If you are to go with your opponent before a magistrate, make an effort to settle the matter on the way; otherwise your opponent will turn you over to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the constable, and the constable throw you into prison. I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.” Luke 12:57–59The Church Fathers offer many different interpretations of this passage. Among them, Saint Bede says that our “opponent” can be seen as the Word of God, in the sense that the Word of God makes war upon our weaknesses and sins. When we listen to the Word of God, our Lord will convict us of our faults so that we can reconcile our lives with the Truth of the Word of God Himself.When you think about God's holy Word, in its entirety, what most convicts you? Sometimes we try to downplay such personal convictions. We rationalize our actions and dismiss what God is saying to us. Are there any teachings of Jesus that you recall that have truly stung you to the heart? If so, this is a grace, and it's an opportunity to fulfill the lesson from our Lord taught in the passage above. God does not convict our hearts so as to condemn us. Rather, He convicts us, as an opponent to our sin, so that we can “make an effort to settle the matter on the way.” The conscience is a wonderful gift from our Lord and can be likened to this passage above. It is a form of courtroom where our Lord desires not to have to issue punishment upon us. Instead, He desires that we engage His holy Word, listen to what He says, and settle our sin by repenting immediately.Among the many lessons taught by our Lord, it is often the lesson that jumps out at us, even in a startling way, that we need to pay attention to the most. God often brings His most urgent teachings to us by causing us to feel a sense of guilt that cannot be denied. If we listen to these convictions, then we will not have any need to stand before the Judge. But if we do not, if we bury these convictions, downplay them and ignore them, then our Lord will find it necessary to keep at us. We will begin to experience His judgment, and we will see the effects of being out of His good graces. And in the end, if we fail to repent of the more serious sins in our lives, then we will even be held accountable for the smallest of sins. We will be required to “pay the last penny.”Reflect, today, upon the idea that the Word of God, all that our Lord has taught us, is the opponent to the sin in your soul. This good and holy opponent wants only what is best for you. Commit yourself to an ongoing reading of God's holy Word so that you will be continually disposed to hear all that God wants to say to you and so that you will be able to reconcile with our Lord before He is compelled to issue forth His judgments. My most merciful Judge, You desire that I listen to Your holy Word, revealed through Scripture, so as to receive Your most merciful conviction of my sin. I pray that I will be open to always hear all that You desire to say to me so that I can respond with generosity and trust, reconciling with You and others continually through my journey in life. Enliven my conscience with Your holy Word, dear Lord. Jesus, I trust in You.Image: Братья Белоусовы (Палех), Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineJesus said to his disciples: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!” Luke 12:49–50There is much that we can take from these teachings of our Lord. Not only did Jesus say, “I have come to set the earth on fire…” He also said that it's His desire that this fire be “blazing!”Fire is powerful. A blazing fire, for example, can purify the precious metal gold. When heated to a liquid state, the impurities rise to the surface for easy removal. Fire can also consume. When a blazing fire completes its burning, what's left are only ashes. Many great saints have reflected upon the image of fire as an image of the purification God wants to do within our souls. Saint John of the Cross, for example, reflected in depth upon this image. He explained that entering into divine union was similar to a log burning. At first, as the log begins to burn, it crackles and pops. This is because the impurities within the wood, such as moisture or sap, do not burn as the wood burns. But as a log continues to burn, as Saint John explains, eventually the log becomes one with the fire. At first, you can distinguish the log from the fire when only part of the log is burning. But once the entire log is engulfed in the flames and all the impurities are burnt out, you have a piece of wood that is one with the fire. It glows and emits light and heat.When we ponder these words from Jesus regarding His desire to “set the earth on fire,” we must first see this as His desire to purify our souls. Within our souls, there are many impurities that need to be removed if we are to become one with God, emitting His radiance and glory.  This purification involves a process of allowing God to bring our sins to the surface so that they are seen and can be removed. But this is only possible if we allow the blazing fire of God's purifying love to consume us.Oftentimes in life, we are content with simply being mediocre in our faith journey. We pray, go to Mass on Sunday, and try to be good. But this is not the life our Lord wants for us. He wants a life that is radically consumed with the blazing fire of His love. He wants us to become so purified from our sin that He is able to become one with us, sending forth the radiance of His glory through our lives. Reflect, today, upon this image of a blazing and purifying fire. Use the image of gold melting to the point that all impurities rise to the surface. Or use the image that Saint John of the Cross uses with the log. God wants so much more from you. He wants to transform you and use you in ways beyond your imagination. Do not be afraid to make the radical decision to allow the blazing and purifying fire of our Lord's mercy to transform you. And don't wait for this to start tomorrow—kindle that flame today. My purifying Lord, You deeply desire to set my heart and soul on fire with the transforming mercy of Your love. Please give me the grace I need to permit You to kindle this fire of love in my heart so that it will truly become blazing and all-consuming. May this blaze ignite me in the inner depths of my heart so that You will shine brightly in my life, bringing forth the warmth of Your love into our world. Jesus, I trust in You.Image: Our Lord Jesus Christ the Universal King by Lawrence OP, license CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.Source of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineJesus said to his disciples: “Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” Luke 12:39–40These words from Jesus should cause us to sit up and take notice. This parable, followed by the rest of today's Gospel, exhorts us to always be prepared for our particular judgment at the conclusion of our earthly life. There are various reasons these words should be heeded.First of all, the obvious reason is that life for any of us could end at any time. We only need to recall various tragedies in which people have suddenly died from a car accident or from some other unexpected reason. Furthermore, there truly will be a specific moment in time when our Lord does return to earth for the Final Judgment. That moment will take place in an instant without any warning. It's easy to presume that this end of the world when our Lord “comes to judge the living and the dead” will not happen for hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years. But the simple truth is that it could be at any time, when those who are alive least expect it.With that said, there is another important reason to always be prepared and ready to meet our Lord for our particular judgment. Even though our particular judgment will take place in a definitive way at the end of our life when we see our Lord face-to-face, we also encounter Him every day, all day, receiving daily rewards for our fidelity or judgment for our sins. It is useful to see this “hour you do not expect” as every moment of every day. If you can live every day with this ongoing expectation that our Lord is coming to you, today, then every moment can be turned into a moment of much grace.Think about your day today. Does God want to come to you, to inspire you and to lead you to fulfill His holy mission today? Indeed He does. He has a specific mission for you today that will not be there tomorrow. He wants you to be aware of His presence right now so that you can respond to Him with much generosity. Reflect, today, upon the importance of always being vigilant and attentive to God's presence in your life. He wishes to speak to you, day and night, so as to guide you into a life of true holiness. If you can build a habit of attentiveness to His continual comings, then you will truly be prepared for that final coming when you meet our Lord face-to-face. My ever-present Lord, You do come to me day and night, speaking to me, inspiring me, and leading me. Please fill me with the gift of holy vigilance so that I will always be prepared to meet You and hear Your holy voice. May I learn to build a habit of responding to You always. And may I especially be prepared for that glorious moment when I am blessed to see You face-to-face.  Jesus, I trust in You.Image: James Tissot, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineJesus said to his disciples: “Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master's return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks.”  Luke 12:35–36What does it mean to “Gird your loins?” This phrase, which is not commonly used today, literally means “tighten your belt.” It traditionally refers to one who is wearing a long robe that makes it difficult to move quickly and easily. Thus, to gird your loins means that you tuck in the long robe and tighten your belt so that you are prepared for some physical activity. It was also commonly used to exhort those preparing for battle to get ready. Symbolically, then, this phrase simply means to be ready for something difficult or challenging. It means to be vigilant and prepared. Spiritually speaking, Jesus is telling His disciples to be ready for the spiritual battle that awaits them.Jesus then tells His disciples to light their lamps. That phrase could have a variety of meanings, such as “Do not remain in the darkness of sin or ignorance” or “Let the light of charity shine forth as you navigate through life” or “Allow the light of truth to shine within your mind.” Hence, by the light of faith, they are to be prepared and vigilant, ready to do all that the Lord sends them to do.Today's Gospel ends by Jesus saying that the disciples will be truly blessed if they remain vigilant even until the second or third watch of the night. Some Church Fathers see this as a reference to three periods in one's life: childhood being the first watch, middle age being the second, and old age being the third watch.With these meanings understood, one message we can take from this Gospel is that Jesus is calling us to be vigilant in our faith at every moment of our lives. For those who have lived many years, it may be useful to look back at how faithful you have been throughout every period of your life. God wants to use you in many ways during childhood, through your middle age, and even in old age. The journey of faith must never end. Instead, it must continually deepen as you age. But this will only be possible if you “gird your loins” and “light your lamps.” You must continually be vigilant, continually attentive to the light of faith, and continually be ready to act every time God inspires you to act. Reflect, today, upon the lifelong journey of faith and service of God to which you are called. Being a Christian is not simply something you are born into. If you were born into the faith, then ponder especially what you have done throughout your life to daily deepen and strengthen that faith. Ponder whether or not you have diligently responded to the countless inspirations of the Holy Spirit to spread the light of faith to others. If you have been truly faithful throughout your life, then give thanks to God and recommit yourself to this fidelity for the rest of your life. If you have lacked faith and vigilant attentiveness to the will of God, then place that in the hands of God's mercy and resolve from this day forward to do all you can to respond to the will of God the moment God calls. My most merciful Lord, I thank You for the countless ways throughout my life that You have spoken to me, calling me to fulfill my mission of faith and love in this world. I commit to You, this day, to always remain vigilant and attentive to You every time You call. Use me, dear Lord, so that I may bring the light of Your saving Gospel to a world in need. Jesus, I trust in You.  Image: Duccio di Buoninsegna, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineSomeone in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.” He replied to him, “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?” Then he said to the crowd, “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one's life does not consist of possessions.” Luke 12:13–15What's interesting in Jesus' statement is that of all the people who ever walked the earth, no one is more worthy to be a “judge and arbitrator” of an injustice than Jesus Himself. Yet He refuses to intervene. Why is that? It appears to be a just request from the person, but instead of intervening Jesus tells a parable about greed.Material possessions can be very seductive. That's a fact. Yet many people have a very hard time admitting their attachment to possessions and money. They rationalize that they have worked hard, have earned what they have and should be able to indulge a bit. Some good-minded people who have many possessions appease their consciences by giving a small portion of what they have to charitable causes and then conclude that they can keep the rest for themselves. But what does Jesus think about that?In and of themselves, material possessions are neither good nor bad. The problem is the sin of greed. Greed is an interior disposition by which a person becomes more attached to the passing things of this world than they are to God and His holy will. Though it might be possible to have many possessions and still remain interiorly detached from them, this is quite difficult. But having possessions is not the ultimate problem. Desiring possessions is the real problem. Therefore, even those with very little can fall into the same trap by becoming attached to what they do not have and by believing that the attainment of more will satisfy.Jesus refused to act as “judge and arbitrator” in this case because it was clear to Him that the person making the request was struggling with greed. Jesus was far more concerned about this person's interior attachments than He was about the inheritance being properly shared. Earthly justice means very little from the perspective of eternity. This may be hard for many to understand and accept. Doesn't justice demand fairness? Not if the desire to be treated fairly is based on some sin such as greed. In that case, it is far better for the soul to be cheated out of their inheritance than it is to receive their fair share. In fact, if a person does struggle with greed, one of the best things for their soul might be to be cheated out of their own possessions. This will only be understood when we see that spiritual riches are infinitely greater than material riches. Reflect, today, upon your interior desires. Look at them honestly. What do you desire the most in life? Do you dream of becoming rich? If so, does that desire consume much of your thinking? Reflect upon the scenario in which you were supposed to receive a very large inheritance but were cheated out of it. How would you react? The right reaction would be to care more for the soul of the person who cheated you than to care about actually being cheated. A person who is fully detached from material possessions will care little about losing such an inheritance or gaining one. It will truly matter not. If that is hard to accept, know that this is a sign that your soul is too attached to the things of this world. Pray for freedom from all greed. That is the only way to obtain the true riches of God. Most generous Lord, You bestow mercy in superabundance. Your grace and love are all I need in life. By obtaining You and Your mercy, I obtain the one and only source of fulfillment in life. Please free me from earthly greed, and help me to see the things of this world as You see them. Jesus, I trust in You.Image via Adobe StockSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineJesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary. Luke 18:1In our parable for today, we have the witness of a widow who came to a dishonest judge and continuously begged him for a just judgment. Though the judge did not care about the woman, he eventually rendered a just decision for her because she was so persistent. It's interesting that Jesus used the image of a “dishonest judge” to teach us about persistent prayers being answered. He does so because He wants us to understand that if even those who are dishonest respond to persistence, then so much more will the Just Judge of Heaven respond to persistence.Will God answer any prayer you pray if you offer that prayer day and night, day after day without fail? Does God eventually give into our requests as a parent might give into a child who keeps begging for something? Not exactly. One of the most important qualifiers mentioned in this parable is the word “just.” We read that the woman's plea before the judge was, “render a just decision for me…” At the conclusion of the parable, Jesus gives this interpretation: “Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night?” When we pray, we ought not pray for whatever we want. We ought not pray for our preference, selfish desires, or our own ideas. We must pray only for the justice of God. When we do so with unwavering perseverance, God will secure our rights and bring forth His justice.Justice, in the mind of God, is not only about righting certain wrongs. The prime example of this is the death of our Lord Himself. Clearly, Jesus was purely innocent and yet He suffered greatly. For that reason, would we conclude that the suffering and death of the Son of God was an injustice? Not really. The reason for this is that justice can be achieved best by mercy. Because Jesus embraced the injustice of His suffering and death and turned it into a free embrace out of love, this “injustice” became a sacrifice of love by which an abundance of mercy was bestowed. Jesus had every right to call down fire from Heaven and to destroy those who sinned against Him. But He had a far better plan. Instead, by choosing to accept the injustice of the Cross, and by freely embracing it with His own will, the injustice was transformed and a far greater good came forth.In our own lives, whenever we are wronged by another, we are often tempted to anger and to desire revenge in the name of justice. We want them to pay for what they did. If you ever feel that way, know that the greatest form of justice is mercy. Know that your free embrace of injustice brings forth the transforming power of God in a way that punishment or retribution could never accomplish. This is the form of justice we must pray for night and day. We must beg God for the ability to accept all sufferings with love, to offer those sufferings as a sacrifice, and to allow them to be transformed into mercy. If this is our persistent prayer, we can be certain that our prayer will be answered. Reflect, today, upon anything for which you desire justice. Is there anything that has been unfair in your life? Do you dwell upon any hurt inflicted upon you by another? As you call those things to mind, know that the power of your persistent prayer has the potential to transform those sufferings into God's mercy. Beg for this gift and know that God will always answer those prayers. Most just Judge, You desire to transform every injustice into mercy by calling us to freely embrace those injustices out of love. This is a high calling, dear Lord, but it is also a glorious one. Please give me the grace I need to follow Your example and to persevere in this form of prayer always. Jesus, I trust in You.  Image: various, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineThe Lord Jesus appointed seventy-two disciples whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit. He said to them, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” Luke 10:1–2Saint Luke, whom we honor today, was a true evangelist. As an evangelist, he followed the inspiration from our Lord and was used to bring God's saving message to the ends of the earth. And there is little doubt that his ministry will continue to have a transforming effect on the lives of many until the end of the world. Tradition states that Saint Luke became a martyr, being hanged on an olive tree. He is identified in the New Testament as a physician and as a disciple of Saint Paul. Both the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles are attributed to him.Saint Luke is often spoken of as an evangelist to the gentiles. His Gospel was written in such a way that it didn't presume a full understanding of the Jewish faith and customs. Therefore, it is believed to have been primarily written for those who are not of Jewish origin. Thus, the life and mission of Saint Luke must remind us that the Gospel needs to be shared with all people, especially with those who do not have a deep and sustaining relationship with God.In today's Gospel from Saint Luke, we read that Jesus sent seventy-two disciples “to every town and place he intended to visit.” Only Luke mentions the larger scale sending of seventy-two disciples. The other Gospels only mention the sending of the Twelve. Though many of these seventy-two disciples would have gone to Jewish territory, some would have unquestionably gone to non-Jewish territory. The mission of these seventy-two was to prepare everyone they encountered for the preaching of Jesus and for the establishment of the Kingdom of God.As we honor Saint Luke today and read this passage from his Gospel, we are reminded that we are all sent by our Lord. We are sent to those who share our faith, such as family, friends and fellow parishioners. We are sent to love them and do all we can to help deepen their faith and love of God. But we are also called to share the Gospel with those who do not yet know Jesus as their Savior. There are so many people we encounter every day who have never truly met our Lord. Are there people in your life that God is calling you to reach out to? Who do you know that God may be calling you to share the Gospel with? Reflect, today, upon the fact that the Gospel is meant for everyone. Speak to our Lord and tell Him that you are ready and willing to be used by Him to bring His saving message to others. As you do so, wait on the Lord, listen to His inspiration, and respond when He calls. If someone comes to mind whom you sense God is calling you to evangelize, begin to pray for that person. Pray for them every day and be attentive to any inspiration God gives you to share His love and saving message with them. Do not be afraid to be an evangelist like Saint Luke. Doing so might make an eternal difference in someone's life. My saving Lord, You sent Your disciples on a mission to share Your saving message with all. Today I especially thank You for the life and ministry of Saint Luke. Please use me, dear Lord, to imitate his wonderful example and to share Your glorious life with others. Please lead me and inspire me to especially reach out to those whom You have put into my life. Jesus, I trust in You.  Image: Window: workshop of Franz Borgias Mayer (1848–1926); Photo: Andreas Praefcke, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read Online“There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the darkness will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed on the housetops.” Luke 12:2–3Immediately prior to this passage quoted above, Jesus told His disciples: “Beware of the leaven—that is, the hypocrisy—of the Pharisees.” This comes after Jesus gives a long and very direct series of condemnations of these leaders in the previous chapter. Jesus is quite serious about their destructive actions. So, after directly confronting them, He then turns to His disciples to warn them of the consequences of these hypocritical leaders.A hypocrite is one who pretends to have some moral virtues but, in truth, is only deceiving himself and attempting to deceive others. For that reason, Jesus assists His disciples by sharing with them the fact that all truth will eventually come to light. Thus, every good deed will eventually be seen by all for its goodness, and every evil intent, no matter how hidden, will eventually come to light. Though the immediate temptation for many in hearing this passage will be to think about others who they think fall into the sin of hypocrisy, it may be far more useful to ponder these truths for oneself. The simple message that Jesus preaches is that we must be people who are truthful in every way. We must be honest with ourselves and make sure that we are fully aware of our inner life, seeing ourselves only in the way that God sees us. This act of honesty and integrity is one of the best ways by which we prepare ourselves for eternal life. How sad it would be if we went through life pretending, on the surface, to be something we were not, only to have the full truth divulged at our final judgment when it is too late to change.Being honest with ourselves can be difficult. It's normal for us to want to be good, to want to be holy, and to want others to think this way about us. For that reason, it is very common for us to put forth only the best image of ourselves, hiding many other things that may embarrass us and even humiliate us. And though we do not have any moral obligation to tell everyone about every sin we struggle with interiorly, it is morally essential that we face it ourselves and do so with the grace of God.One practical way to do this is to ponder the above Scripture passage. Jesus makes it clear that at some time, in some way, everything within us in our hearts and minds will come to light. For some this will happen, by God's grace, during this life as a way for them to change. For others, these secrets will only come to light at their final judgment. The truth, however, is that all that we are, all that we think, and all that we do in a hidden way will come to light. And if that frightens you in some way, that is good. Sometimes we need a holy fear to encourage us to look inward and to deal with all that we keep hidden from others. Reflect, today, upon the importance of striving for a life of true transparency and integrity. The best way to do this is to live every day as if everything within your heart were visible for all to see. If that means you need to change in some way so as to be at peace with what will eventually come to light, then work diligently on making that change here and now. The opposite of hypocrisy, for which the Pharisees were firmly condemned, is honesty and sincerity. Spend time reflecting upon these beautiful virtues and pray that the Lord will gift you with them so that you can live a life of true integrity here and now in preparation for that glorious day of judgment, when all will be “known” and “proclaimed on the housetops.” My revealing Lord, You see all things. You know my heart in every way. Please grace me with the ability to see myself as You see me and to know my inner heart as You know me. As the deepest truths of who I am come to light for me to see, I pray that I will also have the grace to sincerely change so that I may truly glorify You with my actions and become a source of authentic inspiration to all. Jesus, I trust in You.Image: Lawrence W. Ladd, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineWhen Jesus left, the scribes and Pharisees began to act with hostility toward him and to interrogate him about many things, for they were plotting to catch him at something he might say. Luke 11:53–54Over the past few days, we have been reading Saint Luke's version of Jesus' “Woe to you” rebukes of the scribes, Pharisees and the scholars of the law. Today's Gospel concludes these rebukes of love by pointing out that these religious leaders did not convert. Instead, they began plotting against Jesus so as to “catch him at something he might say.” This is what happens when people use God's holy law as a weapon to attack.Normally, we take inspiration from the Holy Scriptures in a positive way, meaning, by reflecting upon Jesus' words and actions and applying them to our lives. However, we can also learn from the evil others commit and allow their actions to inspire us to avoid their sin. In today's Gospel, we are invited to ponder the obsessive plotting of these religious leaders so as to consider whether we also are guilty of their sin.First, note that at the conclusion of Jesus' rebukes, these religious leaders “began to act with hostility” toward Jesus. Normally, when we act with hostility toward another, it is done with the mindframe that we are right and they have done something wrong. We justify our hostility by pointing to their perceived sin. However, it must be understood that every act of hostility on our part is a clear indication that we have started down the road of sin and are not justified in our obsession.Notice also that these religious leaders exercised their hostility toward Jesus by interrogating Him. In other words, in their anger, they kept asking Him questions so as to find some fault with Him. They tried to trick Him and trap Him with their speech using God's very Law handed down through Moses and the prophets. But they manipulated that Law so as to justify their hostility and, out of pride, to falsely accuse Jesus.Think about any times in your life in which you found yourself somewhat obsessed with what you judged to be the sin of another. Hostility in this case can even be passive, meaning you may present a kind disposition on the surface, but interiorly you are obsessively thinking about how you can condemn the person. Often when this happens, we can feel justified in that we convince ourselves that justice must be done and that we are the dispensers of that justice. But if God is in control of our lives, He will not call us to obsessive plotting in regard to another. Instead, when we are following the will of God, we will sense Him inspiring us to act with immediacy, calm, joy, kindness, honesty, and freedom from all anger and obsession. Reflect, today, upon any way that you have seen this misguided tendency within your own life. If you can identify a time when you struggled with hostility toward another, look at the fruit it bore. Was God glorified through your actions? Did this leave you at peace or agitated? Were you fully objective in your thinking? Be honest with these questions and you will begin to discover the road to freedom from such obsessive thinking. God wants you to be at peace. If there is injustice, trust that our Lord will sort it out. You, for your part, must continually work to forgive, act with charity, and direct your attention to the will of God as it is gently presented to you. My patient and kind Lord, You were falsely accused and condemned by many of the religious leaders of Your time because You spoke the pure truth with love, clarity and boldness. When I act with hostility and anger toward another, help me to turn from these sins so that I will never condemn, never judge and never manipulate Your divine Law for my own purposes. Fill me with Your peace and charity alone, dear Lord. Jesus, I trust in You.Image: Duccio di Buoninsegna, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineThen one of the scholars of the law said to him in reply, “Teacher, by saying this you are insulting us too.” And he said, “Woe also to you scholars of the law! You impose on people burdens hard to carry, but you yourselves do not lift one finger to touch them.”  Luke 11:45–46This scholar of the law had been listening to Jesus firmly rebuke the Pharisees. As he listened, his own conscience was pricked, and he challenged our Lord. What does Jesus do? He quickly and firmly rebukes the scholar of the law, pointing out that the scholar uses the law to impose heavy burdens on people. Jesus did not back down in this rebuke of love. Instead, He directed it to the very place that His rebuke was bearing fruit: in the conscience of this scholar of the law.This experience of the scholar of the law teaches us two important lessons. First, we learn from him the importance of paying attention to our conscience when it is “pricked.” Second, it teaches us that when this happens, it is very easy to become defensive.What is it that pricks your own conscience? Think back over the past month and reflect upon anything that you became defensive about. Did something someone said bother you? If so, pay attention to this. Sometimes we are bothered for reasons other than our own sin. But oftentimes, what actually bothers us is that we come face-to-face with some sin with which we struggle, and we do not want to admit it.What if this scholar of the law would have listened to Jesus and, instead of being offended, became grateful for Jesus' words? What if he would have humbly looked at his own life and realized that he was also guilty of the very things that Jesus was condemning the Pharisees for? If he would have done that, he would have been put in a position to sincerely examine his actions and begin a process of change. But this is hard to do. Reflect, today, upon anything that has recently offended you. Be honest and admit that it is often the case that when God presents you with your sin through some means such as the loving rebuke of another, you must work diligently to overcome any pride. And when you feel defensive, you must immediately see that as an indication that there is something in your life that you need to change. A pricked conscience is a gift from God. Rejoice when that happens, rather than being offended, and you will discover one of the best ways by which you can grow in holiness of life by becoming free of the very sin our Lord is presenting to you. My challenging Lord, You are constantly speaking to me in various ways. Sometimes You are gentle, and at other times You lovingly rebuke me. Please help me to see my sin. As I do, I pray that I will not become defensive or dismissive, rationalizing my erroneous actions. May I learn to rejoice in all that You say to me, especially when You speak Your rebukes of love. Jesus, I trust in You.Image: Jacob Jordaens, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineAfter Jesus had spoken, a Pharisee invited him to dine at his home. He entered and reclined at table to eat. The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not observe the prescribed washing before the meal. The Lord said to him, “Oh you Pharisees! Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil. You fools!”  Luke 11:37–40It's hard to imagine Jesus calling someone a fool. But that's exactly what He did. This Pharisee had just finished listening to Jesus give a series of teachings and then invited our Lord to His home for dinner in an apparent gesture of kindness. But as the passage unfolds, it's clear that this Pharisee is no friend of Jesus. Instead, his hospitality and kindness are a cloak for the evil within his soul.Why does Jesus respond so fiercely, calling the Pharisee a fool? Because this Pharisee is filled with hypocrisy. His exterior actions do not flow from a heart filled with charity and faith. Instead, his exterior actions are a show. He is a fraud. He, like many of the Pharisees, was very concerned with various external rituals, such as scrupulously washing his hands before he ate. He believed that doing so was a sign of his holiness and closeness to God. But it wasn't. His heart was one that was filled with judgment and self-righteousness. He looked down on others and elevated himself. In doing so, he deceived others and even deceived himself. The central message we must take from this is that we must diligently focus upon that which is in our hearts. Our hearts, our interior life, must be blooming with love of God and others. We must place all of our efforts on cultivating a sincere life of virtue within. This is done by prayer and humility. Humility will open our eyes to see the truth of who we are. Prayer will strengthen us to change as we see that which needs to be changed within. Only then, when we see clearly the truth of who we are and prayerfully rely upon grace obtained by prayer, will we be able to become people of true integrity and holiness. And only then will our interior holiness be made manifest externally in our actions. Reflect, today, upon these powerful words of Jesus: “You fools!” Don't be offended by these words; they are words of love from our Lord. They are His fierce attempt to wake this Pharisee up and lead him away from his hypocrisy. Listen to these words as if they were also spoken to you. Every one of us can humbly benefit from this loving chastisement from Jesus. Every one of us needs to humbly be transformed more fully interiorly. Let Jesus' words speak to you and reveal to you the ways that you need to change. Perhaps your pride has led you to an interior practice of judgment of others. Perhaps it has blinded you to sins that you need to confess. If you can listen to these words as if they were spoken to you, then Jesus' fervor will reach you, and your eyes will be opened to that which is in your soul that needs to be changed. Do not turn a blind eye to this. Be open, be humble and listen. My fervent Lord, You spoke words of love in many ways. At times You were gentle and at times You were firm. Please give me the grace and humility I need to be open to Your firm rebukes of love. Help me to sincerely see the ways in which I need to change my life so that Your grace will transform my interior life, flowing over into my actions. I love You, dear Lord. Help me to love You more. Jesus, I trust in You.Image: Luca Signorelli, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read Online“This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.” Luke 11:29–30Do you ever find yourself looking for signs from God? Often when we go through life, navigating through the ups and downs we all experience, we can easily find ourselves looking for signs from God about what we should do about this or that. And though God certainly communicates to us at times through special graces that are signs from Heaven, the passage above gives clarity to what sign we must be most attentive to.The simple message in this Gospel passage from our Lord is that we must discover the meaning of the most profound sign ever given and use that as the foundation of all our decisions in life. Jesus' life, death, and resurrection were not only the source of eternal life, they are also the clearest sign we need as we make all of our decisions in life.A sign is some action that reveals a deep and hidden mystery. One mystery that Jesus' life, death and resurrection reveals is that if we are to share in the new life won for us by His Cross, then we must follow the example He set by living a life of selfless sacrifice, laying down our lives for others, so that they will discover and embrace the new life of Christ's Resurrection. Practically speaking, if you find yourself looking for answers in life, seeking signs from God about what you should do at times, then turn your eyes to the life of Christ and ponder ways in which you can more fully imitate His life in every daily practical decision you make. This is true whether you are discerning some important decision in life or some small practical decision. It is common to engage in such a discernment by looking at ourselves in a more selfish way. It's difficult to move away from this line of thinking, but if we are to use the “sign” of the Son of Man, then we will discern our life decisions very differently. When we use the life, death and resurrection of our Lord as the source of our discernment and decision making in life, then we will end up making decisions that imitate His selfless sacrifice of love. So if you are faced with a decision, you will not ponder what is easier or what you prefer; rather, you will ponder what is more selfless and best for others. What is it that best imitates the sacrificial love of Jesus? Reflect, today, upon any decision you are trying to make. Then reflect upon how you are going about this decision. Do you use the witness Jesus gave to us as the foundation of your discernment? Do you reflect upon how you can lay your life down as a sacrificial gift for others? Do you look at love from the point of view of the Cross of our Lord and strive to imitate His glorious and selfless dedication to the salvation of those whom He loves? Seek to imitate our Lord, using the witness of His actions as the foundation of all of your discernment and decisions in life, and you will have discovered the only true sign you need to navigate the challenges of life. My perfect Lord, every decision You made in life was made out of love and was in accord with the perfect will of the Father. Give me the grace I need to make every decision in life in imitation of Your perfect example. May my life imitate You as You laid down Your life for others. I choose You and Your glorious sacrificial life as the sign by which I am directed in life. Jesus, I trust in You.Image by Dimitris Vetsikas from PixabaySource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineAs Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee. As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” Luke 17:11–13This story begins very well for all ten of these lepers. For nine of them, it ends tragically. For one, it ends in an even better and more glorious way than it began.The lepers represent us all. Their illness was a symbol of all sin and the consequences of sin. When the disease began, the lepers began to experience the effects of their disease. Discolored and thick dry skin, sores, and rashes would set in. Once detected, each leper was removed from the community to stop the spread of the disease and was only free to associate with other lepers. They no longer could gather freely with their loved ones as the lepers entered isolation and shame. Analogously, all sin has similar effects. Sin causes pain within our souls as we discover the growing wounds it causes. Sin affects our relationships and our ability to freely relate to those whom we love.The initial cure for sin is simple. We cry out, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on me!” But that is only the first step. By curing the lepers, Jesus was showing us that He had power over our sin. He could forgive us and will forgive us when we seek His mercy. But forgiveness will end in tragedy if it does not lead us to faith and to a following of the will of God with zeal and determination. If we take the forgiveness of sins for granted, then we will be in an even more miserable state than before. The nine lepers who failed to return and give thanks to God represent those who do not convert their lives when touched by God's merciful hand.This story highlights the importance of our response to God when He does touch us. We must glorify God with a loud voice, fall on our knees before Him and express our deepest gratitude. When the one leper does this, Jesus says to him, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.” That mercy from our Lord was a mercy that touched his soul. It imparted the gift of faith and enabled this man to go forth and be healed with eternal graces.Too often we turn to God in prayer only when we have a problem. Then, once the problem is taken care of, we pay little to no attention to our Lord. God's role in our lives is not to fix our problems so that we can then go about our daily lives as normal. His mercy must evoke ongoing and profound gratitude. Gratitude to God is nothing other than an acknowledgement of the truth. We owe everything to God. Without Him, we are nothing. We are dead in our sins. Just one leper realized this and was blessed with the gift of faith that saved not only his body, but also his soul.Reflect, today, upon the ways in which you turn to God in prayer. It is good to come to Him with your needs and problems. It is good to cry out “Jesus, Master! Have pity on me!” It is good to come to Him as the Physician of your soul and the source of healing you need. But that is not enough. In fact, if you stop there in your life of prayer, you will end in a most miserable state. You will be using God for your selfish advantage. Reflect upon whether you are able to take the next and most important step in faith. Do you come to Him when all is well? Do you praise Him with all your might for all that He has done for you? Do you fall on your knees before Him with the deepest gratitude in your heart? Reflect upon your prayer and seek to imitate this one leper. If you do, your faith will also save you and our Lord will invite you to rise and go forth, healed in the truest way possible.Most merciful Lord, You are able to do all things. You are able to heal all my wounds, forgive my sins and solve every problem I encounter. As I cry out to You in my need, please do heal me. In response, may I always turn back to You with the deepest gratitude and praise so that my faith in You will grow and my love for You will truly flourish. Jesus, I trust in You.  Image via Adobe Stock: Featured; MainSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineWhile Jesus was speaking, a woman from the crowd called out and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed.” He replied, “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”  Luke 11:27–28This short Gospel reading reveals much about what makes one “blessed” in life. Specifically, Jesus considers those truly blessed who do two things: “hear the word of God” and then “observe it.” Though this seems quite obvious at first read, it is often harder than it seems.The first step to a blessed life is hearing the Word of God. To “hear” implies that we do much more than become familiar with the Gospels. Hearing means we are not only aware of all that our Lord has revealed, it also means that we have truly internalized it, understanding all that our Lord requires of us.Have you heard our Lord? It's important to understand that the Gospel is alive. In other words, becoming familiar with the Word of God is not the same as reading some ancient book of lessons. Rather, hearing the Word of God means we hear a Person: the Son of God, speaking to us and guiding us each step of our lives. God's Word is something that must speak to us every moment of every day, inspiring us to do this and avoid that. It is accomplished through a lifelong habit of prayerful communion with our Lord through which we are attentive to His voice always.Hearing the very Person of the Son of God, the Word made flesh, necessarily implies that we also observe all that He speaks to us. In fact, failure to follow His continuous and gentle command to love will result in us being unable to clearly hear Him at all. We will become confused and will easily become directed by the many other voices in our world, unable to discern the glorious path chosen for us by our Lord. Reflect, today, upon whether or not you struggle in any way with both hearing and observing the voice of God. If this is your struggle, then recommit yourself to a time of humble and wholehearted discovery. Tell our Lord that you are sorry for not being attentive to Him and set yourself on a mission to seek and find Him. Reject the confusion and anxiety of life, reject the many other voices of “wisdom” within our world, and listen for His gentle but clear voice. He is always speaking. He is always calling you. He is always present. Open the eyes of your soul and give Him your full attention. And when you sense Him speaking to you, respond with the utmost generosity and obedience. Doing so will result in you discovering what it means to be truly blessed by our Lord. My blessed Lord, You are glorious beyond all things, and You invite me and all Your creatures to share in Your very life. Give me the grace I need to turn from the confusion and deceptions of life so that I will hear only You and respond only to Your voice. I commit myself to Your holy will, dear Lord. As I do, please bestow upon me every blessing You desire to give. Jesus, I trust in You.Image: A Woman Cries Out in a Crowd by James Tissot, Brooklyn Museum, Public Domain.Source of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read Online“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” Luke 11:23These words are embedded within several powerful teachings of Jesus, but, in many ways, this single sentence can stand alone as an important Christian truth. Specifically, it tells us that we cannot be neutral in our position regarding Jesus and all that He has taught us. This is an important message in the world today.Today, there seems to be a growing secular value that we might call “neutrality.” We are told by many in the world that we must accept any morality, any lifestyle, any choice that others make. And though it is true that we must always love and accept every person and treat them with the utmost dignity and respect, it is not true that we should be neutral to the choices and secular values that some choose to live and express. Sadly, when we do speak the full truth, especially the many moral truths our Lord has revealed, we are often labeled as judgmental. But this is not the truth.This quote above from today's Gospel makes it clear that we cannot remain indifferent to the teachings of our Lord and still remain in His good graces. In fact, Jesus makes it clear that the opposite is true. He says that if we are not with Him, meaning, if we do not accept all that He has revealed, then we are, in fact, against Him. Being neutral on matters of faith and morality is not actually being neutral at all. It's a choice that some make that has the clear effect of separating them from Jesus.For example, regarding matters of faith, if someone were to say, “I do not believe in the Eucharist,” then they are, in fact, rejecting God. And though it is not our duty to be their judge, it is our duty to acknowledge that they have expressed a belief contrary to the truth. They are in error, and if they persist in this error, then they do separate themselves from God. That's what Jesus is saying.The same is true regarding morality. There are many examples in the moral life that are becoming more and more blatant in their opposition to our Lord's teaching. Thus, we must remind ourselves that when we reject a moral teaching given to us by our Lord, we reject Jesus Himself.Jesus goes even further when He says that “whoever does not gather with me scatters.” In other words, it's not enough to simply personally believe all that Jesus taught, we must also teach it to others. If we do not and if we, instead, offer a false form of “acceptance” of another's error, then we are actually working against Jesus. We all have a moral duty to actively promote the truths of the Gospel given to us by our Lord. Reflect, today, upon how fully you are “with” our Lord and “gather” with Him. Do you fully accept all that He has taught and also seek to gather many others for the Kingdom of God? If you do not see yourself actively believing in and participating in the mission of our Lord, then heed these words of Jesus and allow them to gently but firmly challenge you, so that you will more fully work to build up God's Kingdom in your own heart and in the world all around you. My glorious King, You desire to build up Your Kingdom in my life and, through me, in the lives of others. Give me the grace and courage I need to fully accept all that You have taught me and to actively become an instrument of Your grace and truth in the world. May I be with You in all things, dear Lord, and gather many into Your loving arms of grace. Jesus, I trust in You.Image: Rembrandt, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineJesus said to his disciples: “Suppose one of you has a friend to whom he goes at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey and I have nothing to offer him…'” Luke 11:5–6Unless your friend were truly a very close friend, you may hesitate in waking them and their family at midnight to ask to borrow some food. And even if it were a very close friend, you would probably hesitate for fear of disturbing them. But in this parable, the “friend” is God. Jesus just finished giving His disciples the “Our Father” prayer, and now He adds this parable as a way of expressing the great confidence and determination with which we must pray to the Father. The parable concludes by stating that even if the person in bed does not get up to meet the request, they will do so “because of his persistence.” And though God always is attentive to our prayer, our persistence is an essential quality we must have.When we pray to God with persistence, never doubting the goodness and generosity of God, God will pour forth upon us everything that is good. Of course, if our prayer is for something that is selfish or not in accord with the will of God, then all the begging in the world will not be effective. But when we pray as the “Our Father” prayer teaches us, then we can be certain that our fidelity to that prayer, prayed with the utmost trust and persistence, will effect the good gifts of the will of God in our lives.One of the seven petitions of the “Our Father” prayer is “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” This is a truly beautiful petition that requires not only ongoing persistence but also detachment from our preference in life. To pray that “God's” will be done and that “His” Kingdom come is a way of also saying that you surrender all of your preferences to God. You come to God acknowledging that your will may not be God's will. Thus, this petition expresses detachment in a powerful way. Reflect, today, upon the importance of praying with the utmost fervor and persistence to God. Reflect, also, upon the importance of doing so with detachment. What does God want of you? What is His holy will for your life? Seek that will and that will alone with all your heart and you will discover that His will truly will come to be in your life. My perfect Lord, Your will and Your will alone is what I want and seek. I seek it with all the powers of my soul. Help me to grow in confidence in You and Your goodness. May I trust in You and believe with all my heart that You truly will bring forth Your holy will in my life if I only persist in prayer and trust. Jesus, I trust in You.  Image: Qui es in Caelis by Lawrence OP, license CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.Source of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineJesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” Luke 11:1What a great prayer for us to pray also, “Lord, teach us to pray…” Jesus' response to this disciple was to present him with the “Our Father” prayer. Of this prayer, Saint Andre Bessette said, “When you say the Our Father, God's ear is next to your lips.” The great mystical Doctor of the Church Saint Teresa of Ávila gave this advice while praying the Lord's Prayer: “Much more is accomplished by a single word of the Our Father said, now and then, from our heart, than by the whole prayer repeated many times in haste and without attention.” And Saint Thérèse of Lisieux said that the “Our Father” prayer was one of the prayers she prayed when she felt so spiritually barren that she could not summon up a single worthwhile thought.At the Holy Mass, when the priest invites the people of God to pray the “Our Father,” he says, in part, that this prayer is one that “...we dare to say.” This is an interesting statement which especially reveals the childlike boldness we are called to have as we pray this prayer sincerely from the heart. It is exceptionally bold to call God our “Father.”Chapter 11 of My Catholic Worship, which offers a teaching on this perfect prayer, states the following about this boldness:Each Christian is to see the Father as my Father.  We must see ourselves as God's children and approach Him with the confidence of a child.  A child with a loving parent is not afraid of that parent.  Rather, children have the greatest trust that their parents love them no matter what.  Even when they sin, children know they are still loved.  This must be our fundamental starting point for all prayer.  We must start with an understanding that God loves us no matter what.  With this understanding of God, we will have all the confidence we need to call on Him.Since many of us are very familiar with this ideal prayer taught to us by our Lord Himself, there is a temptation to pray this prayer in a somewhat rote way. We can easily fail to say it from the depths of our hearts, making each word our own, offered with the utmost confidence to our loving Father in Heaven.How do you pray the Lord's Prayer? Do you pray it out of habit, failing to fully comprehend and mean the words you pray? Most likely this is the case for many. Reflect, today, upon this most holy prayer given to us by the Son of God Himself. He is the author of this perfect prayer, so we should use it as the foundation of all of our prayer. Try to follow the advice of Saint Teresa of Ávila quoted above. Take each word of that prayer and pray it slowly, intentionally and with love. Begin by acknowledging God as your Father. Ponder the infinite care He has for you as a perfect father would. See Him in a real, intimate, and personal way. This perfect prayer begins by acknowledging Who God is and then continues with seven perfect petitions. After praying the introduction to this prayer, pick one of the seven petitions to meditate upon so that the richness of this prayer will have a transformative effect upon your soul. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  Jesus, I trust in You.Image: St Peter and St Paul by Lawrence OP, license CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.Source of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineMartha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.” The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”  Luke 10:40–42In many ways, this statement of our Lord summarizes the most important and central message of the Gospel. We are all called to choose “the better part” every day.Jesus was close friends with Martha, Mary and Lazarus. He frequently visited their home, which was only a short distance from Jerusalem. On this occasion, when Jesus was visiting their home, one of these siblings, Mary, had placed herself at Jesus' feet, listening to Him and conversing with Him. Martha was busy with the important details of hospitality and appeared to be upset with Mary, so she confronted Jesus, asking Him to tell Mary to help her. But in so doing, she was also unknowingly trying to dissuade Mary from the most important purpose of her life.As Mary sat at the feet of Jesus, she gave us an example of the most important focus we must have in life. Though our days will be filled with many necessary duties, such as cooking, cleaning, working, entertainment, and caring for others, we must never forget that which we were made for and that which we will be doing for all eternity: adoration of our glorious God.Consider all that occupies your day. Though most of what you do may be important, do you daily take time out to adore our Lord, listen to Him and glorify Him through your prayer? We can often make time for many other important duties in life, as well as those that are not so important. We may spend hours on chores, immerse ourselves in movies, devote whole evenings to reading, fulfill our duties in the workplace, but only devote a minute or two each day, if even that, to silent prayer and adoration of our God!What would happen to your life if you chose “the better part” for a full hour every day? What if you decided that the first hour of your day would be dedicated to an imitation of Mary in the Gospel passage and that you would do nothing but adore Jesus through silent prayer and meditation? At first, you may think of the many other tasks you could be doing at that moment. You may decide that you do not have the time for extended prayer every day. But is that true? Perhaps you are actually being Martha to yourself, saying to yourself that you should do more important things with your time and that Jesus will understand if you do not spend time with Him alone in adoration and prayer every day. If that is you, then be very attentive to this Gospel passage. In many ways, Jesus deeply desires to say this about you. He wants to say of you that you have chosen the better part for an extended period of time every day and that this will not be taken from you.Reflect, today, upon that which is most important in life. Dispel excuses and temptations to simply fulfill all the other important duties of life, neglecting that which is most important. Reflect upon the simple truth that Jesus does want you to devote much time to Him every day for silent prayer and adoration. Do not give into excuses and distractions. Commit yourself to remain at the feet of Jesus, adoring Him, listening to Him and loving Him. If you do, you will find that your life is more ordered and that the time you spend in prayer bears more good fruit than every other important duty you fulfill every day. My inviting Lord, I do believe that adoration of You in silent and devout prayer is the most important duty I have to fulfill every day. May I never be deterred from adoring You every day, devoting as much time as You desire to silent and loving prayer. May I discover this gift of prayer, dear Lord, and sit at Your feet with Mary and with all the glorious saints. Jesus, I trust in You.Image - Erasmus Quellinus II, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineThere was a scholar of the law who stood up to test Jesus and said, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Luke 10:25The question is very good. We should all seek to understand, with all our hearts, what we must do to inherit eternal life. Of course the problem is that this scholar of the law did not ask this question with sincerity and openness. Rather, he asked Jesus this question to test our Lord. This scholar, as well as other scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees and elders, was envious of Jesus and sought to find fault with Him. This scholar appeared to be concerned that Jesus was teaching contrary to the Law of Moses. But what does our Lord do? He says nothing more than to put the question back to the scholar, asking him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” The scholar answers correctly, according to the Law of Moses, and Jesus responds to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.” Thus, the test was passed.What's interesting and helpful to ponder in this exchange is the way Jesus responds to this scholar. Because Jesus knew the scholar's heart, and because He knew that this scholar was not asking with humility and openness, Jesus responded with great prudence, inviting the scholar of the law himself to answer his own question. Though we are not able to read another's heart in the way our Lord did, we should learn a lesson from Him on how to respond to others who have as their goal to trick, trap, test, and twist our words if they disagree with us. This is especially important in matters of faith and morality. If you are striving to live the Gospel with all your heart and you encounter the “testing” of others as a result of the holy life you are striving for, ponder Jesus' actions here. Too often, when another challenges us or tests us, we become defensive and even offended. As a result, we can enter into arguments back and forth that bear little or no fruit. Jesus did not argue. He did not allow this test to trip Him up. Rather, He only offered responses that could not be doubted. Jesus knew that this scholar was not interested in the deepest spiritual truths. He was only interested in finding fault. Therefore, the deeper and fuller Gospel message could not be offered.We should also learn from this passage the importance of coming to Jesus with an open heart, sincerely seeking the deepest spiritual answers to life. We ought never test Jesus. Instead, in humility, we must believe that He is the source of all truth and that He has every answer in life that we seek. Reflect, today, upon two things. First, reflect upon how completely open you are to all that Jesus has to say. If you were to ask our Lord this question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?,” what would Jesus say to you? Would He only be able to offer you general answers in the form of questions? Or would Jesus see the open and sincere nature of your heart and be able to speak in great depth and detail to you? Second, reflect upon anyone with whom you constantly have to defend yourself for the practice of your faith. If this is your experience, perhaps reexamine your approach, realizing that the deepest pearls of your faith should only be shared with those who are sincerely open and are seeking to embrace them with all their heart. My deep and wise Lord, You and You alone have every answer to life. You and You alone can reveal to me all that I need to know in life so as to achieve holiness and fulfillment. Please open my heart so that I can come to You with humility and sincerity, open to all that You wish to reveal to me. Jesus, I trust in You.Image: James Tissot, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineThe apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” The Lord replied, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.” Luke 17:5–6Is it possible to completely uproot a tree and plant it in the sea? It's certainly hard to imagine how. It is especially hard to imagine doing so with a simple command of faith. Uprooting a tree is hard enough to imagine, but it is even more difficult to imagine a tree being planted in the sea. Though water is necessary, one cannot plant a tree in the sea and expect it to grow. But that's partly the point. We often underestimate the power of true faith. Saint Matthew's Gospel says that faith can move mountains. Saint Luke's says it can uproot a tree and replant it in the sea. All it takes to do so is faith the size of a mustard seed.How much faith is equal to a mustard seed? A mustard seed is small, very small. It measures only about one millimeter in length. People who worked the soil at that time would have known that it was among the smallest of seeds they planted. For that reason, Jesus uses this familiar image to teach the apostles that faith, even a little faith, is powerful.Jesus' teaching comes in response to a prayer on the part of the apostles. “Increase our faith,” they said. Jesus' response, inviting them to have only a little faith, implies that their faith was quite weak. To increase their faith to the size of a mustard seed suggests that they did not even have a little faith yet. Most likely they were aware of that fact, and that was the reason they asked Jesus to increase their faith. They perceived their lacking and turned to Him Who could help.One of the first steps to increasing faith is to humbly admit our lack of faith. In our pride, we often want to convince ourselves and others that we are filled with faith. But if that were the case, God would be doing incredible things through us. He would be doing that which is otherwise humanly impossible.Obviously, faith does not give us magical powers by which we can literally command a tree to uproot itself and plant itself in the sea. This imagery is meant to tell us that faith will work miracles of faith, not necessarily physical miracles. In fact, if God ever did use us and our faith to work a physical miracle, it would only happen because it was a motivation for the far more important gift of the increase of faith.What, then, can a little faith do? It can uproot sin from your heart and from the hearts of those around you. It can nourish you and others in ways that seem impossible. Just as a tree cannot normally be planted in the sea and survive, the gift of faith, even a little faith, will enable the soul to be nourished and strengthened in ways that otherwise seem impossible. A martyr perfectly illustrates this fact. Normally, persecution and death are not considered to be nourishing to a person. But when a person has faith and suffers martyrdom on account of Christ, then their soul will be fed by the persecution itself. And that is among the greatest of miracles possible. Suffering, persecution, illness, poverty, and every other difficulty imaginable are transformed by God into a source of nourishment when we endure them with true faith. Reflect, today, upon the prayer of the apostles: “Increase our faith.” Some of the greatest mystics taught that faith darkens the intellect. By this darkening, they mean that, by faith, God will lead us into the unknown, on a path that He alone is aware of. We will become instruments of His transforming grace in ways that are completely beyond our natural abilities. Pray for an increase of faith. When our Lord hears your humble prayer, by which you also confess your lack of faith, He will increase that faith, uproot sin and evil, and plant your soul in places in which you become nourished in ways that you could have never imagined possible. Most glorious Lord, Increase my faith. Give me a pure faith—a faith that enables You to lead me down the unknown path to Your glory. With this gift of faith, please use me to bring forth Your miraculous power by which sin is uprooted and souls are nourished by You alone. Jesus, I trust in You.  Source of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineTurning to the disciples in private he said, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.” Luke 10:23–24Imagine seeing Jesus in person. What would that have been like? What would it have been like to see Him, listen to Him preach, witness His miracles and spend time sitting with Him quietly? The experience of being with Him as He walked the earth would have been determined by the depth of interior sight you had. There were many who saw Jesus but rejected Him, and even killed Him. Clearly, they did not have the interior eyes of faith to see Him for Who He was. Others left everything behind to follow Him. Clearly, they perceived Who He was in His divine soul through the gift of faith.As Jesus states above, the disciples were blessed to see Him. Many prophets and kings of old desired to see the Messiah. Century after century, the prophecies about the coming of the Messiah would have left many with much anticipation and hope that they would be among those blessed to see Him. Recall, for example, Simeon the prophet who waited his whole life to see the Christ Child. Then, when Mary and Joseph brought the Child Jesus into the Temple to present Him to the Lord, Simeon took the Child into his hands and proclaimed, “Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in sight of all the peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel” (Luke 2:29–32). Indeed, Simeon, the disciples, and all who encountered Jesus as He walked the earth were truly blessed. They were blessed to see the Son of God with their own eyes.Jesus proclaimed the eyes of the disciples to be blessed for seeing Him. However, if He were to speak to us today, He would proclaim us doubly blessed. We do not see Him in physical form, walking the earth. But we are able to perceive Him in a way that even Simeon did not experience in His life. Simeon saw the Savior of the World with his eyes, present in human form. But today, we are able to see Him in an even more profound way. By the gift of grace and the indwelling of God, we are able to look within our own souls and discover the true presence of God living within us.One might argue that seeing Jesus with your eyes is preferable to seeing His divine presence within your soul. But is it? Certainly not. Again, recall that there were many who saw Jesus with their eyes but did not recognize Him as God. Today, we are privileged to perceive the presence of Christ in our world in the deepest way possible. He came to live within us. He came to possess us. He came to unite Himself with us in a union so deep that it transforms us completely, making us into His very body.If it took faith to see the divinity of Jesus when He walked the earth, it will also take faith to see His true presence within us. Our sins cloud His presence. Our lack of faith makes it hard to see Him there. But God is alive within every soul that is in a state of grace, and it must be our ongoing duty to discover His indwelling presence and to be with Him within. In her spiritual masterpiece, “Interior Castles,” Saint Teresa of Ávila explains that the infinite God does dwell within us. It is our duty to enter into the most secret core of our being, the most interior castle, navigating through our many sins, so that we will enter the deepest center where the fullness of the great King dwells. Reflect, today, upon Jesus' words spoken to the disciples: “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.” Know that this statement applies even more to you. Seek to have the eyes of faith so that you can perceive the true presence of the Savior of the World living within your own soul. Seek Him out, gaze at Him with love, bask in His divine presence and allow that presence to overshadow you, transforming you into the person God wants you to be. My indwelling Lord, I am blessed beyond belief by Your divine presence dwelling within me. Please open my eyes to see You and my ears to hear You so that I will be able to dwell with You Who have come to dwell in me. Jesus, I trust in You.Image via Adobe StockSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineJesus said to them, “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.” Luke 10:13Have you ever sat in sackcloth and ashes? In the Gospel passage above, Jesus gives clear indication that doing so is a holy sign of responding to His preaching. He states that the pagan towns of Tyre and Sidon would have certainly sat in sackcloth and ashes if they would have been privileged to witness the mighty deeds done in the Jewish towns of Chorazin and Bethsaida.“Sackcloth and ashes” were a common sign used to indicate interior repentance and sorrow for sin. There are many times throughout the Old Testament when this happened. Recall, for example, that when Jonah preached to the people of Nineveh, everyone from the king down to the common citizen responded by expressing their repentance in this way (Jonah 3:5–7). Sackcloth was a rough and uncomfortable material usually made out of black goats hair, symbolizing the rejection of the false consolation of sin. Ashes symbolized desolation and destruction resulting from purifying fire. Of course, all of us do sit in ashes every Ash Wednesday as an external manifestation of our desire to repent. And though putting on actual sackcloth for clothing today may not be our literal practice, it is good to see the spiritual fruitfulness of these actions and to consider ways in which these actions can still be performed in our day and age. How might you sit in sackcloth and ashes today? What practical action can you take to publicly manifest your desire to turn from sin and toward the Gospel?First of all, to properly answer this question, it's important to recognize the fact that turning from sin should not only be a personal and interior act, it must also be exterior and manifest for others to see. Sin not only does harm to us individually, but it also damages others in varying degrees. Therefore, if your sin has done clear harm to others, it's important to realize that you not only need to repent to God but that you must also repent in such a way that others see your repentance and sorrow.So how might you repent in sackcloth and ashes today? There are many ways to do this. The essential quality present in such an act will be that it is clear to others that you are sorry for your sin and that you are attempting to change. If the sin you have committed toward another is grave, then your interior repentance must match the seriousness of your sin, and the exterior manifestation of that repentance must also measure up. Reflect, today, upon some practical ways in which God is calling you to publicly manifest your “sitting in sackcloth and ashes” as a sign of your sorrow toward those against whom you have sinned. For example, if your sin is that of anger and you have regularly harmed another by that sin, then don't only repent to God, look also for external ways to manifest your sorrow to them. Perhaps do some form of manifest service for them. Or engage in a public act of penance, such as fasting, as a way of showing them you are sorry. Manifest charitable good works, service, prayer, public penance and the like are all ways that you can spiritually and practically sit “in sackcloth and ashes” today. My merciful Lord, You call me to daily repent of my sin and to do so through the manifest signs of sitting “in sackcloth and ashes.” Give me the grace of true sorrow for my sins and help me to sincerely repent as I trust in Your mercy. As I do, please also guide me so that I may humble myself and express my sorrow in manifest ways toward those against whom I have sinned. May this humble act bring healing and unity in You. Jesus, I trust in You.Image: Day of Judgement by Lawrence OP, license CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.Source of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read Online“See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.”  Matthew 18:10The reality of angels is fascinating to most people, especially to children. The Guardian Angels, in particular, are often pictured in sacred art as walking hand-in-hand with children. And though this is true, they also walk hand-in-hand with each one of us throughout our lives. This is their sacred duty given to them by God. In quoting Saint Basil, the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains the existence of Guardian Angels by saying: “From its beginning until death, human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession. ‘Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life'” (#336).Imagine, in an earthly sense, that you had a personal bodyguard to look after you day and night throughout your life. Perhaps this evokes two different sentiments. First, it would most certainly comfort you when there is imminent danger around. You would know you are not alone and that you would be kept safe from physical harm. Another sentiment it may invoke is that of a loss of personal privacy. If someone were watching over you, day and night, you would always be aware of their watchful eye. Everything you said and did would be noticed. For some, this may not always be welcome. Why? Because this means they see all you do, including your sin. Fear of judgment, the loss of personal privacy and the like may be difficult to accept.But now imagine that this “bodyguard” is one who offers no judgment, acts with perfect love for you, keeps confidentiality with perfection and cares only for your well-being. Though it may be hard to imagine that such a person could exist, that person does exist in the person of your guardian angel.Your guardian angel is real, has a keen and powerful intellect, has a will perfectly united with the will of God, and was created for the single purpose of protecting you and leading you into the fulfillment of God's will. When you sin and stray, your guardian angel's only concern is to guide you back to God. When you are fearful or in trouble, your guardian angel's only care is to protect you and fill you with God's peace and courage. And though God could have provided you with all of these graces directly, without the mediation of an angel, He chose to do so through the mediation of your personal guardian angel. Only in Heaven will we fully understand the profound depth of love, protection, and care given to us by these angelic beings. Reflect, today, upon the intimate knowledge that your guardian angel has of you. As you ponder this reality, rejoice that someone knows you so well and loves you with a perfect love. This angel of yours not only loves you perfectly but also has been entrusted with great power from God to protect you and shepherd you to the fulfillment of your life mission. Prayerfully acknowledge the great gift that your guardian angel is to you and entrust yourself more fully to this angelic mediation.Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God's love commits me here, ever this day be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen. Guardian angel, pray for me. Jesus, I trust in You.Image: Workshop of Domenichino, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineAs Jesus and his disciples were proceeding on their journey, someone said to him,  “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus answered him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” Luke 9:57–58At first, this appears to be an unusual response from our Lord. This person appeared to be committing himself to follow Jesus wherever Jesus led. But rather than complimenting the would-be follower, Jesus indicates that there is nowhere for this man to follow Him. Instead, he would have to follow Him into the unknown. Why would Jesus say this? Did He not want the man to follow Him?One thing that this passage teaches us is that Jesus was able to read the souls and the intentions of those whom He encountered. Apparently, what the man said was not exactly his true intention. In commenting upon this passage, several Church Fathers point out that the man said what he said not out of a deep desire to follow Christ, but so that he would look good in the eyes of those around Jesus. Jesus knew his true intention, and therefore told the man that if he wanted to follow Him, he would have to follow Him into the unknown. Jesus then spoke to two others about following Him, and each time He challenged them to follow Him without reservation.The call to follow our Lord is absolute. We cannot halfheartedly follow Him. We cannot follow Him for selfish reasons. The choice to follow our Lord begins with Him calling to us interiorly. We must hear His clear voice and invitation. The invitation we will receive will be one that asks everything of us. Jesus will never call us to give half of our lives to Him, or even most of our lives to Him. His call is one that demands everything. By demanding everything from us, our Lord is actually giving everything to us. We are only made whole when we give everything to Him and follow Him without reserve. This is the starting point.The choice to follow Jesus will also be done in a certain secrecy. It's not that we try to hide our choice to follow Him; rather, we must follow Him with the right intentions. We do not do so because we want others to praise us, admire us, or look up to us. We do not do so to boost our spiritual ego. We follow Him because we have heard Him call and have chosen to respond to that call in the way we are called. Therefore, every choice to follow Jesus must begin in the secrecy of our interior life of prayer.Once our commitment is firmly established, it will often become visible to others, but that must never be a motivating factor. Once we are firmly committed to follow Christ, there must be no turning back. Jesus concludes today's Gospel by saying, “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom of God.” The choice to follow Christ requires a death to certain things in our lives. As our journey moves forward, there will be temptations to return to our old ways. We will remember the delights of past sins, feel the draw to other paths, and might even experience the demand of absolute fidelity to be too much. These experiences must be continuously rejected as temptations and lies. We must never look back to what we gave up and must always look forward to that which our Lord is calling us. Second-guessing our choice to follow Jesus will be a very real temptation at times; therefore, our resolve must never waver. Reflect, today, upon the depth of your own decision to follow Jesus. First, consider whether or not you have heard this radical and absolute call echo within the depths of your soul. Only there, in the secrecy of your interior life, will you hear God speak. Second, consider your motivations for following Jesus. Do you do so to look good in the eyes of others? Or do you do so out of love of God? Third, consider whether your commitment is total. It is not enough to give most of your life to Christ; He demands everything. Finally, ponder also the fact that there will be many temptations along the way to return to your former sinful way of life. Allow your resolve to eliminate those temptations and continuously recommit yourself to the journey to which you have been called. My demanding Lord, You have called me to a radical commitment of my entire life to follow You. I hear Your voice and choose to say “yes” to Your invitation. Please free me from all selfish motives in life, and give me the resolve I need to follow You wherever You lead. Jesus, I trust in You.  Image via Adobe Stock Source of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineWhen the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem, and he sent messengers ahead of him. Luke 9:51–52Shortly after Jesus spoke to His disciples about His pending suffering, death and resurrection, we read that Jesus “resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem.” There is much to reflect upon in that short statement.First of all, Jerusalem was the place of the Temple where the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament took place as a prefiguration of the one and ultimate sacrifice to come. Jesus came into this world as the Lamb of God, the Sacrificial Victim Who would die for our sins. He knew His ultimate end in this world, and He knew it would require much suffering. This knowledge of His future suffering is the foundational context of this passage today.As Jesus' suffering and death drew close, He became more and more determined in His human will to fulfill the will of the Father by laying down His life. Of course, Jesus always fulfilled the will of the Father, but little by little the human manifestation of Jesus's determination became more and more pronounced. The specific human virtue that slowly became manifest was courage. Spiritual courage is the supernatural ability to embrace the will of the Father when His will leads a person into a life of sacrifice. Within our fallen human nature, we tend to avoid sacrifice. We often work to avoid conflict and suffering and to embrace the easy way in life. Therefore, to come face-to-face with some future suffering brings forth a temptation to fear—and that fear requires courage to overcome it. As His suffering drew closer, the temptation to fear grew stronger and, as a result, His perfect virtue of courage became more manifest. Note that Jesus not only decided to go to Jerusalem to offer His life sacrificially, He “resolutely determined” to do so. There was no wavering, no doubting the Father's will, no hesitancy, no fear. His perfect sacrificial love slowly became manifest for all to see.Another reason Jesus became resolute in His determination to travel to Jerusalem was to witness His love to His disciples. They needed courage themselves.  So, as they listened to Jesus speak about what was coming in Jerusalem and as they witnessed His unwavering determination, they were also encouraged and were strengthened to overcome the temptations to fear. Of course, they only perfected that virtue later in their lives when they also followed in the footsteps of our Lord, laying down their own lives as martyrs.Reflect, today, upon that which causes fear and anxiety in your own life. If that suffering is of your own making, then seek to rectify it. But if that suffering is a cross that our Lord is calling you to embrace with love, then do so sacrificially and with much determination. Do not be cowed by the heaviness of the cross you are given in life. The crosses we are called to embrace are always able to be transformed into grace. Allow courage to grow within you and allow the witness of our Lord to encourage you as you seek to imitate His sacrificial love. My courageous Lord, You faced Your suffering with much courage, strength, surrender and hope. You saw the value of Your free embrace of Your suffering and chose it with all the power of your soul. Give me the grace I need, dear Lord, to also resolutely determine to journey toward the cross I am called to embrace in life, so that my free embrace of my cross will unite me more fully with You. Jesus, I trust in You.Image: Jean-Léon Gérôme, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read Online“Amen, amen, I say to you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” John 1:51In Heaven, we will see all things as God sees them. That full perspective will be beyond glorious. And among the many things that will amaze us from the perspective of Heaven is the incredibly powerful ways that the celestial beings participate in the bringing forth of the Kingdom of God. The Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels and Guardian Angels all cooperate with God's grace in ways similar to how every member of an orchestra works together to produce a single piece of beautiful music. God is the conductor, but these celestial beings participate in the grand fulfillment of the will of God, acting as living instruments of His divine grace.Today's feast honors three of the great archangels mentioned in Scripture: Michael, Gabriel and Raphael. The Archangel Michael is described as a protector in the Old Testament Book of Daniel and as one who does battle with satan in the Books of Revelation and Jude. In Revelation, Michael casts satan out of Heaven along with the other fallen angels. The Archangel Gabriel is spoken of also in the Book of Daniel as one who interprets Daniel's vision. In the New Testament, he is identified as the one who appears to the high priest Zechariah while Zechariah is offering sacrifice in the temple. In that appearance, Gabriel revealed to Zechariah that his wife would have a child, even though she was advanced in years. Gabriel is perhaps best known as the one sent to the Blessed Virgin Mary to reveal to her that she will become the mother of the Savior of the World. Lastly, the Archangel Raphael is referred to in the Old Testament Book of Tobit and is said to have been sent to bring healing to Tobit's eyes.As we honor these three archangels, we can be certain that they are three of a countless number of other angelic beings who cooperate with God, bringing forth His grace and His will into our world. Try to imagine that profound truth. Some angelic beings build up the Kingdom of God by devoting their existence to the perpetual worship of God before His throne. The highest of these are the Seraphim. Other angelic beings build up the Kingdom by bringing forth God's grace and truth to us, intervening in our lives in accord with God's will. These are especially the guardian angels. The archangels, three of whom we honor today, especially have the task of communicating to us the most important messages and graces from God. Reflect, today, upon the glorious reality of the whole host of the celestial beings. Specifically call upon the mediation of these three celestial beings whose names we know, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, as well as upon the mediation of our guardian angels and all others celestial beings. By doing this, we not only entrust ourselves to their loving care, but we also make an act of faith in God by expressing our belief that God has chosen to use these celestial beings to bring forth His Kingdom. By themselves, angels are powerless to act. But since they act only in unison with the will of God, their mediation is as powerful as the grace of God, since it is God Who works through them. Acknowledge them today, call upon their mediation and profess your faith in the glorious work that they do to build up God's Kingdom.Most glorious Archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, please do come to my aid. I entrust myself, my family, our Church and the entire world to your loving mediation. Please bring forth God's grace into our lives, communicate God's Word and His holy Will, protect us from all harm and bring healing to those in need. Angels of God, pray for us. Jesus, I trust in You.  Image: File:7_archangels.jpg, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineJesus said to the Pharisees: “There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man's table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores. When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham.” Luke 16:19–22No rational person would want to go to hell. The rich man in this parable certainly did not desire hell, but his actions led him there. Most people, however, do want to be rich in this world. In fact, many people would think it  irrational not to desire wealth. It is very rare to find a person who chooses to live in simplicity as a means to deeper spiritual fulfillment and as a preparation for the riches of Heaven. But one clear message from our Gospel story today is that the life that Lazarus lived on earth was far better than that of the rich man. So which life do you prefer here and now? While it is true that the rich man's riches were not the exclusive cause of his eternal damnation, it is also true that his riches imposed upon him a temptation toward selfishness and indifference to the needs of others, which ended in his eternal demise.Imagine that you won many millions of dollars. What would you do with it? As a good Christian, you might immediately profess that you would use that money for good, to help the poor and make a difference in the lives of others. What would the ideal response be to winning many millions of dollars? Would it suffice to give away ten percent and then use the rest for yourself? Probably not.One thing that this parable teaches is that material wealth not only adds nothing of value to our eternal reward, it also adds much temptation to our lives. True, if you received a lot of money and then used that money exclusively for good in accord with God's will, that would be a holy act of charity on your part and good for your eternal soul. But doing so would be very difficult. It would be very difficult to resist the temptations that come from material wealth.Is it good to be rich? It is certainly good to be able to take care of your basic needs in life and those of your family. Having money helps you do that. But once our basic needs have been met, the money left over is far more of a temptation than it is a blessing. We have to believe that. And if you are among those who want to become rich so that you can help others, consider this scenario. If that is your motivation, and if you did win a large amount of money, would it be possible for you to continue living the way you are living now? Imagine staying in the same home, driving the same car, having the same lifestyle, and using all the money you obtained 100% for the glory of God and the good of others. That would be hard to do. But if you could do it, not only would it be good for others, it would be exceptionally good for your own soul. Though this Gospel story has many valuable lessons in it, one of the clearest messages is that earthly poverty benefits a soul far more than earthly wealth. Many people will find that hard to accept.Reflect, today, upon the stark contrast between Lazarus and the rich man. One dined sumptuously every day, was clothed in fine linen and purple garments and then spent eternity in the netherworld where he was tormented. The other longed to eat the scraps from another's table, had no home, was covered in sores, but spent eternity in Heaven after being carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. Choose to imitate Lazarus rather than the rich man. If you have many material possessions, work hard at being detached from them. Live simply, be generous, and never neglect those in need. If you have very little, do not covet more. Eliminate envy, don't despair, trust in the providence of God, and rejoice that, like Lazarus, you are able to build up eternal riches within your soul that will remain with you forever. Lord of true riches, the spiritual wealth of true virtue, charity, faith and hope are all that matters in life. Material possessions mean little in this life and are a source of many temptations. Please free me from the desire for wealth. Free me from greed, selfishness and envy. Fill me with a spirit of detachment and generosity, and help me to build up true treasure in Heaven. Jesus, I trust in You.  Image: The Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, via National Gallery of ArtSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read Online“Pay attention to what I am telling you. The Son of Man is to be handed over to men.” But they did not understand this saying; its meaning was hidden from them so that they should not understand it, and they were afraid to ask him about this saying.  Luke 9:44–45This is the second time that Jesus predicts His coming passion to His Apostles. After telling them that He will be handed over, the Gospel relates that “they did not understand this saying.” It also states that “they were afraid to ask him about this saying.” Why did they not understand, and why were they afraid to ask Jesus about His coming passion?The Apostles were deeply attached to our Lord, both on a spiritual level and also through their affections. And this is good. But sometimes our affections can cloud our thinking and make it difficult to understand the deeper spiritual realities in life. Though our affections are natural, they must always be directed by the will of God. For example, if we were to try to understand Jesus' affections, we'd have to conclude that He both spiritually and affectionately desired to lay down His life for the salvation of souls in accord with the will of the Father. He not only chose this with His will, but He also desired it in His affections, because His affections were perfectly ordered.The Apostles, however, were unable to understand that Jesus had to lay down His life, be rejected, suffer and die, in part because they were very attached to Jesus in an emotional and affectionate way. So in this instance, their human love and attachment to Jesus hindered their ability to understand the greater spiritual good of Jesus laying down His life.Consider, also, our Blessed Mother. How would she have reacted to Jesus saying that He had to be handed over, be rejected, suffer and die? Though this would have grieved her with a holy sorrow, the perfection of her human nature would have led her to not only understand and accept this deep spiritual truth, but she would have also desired this to happen within her affections because she perfectly desired the fulfillment of the will of the Father. There would have been no conflict within her between the will of the Father and what she desired.In our own lives, we will often tend to struggle in the same way that the Apostles struggled. When faced with some challenging cross in life, a cross that the Father calls us to embrace freely, we will often find that our affections resist. When this happens, we become confused and even fearful of the future. Thus, the only way to conquer fear is to work to surrender every emotion, every affection and every human attachment over to the will of the Father so that His will is all we desire with every power of our soul.Reflect, today, upon the interior struggle of these Apostles as they came face-to-face with this the second time Jesus began to prepare them to accept, understand, choose and desire His passion. Consider the interior struggle they went through at that time and even as they saw this unfold. Eventually they understood. Eventually all fear vanished. And eventually they affectionately rejoiced in Jesus' sacrifice. But it took much time and much surrender. Reflect upon those ways our Lord is inviting you to choose His Cross in your life. Where you see your affections resisting, try to surrender, pray for understanding and seek the courage you need to desire His Cross with all your soul.My revealing Lord, You opened Your divine heart to Your Apostles and invited them to understand and choose Your suffering and death. And though they hesitated and struggled, You continued to invite them to embrace the Father's will. Give me the grace I need, dear Lord, to embrace every spiritual truth first and foremost and to allow that Truth to free me from fear and fill me with the gift of understanding. Jesus, I trust in You.Source of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineOnce when Jesus was praying in solitude, and the disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” Luke 9:18It's interesting that Jesus was both “praying in solitude” and that “the disciples were with him.” Saint Bede explains this apparent contradiction by stating that “the Son alone is able to penetrate the incomprehensible secrets of the Father's will.” Therefore, our Lord was always alone with the Father in the sense that only Jesus knew the Father fully and intimately. This is because He is the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the Eternal Son of the Father.With that fact clearly understood, it's also important to understand that as Jesus prayed to the Father within His human nature, something new took place. Though Jesus was eternally with the Father, His human nature was not eternally with the Father. Therefore, as the Eternal Son of God communed with the Eternal Father while living in human flesh, human nature was suddenly elevated to a height that it had never been before. Not only was the Eternal Son living in perfect union with the Father, but now the Eternal Son, fully human, brought His human nature into this oneness.Though this may seem a bit philosophical to some, it points to a very important reality that affects us all. Through our Lord's human prayer to the Father, we are all invited to join with Jesus and share in this divine oneness. The Son of God, as a human being, made it possible for us as humans to share in the elevation of our very lives to oneness with God the Father. And though the Son of God will always retain a unique union with the Father, we are, nonetheless, by participation, invited to share in their life. So why is this important? One reason is that there is no greater human fulfillment we could ever achieve than to share in the prayer of the Son to the Father. Throughout our lives, we are constantly looking for fulfillment in one form or another. We want to be happy. We want enjoyment in life. We have a natural desire for happiness that we are constantly seeking to fulfill. What's important to understand is that the greatest happiness comes by sharing in the deep human prayer of the Son to the Father. Prayer, true prayer, is the answer to our deepest desire.Reflect, today, upon whether or not you regularly engage in deep prayer. Can you point to times when you, like our Lord, were alone with God, communing with Him in the depths of your human soul, being drawn to Him through prayer? There are many levels of prayer, as is attested to by many saints. Make the choice to deepen your prayer. Go before our Lord today and pour out your heart to Him, asking Him to draw you into the holy solitude of His prayer to the Father. Doing so will bring forth in you the deepest human satisfaction possible in life. My praying Lord, as You spent time alone with the Father, You united Your human nature with Him, thus elevating our nature to a glorious degree. Please draw me to You, dear Lord, so that I may know You and the Father through true, deep and sustaining prayer. May this oneness with You be the cause of my deepest fulfillment in life. Jesus, I trust in You.  Image: James Tissot, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineHerod the tetrarch heard about all that was happening, and he was greatly perplexed because some were saying, “John has been raised from the dead”; others were saying, “Elijah has appeared”; still others, “One of the ancient prophets has arisen.” Luke 9:7–8Herod the tetrarch, also known as Herod Antipas, ruled the Jews of Galilee for some forty-two years. He began his reign in 2 BC and continued to reign until he was exiled by the Roman Emperor in 37 AD. During his reign, he spent much time in Tiberias, one of the main cities on the western edge of the Sea of Galilee. Most of Jesus' ministry took place within the region of Herod's domain, all of Galilee, so Herod was very aware of the many stories about Jesus.Today's Gospel concludes by saying that Herod kept trying to see Jesus. Of course, Herod, just like anyone living in that region, could have traveled to where Jesus was preaching so as to listen to Him at any time. But he didn't do that. Instead, he continued to receive reports about Jesus and remained curious about Him, trying to find a way to figure out Who Jesus was.Try to imagine what would have happened if Herod would have traveled to where Jesus was preaching so as to listen to Him with an open heart. If he would have done that, and truly listened, Herod would have received one of the greatest gifts imaginable. He would have received the gift of faith and conversion and would have begun down the road toward eternal salvation. But Herod was living an immoral life. He was known to be a cruel leader and also an unrepentant adulterer. He loved his power and was quite jealous of it. Herod most likely knew, at least in the back of his mind, that if he were to listen to Jesus, he would have to change. And he most likely didn't want to change.This presents us all with a powerful lesson. Each one of us can easily dismiss various communications and invitations from our Lord, because, deep down, we do not want to change. God is speaking to us all day long, every day of our lives. He is constantly offering us His message of the full Gospel. And though you may be open to much of what God says, there are most likely parts of His divine message that you either knowingly or unknowingly do not listen to. The key to being able to hear everything that God wants to speak to you is to be disposed to completely change in any and every way that God wants you to change.Reflect, today, upon Herod. First, reflect upon his curiosity about Jesus. This is a good quality, in that it's much better than being indifferent. From there, think also about the fact that Herod never went to Jesus to listen to Him. His first meeting with Jesus was on the night of His arrest, when he interrogated our Lord and made fun of Him. As you consider Herod's obstinacy, use it as an examination of your own life. Where you see any small reflection of obstinacy, fear of change or a closed heart, seek to remedy that by turning to our Lord telling Him you are open to all He wishes to say and that you are ready and willing to change in any way He calls you to do so. Do not fear the change our Lord wants of you. Embracing that change will land you on the quick and narrow road toward true holiness of life.My ever-present Lord, You call to me day and night, inviting me to change as I listen to Your holy Word. I thank You for these constant promptings of grace and commit myself to remain open to all that You ask of me. I choose You, my Lord. And as I turn to You, I pray that I will have the courage I need to respond wholeheartedly to Your call. Jesus, I trust in You.  Image: John Rogers Herbert, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineJesus summoned the Twelve and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick. Luke 9:1–2This is the first time that Jesus sends His Apostles out on a mission. On this mission, He is preparing them for their ultimate mission, which will come at the time of Pentecost, after Jesus dies, rises and ascends to Heaven. But for now, Jesus commissions these Apostles to do three things: to cast out demons, heal the sick and proclaim the Kingdom of God.Just like the Apostles, we are called to combat the devil and his demons. They are fallen angels who retain their natural powers, and they use those natural powers to try to deceive us, oppress us and, in some cases, even possess us. But demons are powerless in the face of God, and God gives us spiritual authority over them. And though there are some who are given the unique ministry of exorcism within the Church, all of us do have spiritual authority over demons, especially over their natural spiritual attacks of temptations.We combat demons primarily by revealing their lies and bringing them to light. Saint Ignatius of Loyola, in his spiritual classic The Spiritual Exercises, explains to us some of the ordinary tactics these demons use and how we overcome them. He says that for those steeped in a life of serious sin, the demons continually place before their mind the lie that their sins are enjoyable and rewarding, so that they will continue to choose them. And for those who are striving for holiness, these demons try to discourage them in their deepening conversion. They “bite, sadden and put obstacles, disquieting with false reasons, that one may not go on” (Rule 2). The way to overcome these temptations is by turning to the truth. First, by realizing that the false “pleasures” of sin are just that: false, fleeting and ultimately demeaning. Furthermore, we overcome these temptations by receiving from God “courage and strength, consolations, tears, inspirations and quiet, easing, and putting away all obstacles.” In other words, we overcome the demons by allowing God to strengthen us, clear our thinking, dispel all false obstacles on the road to holiness and by receiving the abundant consolations that God bestows as help on the journey.Reflect, today, upon the fact that our Lord wants to minister to you in this threefold way. If you can work to overcome the obstacles put in your path by these demons, then you are in a good position to share in the other two missions given to the Apostles. You will be able to experience mental, emotional and spiritual healing in your life, and you will be able to allow the Kingdom of God to grow strong and powerful within your own soul. From there, you will be sent on a mission by our Lord to bring these graces to others in need.My all-powerful Lord, You have authority over evil, the power to heal and offer all the gifts of eternal salvation. Help me to be open to the ways that You desire to come to me. Please free me from the attacks of the evil one, bring healing and hope, and bring forth the abundance of Your glorious Kingdom in my life. Jesus, I trust in You.  Image: Phillip Medhurst, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineThe mother of Jesus and his brothers came to him but were unable to join him because of the crowd. He was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside and they wish to see you.” He said to them in reply, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it.” Luke 8:19–21The term “brothers” in this passage is obviously not to be understood that Jesus had blood brothers. It is a dogma of our faith that Jesus was the only Child of Mary. At that time, it was common practice to refer to one's extended family as “brothers.” This would have especially applied to Jesus' cousins and perhaps even those who were unrelated by blood but were from the same village.As these relatives of Jesus stood outside and announced their presence, what did they expect Jesus to do? His “brothers” might have been there to try to talk some sense into Him. We know from other passages in the Gospels that some of Jesus' extended family thought He was out of His mind. Therefore, it is possible that these brothers were there to resolve an extended family conflict that was erupting as Jesus began His public ministry.Jesus' response was not a rude response. This is clear from the fact that Jesus lived the perfection of charity. But true charity is always grounded in the truth. Jesus spoke a truth that cut through the merely human ties and conflicts that were driving these brothers. By saying, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it,” Jesus was challenging His brothers to stop looking at Him only in an earthly way. Everyone, including His relatives, needed to learn to see Jesus as the Son of the Father in Heaven. It was the act of accepting Jesus' divine identity and submitting in obedience to the will of the Father that established a much deeper bond with Him. That is the relationship that Jesus desired with His earthly brothers.The mother of Jesus, on the other hand, was also perfect in every way. She was free from the disorder of sin and even her mind was clear, being filled with perfect wisdom and understanding. Therefore, when it was reported to her what Jesus said, she would have understood and believed.Saint Bede says that when we hear the word of God and obey it, we become Jesus' “mother” by bringing Him forth into the world through our words and actions. This also makes us Jesus' “brothers” because our obedience makes us all children of the Father in Heaven.By the gift of the fullness of grace, our Blessed Mother would have fully understood that her unity with her Son was primarily the result of their shared obedience to the Father's will. She not only experienced the Son of God being conceived within her womb, she also had the profound experience of conceiving Him in her heart through her obedience to the will of the Father. That “conception” of Jesus within her Immaculate Heart would have been unmistakably clear to her and the cause of her greatest joy. For that reason, she would have treasured this spiritual motherhood of her Son as the greatest gift of all, even more than the gift of natural motherhood. Reflect, today, upon the fact that you are also invited to be the “mother” and the “brother” of Jesus. You share in these holy callings through obedience to the will of the Father. The more clearly you hear God speak and the more fully you obey all that He says will determine the depth of spiritual union you have with Him. Our natural selves must give way to the supernatural life of grace. Make the choice, with our Blessed Mother, to pursue the glorious life of grace so that you will conceive the Son of God in your heart, become a true child of the Father in Heaven, and become a spiritual brother or sister of our Lord. My divine Lord, Your love for Your earthly mother was perfect in every way. That earthly bond was transformed and elevated by Your spiritual union with her on account of Your mutual obedience to the will of the Father. Please draw me into Your divine Family by helping me to listen to and to obey all that the Father speaks. Jesus, I trust in You.  Source of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read Online“Take care, then, how you hear. To anyone who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he seems to have will be taken away.” Luke 8:18Do you have much? Or little? According to Jesus' words, if you have much, then you will receive much more; but if you have little, then you will lose even what you have. Does this seem fair?Of course, our Lord is not speaking in worldly terms. He's not saying that if you have much money, then you will gain more, or if you are poor, then you will become poorer. Instead, Jesus is speaking about the grace that comes from understanding His holy Word. Notice that the passage above begins by saying, “Take care, then, how you hear.”To “hear” the Word of God implies that you truly receive what Jesus teaches. Hearing is not just hearing the words spoken with your ears. One early Church Father, Saint Bede, explains that truly hearing the Word of God with our minds leads us to love that Word, and loving the Word leads to understanding. This is not accomplished by an intellectual exercise alone, as if our natural gifts are the primary means by which we comprehend all that Jesus teaches. Rather, it comes through spiritual insight gained by the supernatural gift of the Spirit Who teaches us all things.If you want “more” understanding of the mysteries of God, then commit yourself to engaging the holy Scriptures with your mind. Read the Scriptures, ponder them and pray with them. It's easy to forget that the Word of God is a Living Word. This means that when we prayerfully immerse ourselves in the Scriptures, we are prayerfully encountering God Himself. God is alive in His holy Word. We meet Him, personally, and this happens only by a special grace that we must be open to receive.The beautiful aspect of this teaching of Jesus is that the more we understand His Word by this grace, the more we will immerse ourselves in it, and it will continue to grow within us. If, however, we devote little time to engaging the Word of God in prayer, we will begin to “forget,” so to speak, the spiritual depths of the wisdom of God. We will lose the little understanding we have and when this happens, we will be prone to engaging and accepting the many confusions and deceptions alive in our world.Reflect, today, upon your practice of prayerfully meditating upon the Scriptures. If this is not your current practice, resolve to make it so. Perhaps start with one of the Gospels and commit yourself to prayerfully reading it little by little every day. The goal is not to get through the books of the Bible. The goal is to enter into each book. Every chapter and every line provides us with a depth of spiritual insight and understanding just waiting to be given and received. Commit yourself to this holy practice, and you will be amazed at the spiritual riches our Lord bestows upon you.Living Word of God, my Lord and my King, I thank You for the way in which You come to me and all Your children through Your written Word. Fill me with a love for that Word so that I will daily engage my mind in the deep truths revealed within it. May I meet You, dear Lord, and grow in an understanding of Who You are and what You wish to reveal to me. Jesus, I trust in You.Didgeman, CC0, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineAnd the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently. "For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” Luke 16:8These lines conclude the Parable of the Dishonest Steward. At that time, there was a Palastinian custom in which agents acted on behalf of a wealthier master's money, making loans and obtaining them back with interest. It is similar to our modern banking system. The problem presented in this parable was that the steward was dishonest, skimming some of the profits for himself. As a result, the master told the steward to get his financial affairs in order because he was going to fire him. The shrewd steward, acting on the authority he still had for the moment, then went forth and reduced the debt of each of his master's debtors so as to win favor with each of them so that he could do business with them after he was fired by his master.Obviously, Jesus does not tell this parable because He approves of dishonest and shrewd deception in business practices. Instead, He tells it to illustrate the fact that many people who are motivated by selfishness and worldly goals use the natural gift of prudence with much more zeal than many of the “children of light.”Think about your goals in life. If you were to make a list of your goals, what would it look like? And if you were to order that list according to the importance of those goals, what would be first? Hopefully, on the top of that list, you would have as your primary goal the love, service and glory of God. In the end, that is all that matters in life. Every other goal in life will fall into place when that is our central goal. However, if you were to order your list according to how much time, energy and prudence you put into each endeavor, how would it look? Would it look different? Most likely. Many people go about their lives putting a tremendous amount of time and effort into the passing things of this world. Many make their financial advancement the goal with which they spend the most time and energy. Others devote countless hours to hobbies, entertainment, home improvements, sports, and even wasteful activities such as binging on television. When it comes to the practice of the faith, it is a rare person who devotes a significant amount of time and energy to daily prayer, studying the Scriptures, learning the Catechism, and studying the lives of the saints. Many experience Sunday Mass as a burden. Charitable service can become undesirable. Many rarely work at the proclamation of the Gospel. Though it is true that much of your time might need to be devoted to the ordinary duties of life, such as making a living and caring for the home and family, it is also true that most people need to reorder their priorities by making sure that the will of God is the central mission of their lives. How is this best accomplished? It begins with the virtue of prudence. Prudence is both a natural virtue and a supernatural one. On a natural level, prudence is called the “mother of all virtues” because it is the quality by which every other virtue, all our time and energy, goals and ambitions are directed. Prudence is the act of vigorously using our minds to creatively and zealously work to achieve the most important goals in life. Supernatural prudence is a spiritual gift by which our natural abilities of prudence are infused with the grace of God, and we are better equipped to know how to accomplish God's will for our lives. Reflect, today, upon what your list would look like if you were to make it honestly. What do you spend the most time and energy doing? Even if you need to spend most of your time on the ordinary aspects of life, this becomes a holy endeavor when you do it because God is inspiring you to do so. In that case, even the ordinary becomes grace-filled and becomes a way by which you glorify God. The only way for you to know if you are using your time and energies properly is by being open to the gift of supernatural prudence. Pray for that gift today and ask our Lord to more directly order your life so that everything you do is for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Lord, You are perfect Wisdom; You are Prudence Itself. Please flood my mind and will with Your divine presence and fill me with a desire to make Your perfect will the central mission of my life. Please help me to know how to order my days so that everything I do gives You glory and works toward the salvation of souls, beginning with my own. Jesus, I trust in You.Image: Андрей Николаевич Миронов (A.N. Mironov), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read Online“Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear.” Luke 8:8This short line is, in a sense, a summary of the Parable of the Sower. This parable presents us with four different ways in which the Word of God is received. The seed that is sown is the Word of God. The four different categories of people are compared to seed sown on a path, rocky ground, among thorns and in good soil.Jesus explains that the seed sown on the path are those “who have heard, but the Devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts.” The seed sown on rocky ground are those who “receive the word with joy, but they have no root; they believe only for a time and fall away in time of temptation.” The seed sown among thorns are those who have heard the Word and received it, but over time they are “choked by the anxieties and riches and pleasures of life, and they fail to produce mature fruit.” Finally, those who are like rich soil are those who heard the Word and “embrace it with a generous and good heart, and bear fruit through perseverance.”As you look at those categories of people, where do you fall? Most likely, for those who pray daily and try to follow our Lord, one of the last two categories is where they fall. Note that for those who are like seed sown in the thorns and those sown in rich soil, fruit is born from the Word of God. In other words, their lives do change and they do make a difference in the world on account of God's holy Word and presence in their lives. The difference, however, is that those who struggle with “the anxieties and riches and pleasures of life” will fail to produce “mature fruit.” This is a good teaching for faithful Christians to ponder.When you look at your life, what sort of fruit do you see? The “fruit” of which our Lord speaks can be identified with the fruits of the Spirit: charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, forbearance, gentleness, faith, modesty, self-control, and chastity. Thus, if you want to discern whether you are more like one who bears mature fruit vs. immature fruit, look at those holy qualities carefully. How “mature” are each of these fruits of the Spirit alive in your life? They make a wonderful examination of conscience for those looking to go deeper than just the Ten Commandments or Seven Capital Sins. If these good fruits are born from your life in a truly mature way, you should be able to see how they affect others through you. For example, how has your kindness, patience, faith and self-control helped others in their Christian walk? Reflect, today, upon the fruits of the Spirit. Review them carefully and prayerfully as you examine your own life. Where you see them in abundance, rejoice and give thanks, and work to foster their growth. Where you see them lacking, rejoice also in that insight and consider the reason they are lacking. Are there worldly anxieties, desires for riches or pleasures that hinder their growth? Seek to be that truly rich soil, and our Lord will indeed bring forth much good fruit in you and through you. My divine Sower, You sow the perfect seeds of Your Word in abundance. Please help me to open my heart to receive that Word so that an abundance of good fruit can be born. Please free me from the anxieties and deceptions of life so that I can hear clearly Your holy Word and nurture that Word in my heart. I rejoice, dear Lord, in all that You have and continue to do in and through me. Jesus, I trust in You.Parable of the Sower by Lawrence OP, license CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.Source of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineJesus journeyed from one town and village to another, preaching and proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God. Accompanying him were the Twelve and some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities… Luke 8:1–2Our Lord was on a mission. He traveled on foot from one town to another, “preaching and proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God.” His message truly was “good news.” He healed the sick, cast out demons and, most importantly, He forgave sins. As a result, many began to follow Him. Not only did His followers consist of the Twelve whom Jesus personally called and who He would eventually send forth as His Apostles, but others followed Him also. Today's Gospel also mentions three women by name: Mary of Magdala, Joanna and Susanna. These are but a few of the people who were deeply touched by our Lord, who in turn left all to follow Him.The choice of these first followers to abandon all and follow Jesus invites us to examine the extent to which we have committed our lives to following Him also. Among the many people who heard Jesus preach, there were undoubtedly various responses. Some rejected Him, others were intrigued by Him, others believed in Him but were not willing to become His disciple, and some did commit themselves wholeheartedly to Jesus and His mission of proclaiming good news. For the latter, the good news they heard changed their lives.What is your response to our Lord? One good way to properly answer this question is to examine the amount of time and energy you have committed to our Lord and His message of good news. How much time have you spent reading His holy Word, praying to Him, speaking about Him and learning the faith that He has taught? How much does His message affect the decisions you make in life? Being a Christian is not something we can compartmentalize. We cannot have our “faith time” a few moments of each week and then spend the rest of our time on other activities. True, our days will be filled with many activities that are simply normal parts of our lives. We all have duties and responsibilities that occupy much of our days. But being “all in,” so to speak, means that Jesus and His message permeates everything we do. Even our ordinary daily activities such as work, chores, and the like must be done for God's glory and in accord with His divine will. For Jesus' first followers, though they traveled with Him from town to town and radically changed the course of their daily lives, they still would have engaged in many ordinary activities. But those ordinary activities were ultimately done so as to help them and others fulfill their ultimate mission of listening to and responding to the Word of God. Reflect, today, upon the extent that you have consecrated every part of your life to our Lord and His mission. Doing so does not necessarily require that you become a public evangelist, spend all day at Church or the like. It simply means that Jesus and His mission are invited into everything you do every day all day. We can never serve our Lord fully enough. As you examine your daily activity, look for ways to bring our Lord into everything you do. Doing so will truly make you one of His faithful disciples who are all in with your life. My divine Lord, You are on a mission to save souls and to build up Your glorious Kingdom. I thank You for inviting me to not only become transformed by Your holy Word but to help spread that Word to others. My life is Yours, dear Lord. Please enter into every part of my daily life and use me for Your glory. Jesus, I trust in You.  Source of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.Image: Hole, William, 1846-1917, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Read OnlineHe said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” The others at table said to themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” But he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Luke 7:48–50These loving words from Jesus were spoken to a sinful woman who showed up unannounced at a dinner Jesus was having at the house of a Pharisee. The Pharisee looked down upon her in judgment, but she didn't care. In sorrow for her sins, she anointed Jesus' feet and humbled herself before Him, bathing His feet with her tears and drying them with her hair.The conversation ends with Jesus looking at her and telling her “Your sins are forgiven.” Note the reaction of those who were at the table. We are given an insight into their interior thoughts. They said to themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” Those who have been born and raised within the faith have always understood that God forgives. We were taught this from an early age, learned much about it in preparation for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and have heard this message throughout our lives in one form or another. But imagine never hearing about or experiencing the forgiveness of God throughout your life, and then suddenly one day you do. Imagine what these people must have been experiencing as they encountered the forgiveness of sins for the first time in the Person of Jesus as He forgave this sinful woman. They may have been a bit confused by this, but, perhaps more than anything else, they would have experienced a holy awe and amazement at what God had done. They saw this sinful woman come in, they sensed the judgment and demeaning attitude of the Pharisees, they saw her express sorrow and humiliation, and then they saw Jesus forgive her.Are you amazed at the gift of the forgiveness of your sins and the sins of others? Or do you take forgiveness for granted? The wonder and awe that the people manifested at the forgiveness of the sins of this woman should help us to examine our own attitude toward God's mercy and forgiveness. We need to continually foster within ourselves the same amazement at God's mercy that these people had. We must work to never take forgiveness for granted or to see it as just one more normal part of life. Rather, we must see it as extraordinary, ever new, ever glorious and forever awe inspiring. Reflect, today, upon the awe-inspired words of these first followers of Jesus: “Who is this who even forgives sins?” As you do, let God fill you with the deepest gratitude for the forgiveness He has offered you. Renew your appreciation for this unmerited gift from God and allow that gratitude to become the source of your ongoing amazement at the mercy of God. My forgiving Lord, Your mercy and compassion for the sinner is truly awe-inspiring. Thank You for loving me and all Your followers with a love so deep. Please fill my heart with a holy awe at Your incredible mercy. May I always be amazed at Your forgiveness and always be filled with the deepest gratitude as I experience it in my life. Jesus, I trust in You.Image: Paolo Veronese, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read Online“‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance. We sang a dirge, but you did not weep.' John the Baptist came neither eating food nor drinking wine, and you said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking and you said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.' But wisdom is vindicated by all her children.” Luke 7:32–35Ecclesiastes 3 is a very popular reading for funerals. It says, “There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant…A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.” This reading is consoling to those who are mourning at a funeral because life is filled with many different emotions and experiences. When those at a funeral think about their loved one, they will recall both the good times and the bad, the sorrows and the joys. Doing so helps remind them that even though the funeral is a time of sorrow, joys will follow in the future. This is the natural rhythm of life.In our Gospel today, Jesus challenged those who failed to have the proper human response at the right time. “We played the flute for you, but you did not dance. We sang a dirge, but you did not weep.” The image of playing a flute and singing a dirge and the subsequent failure to dance and weep reveals a certain disconnect that many people had to John the Baptist and to Jesus Himself during their ministries. In commenting upon this passage, Saint Augustine says that John the Baptist's preaching was like a dirge that called people to the “weeping” of repentance. However, when he preached, there were many who failed to respond with the appropriate repentance. When Jesus came, He preached and gave witness to the new life of grace that He came to bestow. Though some listened and responded to Him, there were many who did not. Jesus' message was like the music of the flute that was to inspire people to “dance.” But many failed to respond with the joy that they were invited to experience and live through His transforming message and grace.There is, indeed, an appointed time for everything and for every affair under Heaven. The mission we have been given is to be attentive to that which God is speaking to us at each and every moment of our lives. At times we must “weep” by looking at our sins honestly, experience the horror of those sins, and passionately reject them. At other times we will “dance” when God invites us into His consoling grace and asks us to see clearly His merciful love. At those moments we are invited to be deeply grateful and to express that gratitude with our whole souls. Reflect, today, upon the calling you have been given to live in a well-ordered way. Do so by considering how attentive you are to the people around you. Does the attentiveness of your charity help you to see the hurt within the hearts of those who are suffering? Are you compelled to offer them a compassionate ear and merciful heart? When others are experiencing the joys of life, are you able to share that joy with them? Can you do so fully, without jealousy or envy of any kind? When God inspires you to some act of conversion and bestows some grace, do you listen and promptly obey, responding in the most appropriate way? Our souls must become sensitive to the promptings of grace and must respond accordingly. Seek to have a well-ordered soul so that you will live and experience the life that God places before you each day in accord with His perfect will. Lord, Your soul was perfectly ordered, always responding to the will of the Father with perfection. You were firm when love demanded it, courageous in the face of hardship, merciful to the repentant sinner, and joyful at the conversion of all. Please help me to always be attentive to the promptings of Your grace and to always respond to You in the way I am called. Jesus, I trust in You.  Image: Saint John the Baptist, standing in a landscapeSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineJesus journeyed to a city called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd accompanied him. As he drew near to the gate of the city, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. A large crowd from the city was with her. Luke 7:11–12Try to imagine this mother. She had been married, she and her husband had a child, they raised their child, she and her son watched her husband die, and then she watched her son die and was participating in his funeral. Since he was her only son, she was now alone.When we think about this woman, it is easy to feel compassion for her. Her heart would have been filled with a sorrow that is tangible to anyone with empathy. Her heart might also have been filled with fear. At that time, a widow would have had a very difficult time taking care of herself in a rural village. With her husband gone, she would have had to rely upon her son to provide for her as she aged. But now that he was gone, her heart would have not only felt the pain of his loss, but also fear for her future. What would become of her? Who would provide food for her year after year? Would she be reduced to begging and poverty?It is in the context of this very real sorrow and fear that Jesus enters her life. We do not know if she knew anything about Jesus. It appears she was not one of His followers and might not have even heard about Jesus since He had not been ministering publicly for very long. Jesus' encounter with her and her dead son appears to be unplanned and unexpected. What is it that moves Jesus to raise this man from the dead? It does not appear to be a response to anyone's faith within the village. It is not even done at anyone's request. Instead, it appears to be done purely out of Jesus' compassion for this mother. At least that's how it seems at first read. And though Jesus clearly acted out of compassion for her, if we consider the entire context, there might also be a secondary motive.Jesus, his disciples and a large crowd were all walking together through this village. Since Jesus' miracles were normally performed in response to people's faith, it is most likely that faith was a contributing factor to this miracle. The faith that called forth this miracle, however, could only have come from the crowds of people who were walking with Jesus from Capernaum. The day prior, these same crowds witnessed Jesus heal the servant of a centurion. They clearly believed in Jesus. As they walked with Him and encountered this funeral procession, it was not only Jesus' heart that was moved with compassion, it was also the hearts of His followers. Therefore, as Jesus' followers witnessed this mother's sorrow and then witnessed Jesus' own human sorrow and compassion for her, they would have had hope that He would do something. Their hope would have been supernatural in origin, which means that it was also united with faith. By faith, they knew Jesus would act. Thus, in a very real way, the compassion, hope and faith of the people traveling with Jesus would have called forth His almighty power to heal, and Jesus responded.There are many ways to act as mediators of God's grace. One way to do so is by growing in compassion for others and hope in God. When we witness the sufferings of others, allow ourselves to feel compassion for them, manifest hope in the power of God to heal, and then stand there, in faith, waiting for God to act, God will be compelled to act. Our holy compassion, hope and faith act as a prayer to which God always responds. The crowds accompanying Jesus through the Village of Nain appear to have acted in this manner and, inspired by their witness, we, too, must act as intercessors for others in the same way.Reflect, today, upon anyone in your life who resembles this widow of Nain. Who is it that God wants you to notice and to feel compassion for? As your empathetic heart notices those who need your compassion, open yourself, also, to the supernatural gift of hope. Have divine hope that God will heal them. As you do, allow that hope to manifest faith in God and offer that compassion, hope and faith to God as your prayer for those who are in need.Most compassionate Lord, You are always attentive to our needs and our sorrows. Your Heart is filled with compassion for all. Please give me a truly empathetic heart so that I will see those in need. As I do, fill me with hope and faith that You will pour forth Your mercy upon them so that I will become an intercessor for all. Jesus, I trust in You.  Image: Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineStanding by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. John 19:25Our Blessed Mother, the Mother of the Son of God, loved her Son with a perfect love. She enfleshed every virtue to perfection. Her love for her Son was a love that was beyond what we could ever imagine. She conceived Him miraculously, bore Him in her womb, gave birth to Him, nursed Him, raised Him and loved Him throughout His life. It's difficult to even imagine the depth and beauty of the love she had for Jesus. Generally speaking, a mother's love is powerful, unwavering, deep and filled with tenderness. Try to imagine the Immaculate Heart of Mother Mary and the amazing depth of love alive in her heart.Imagine also the scene depicted in the Gospel passage quoted above. This loving mother stood at the foot of the Cross, gazing upon her crucified Son, continuing to exude every motherly virtue. And because it's hard to fathom the depth of her love for her Son, it's also very hard to imagine the depth of sorrow and interior suffering she endured as she watched the cruelty toward Jesus unfold. All she could do in that moment was stand by Him and with Him in this moment of extreme agony. Her love was expressed, in that moment, by her fidelity to Him.What's beautiful to know is that love, sorrow, compassion and suffering were united as one within her Immaculate Heart. Within the beauty of her heart was every human emotion, fueled by God's grace, enabling her to give to her Son the greatest gift she had: her motherhood. She was a true mother throughout her life, and, in this moment, as her Son hung on the Cross, her motherhood culminated in a perfect human expression.We all long to be loved by another. To give and receive love is the greatest gift that we can give and receive. Love is what we were made for and is the source of our fulfillment in life. We can be certain that as Mother Mary stood at the foot of the Cross, her human heart experienced the greatest fulfillment ever known. Her heart was fulfilled because she exercised her motherly love to perfection.Gaze upon the image of the Mother of God this day. Ponder, especially, all that she would have experienced within her human heart. Though theologians could write volumes on this meditation, the best way to understand her heart of love is through prayerful meditation. Ask our Blessed Mother to reveal her heart to you today. Find some time to sit in silent adoration of this holy image of perfect motherly love. As you do, know two things. First, know that Mother Mary has this same depth of love for you. Do not doubt it. Her heart burns with compassion as she gazes upon you, even in your sin. Second, know that our Blessed Mother's love must also fill your heart and overflow into the lives of others. We all must allow her compassion, concern, fidelity and mercy to flow through our hearts. Who do you need to love with the heart of our Blessed Mother? Seek to receive the love in the heart of the Mother of God and seek to give that love. Receive it in and then allow it to flow forth. There is truly nothing in this world more beautiful and awe inspiring than the holy image of this love. My Immaculate and Sorrowful Mother, you stood at the foot of the Cross of your Son with the perfection of a mother's love. Your heart was filled with a sorrow that was mixed with every holy virtue. Pray for me that I may understand this love more fully, so that I may also open up my own heart to your love. As I do, I pray that I will become an instrument of the love in your heart toward those in my life who suffer and are in most need of tender compassion and mercy. Sorrowful Heart of Mary, pray for us. Jesus, I trust in You.Daderot, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineFor God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.  John 3:16–17If Jesus would never have given His life on a cross for the salvation of the world, then a cross would never have been seen in “exultation.” A cross, in and of itself, is an instrument of death, a horrific and violent death. It's also an instrument of humiliation and torture. Yet, today, the Cross is seen as a holy and blessed object. We hang crosses in our homes, wear them around our neck, keep them in our pocket on the end of the rosary, and spend time in prayer before them. The Cross is now an exalted image by which we turn to God in prayer and surrender. But that is only the case because it was on a cross that we were saved and brought to eternal life.If you step back and consider the amazing truth that one of the worst instruments of torture and death is now seen as one of the holiest of images on earth, it should be awe inspiring. Comprehending this fact should lead us to the realization that God can do anything and everything. God can use the worst and transform it into the best. He can use death to bring forth life. Though our celebration today, the “Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross,” is first and foremost a feast by which we give glory to the Father for what He did in the Person of His divine Son, it is also a feast by which we must humbly understand that God can “exalt” every cross we endure in life and bring forth much grace through them. What is your heaviest cross? What is the source of your greatest suffering? Most likely, as you call this to mind, it is painful to you. Most often, our crosses and sufferings are things we seek to rid ourselves of. We easily point to crosses in life and blame them for a lack of happiness. We can easily think that if only this or that were to change or be removed, then our life would be better. So what is that cross in your life? The truth is that whatever your heaviest cross is, there is extraordinary potential for that cross to become an actual source of grace in your life and in the world. But this is only possible if you embrace that cross in faith and hope so that our Lord can unite it to His and so that your crosses can also share in the exaltation of Christ's Cross. Though this is a profoundly deep mystery of faith, it is also a profoundly deep truth of our faith. Reflect, today, upon your own crosses. As you do, try not to see them as a burden. Instead, realize the potential within those crosses. Prayerfully look at your crosses as invitations to share in Christ's Cross. Say “Yes” to your crosses. Choose them freely. Unite them to Christ's Cross. As you do, have hope that God's glory will come forth in your life and in the world through your free embrace of them. Know that these “burdens” will be transformed and become a source of exaltation in your life by the transforming power of God. My exalted Lord, I turn to You in my need and with the utmost faith in Your divine power to save. Please give me the grace I need to fully embrace every cross in my life with hope and faith in You. Please transform my crosses so that You will be exalted through them and so that they will become an instrument of Your glory and grace. Jesus, I trust in You.Image via UnsplashSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineJesus said to his disciples: “A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thornbushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles.” Luke 6:43–44What a great way to examine the direction of your life! This Gospel passage gets to the heart of how we can best discern whether or not we are truly fulfilling the will of God. Oftentimes we may struggle with knowing clearly if we are doing that which God wants of us. There are many directions in life that we can be pulled toward and many goals we can come up with on our own. For that reason, it is useful from time to time to stop and do an honest inventory of our lives. When you look at the past year of your life, what do you see? Specifically, do you see good fruit being born? Such an examination is helpful to do from time to time. It is useful to make such an examination not only for the past year but for different time periods. Perhaps start by looking at the big picture by looking at all the times in your life that were most fruitful for the glory of God. From there, try to look at your life decade by decade, year by year and then even month by month over this past year. Look for the most blessed moments in your life as well as the most challenging moments.When we examine our lives in this way, it's important to understand what to look for. For example, there may be moments when all went well in one way or another and then other times that were painful and very difficult. What's important to know, from a divine perspective, is that just because something “went well” at one point, or just because something was “painful and very difficult” at another point in our lives, this doesn't mean that the former was the most fruitful for the Kingdom of God or the latter the least fruitful. In fact, heavy crosses and difficulties in life can often be the most fruitful times for us, spiritually speaking. Just look at Jesus' life. Of course, everything He did was fruitful for the glory of the Father in Heaven, but we can easily point to the most painful moment of His life as the most fruitful. His Crucifixion brought forth the greatest good ever known.So it is with our lives. The fruitfulness of our lives is not best discerned by looking at those moments when all was easy, fun, memorable and the like. Though those may also be graced moments, we need to look at spiritual fruitfulness from the divine perspective. We need to look for the moments in our lives, be they easy or difficult, when God was clearly present and when we made choices that gave Him the greatest glory.Reflect, today, upon your life being like a tree that bears spiritual fruit. What times of your life, decisions you made, or activities that you were engaged in produced the most virtue in your life? When was your prayer life the deepest? When was your charity the strongest? When was your faith and hope the most evident? Return to those moments, savor them, learn from them and use them as the best building blocks for the glorious future our Lord desires for you.My glorious Lord, Your life bore fruit of infinite value. You continually chose to fulfill the will of the Father in Heaven, and, as a result, You lived every virtue to perfection. Help me to regularly pause in life so as to examine the direction in which I am going. May I learn from my errors and rejoice in those moments that were most fruitful for Your Kingdom. I love You, Lord. Help me to bear the greatest fruit for Your glory. Jesus, I trust in You.Image: Jan Brueghel the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read Online“Why do you notice the splinter in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?”  Luke 6:41Saint Teresa of Ávila, one of the greatest spiritual writers and doctors of the Church, explains in her spiritual masterpiece “Interior Castles,” that one of the first steps on the path to holiness is self-knowledge. Self-knowledge produces humility, because humility is simply having a true opinion about yourself. When a person fails to know themself from the true perspective of the mind of God, then they open themselves up to many errors of judgment. One such error is that they can easily become fixated upon their perceived sins of others.The Gospel passage quoted above depicts a person who gravely lacks self-knowledge. Why? Because they “do not perceive the wooden beam” in their own eye, meaning, they do not see their own sin. As a result, Jesus explains that this person also becomes fixated upon the “splinter” in their brother's eye.When you consider your own thoughts, what do you dwell upon the most all day long? Do you honestly look inward, seeking to know yourself as God knows you? Or do you spend excessive time thinking about others, analyzing and judging their actions? This is an important question to ask yourself and to answer with honesty.The best way to know yourself is to gaze upon Jesus. When He becomes the focus of your attention throughout the day, you will not only come to know Him, but you will also come to know yourself more honestly. Gazing at the beauty and perfection of our Lord will have the double effect of knowing Him and knowing yourself through His eyes. It will also help you to know others as He sees them.How does Jesus look at those around you? He looks at them with perpetual mercy. True, at the end of every life, when we pass from this world to the next, we will encounter our particular judgment from our Lord. But while here on earth, God continually gazes upon us with mercy. For that reason, mercy must become our daily mission, and we must build a habit of gazing upon everyone in our life with the eyes of mercy. Reflect, today, upon our Lord. Look at Him, gaze upon Him, seek to know Him and make Him the focus of your attention. As you do, try to dismiss from your thinking process your own perceived judgments of others. Allow your gaze upon our Lord to help you to not only see Him but to also see others through His eyes. Build this habit and you will be on the fast track to the path to holiness. My merciful Jesus, may I build a humble and true habit of gazing upon You in Your splendor and beauty. As I see You, day in and day out, please also help me to see myself through Your eyes of mercy so that I will also grow in humility. Please remove all judgment from my heart so that I will be free to know and love all people as You know and love them. Jesus, I trust in You.  Image: Fra Angelico, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineTo the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Luke 6:29–30This must have been shocking to Jesus' first disciples. First of all, recall that Jesus taught these words with a spiritual authority that left those with an open heart with a conviction that what Jesus taught was truth. Also recall that Jesus taught these deep spiritual lessons within the context of performing numerous miracles. So, for these reasons, His new followers would have known that what Jesus taught was true. But how could they fully accept such teachings?Though many commentators will try to point to the deeper spiritual principles that Jesus was teaching, try to first take His words on face value. He really said that you must offer the other cheek to someone who strikes you, to give your tunic to one who steals your cloak, and to give to everyone who asks of you, never demanding back that which someone takes from you. These are not easy lessons to accept!One thing that these powerful lessons teach us is that there is something far more important in life than the humiliation of being struck on the cheek and having your possessions stolen. What is that more important thing? It's the salvation of souls.If we were to go through life demanding earthly justice and retribution for wrongs received, we would not be able to focus upon that which is most important. We would not be able to focus upon the salvation of those who have wronged us. It's easy to love those who are kind to us. But our love must extend to everyone, and sometimes the form of love we must offer another is the free acceptance of injustices they commit against us. There is great power in this act of love. But we will only be able to love another this way if our deep desire is for their eternal salvation. If all we want is earthly justice and satisfaction for wrongs committed, we may achieve that. But it may come at the expense of their salvation. Sometimes we can fall into the trap of thinking that every wrong must be righted here and now. But that's clearly not what Jesus taught. His wisdom is so much deeper. He knew that a profound act of mercy and forgiveness to another, especially when they have hurt us deeply, is one of the greatest gifts we can give. And it's one of the most transformative actions we can also do for our own souls. When love hurts, in the sense that it costs us our earthly pride, especially by completely letting go of injustice, then our act of love for that person has great power to change them. And if that act changes them, then this will be the cause of your joy for eternity. Reflect, today, upon any way that this hard teaching of Jesus is difficult for you. Who comes to mind as you ponder this teaching? Do your passions revolt against this command of love from Jesus? If so, then you have discovered the specific area where God wants you to grow. Think about anyone with whom you have a grievance and ponder whether you desire their eternal salvation. Know that God can use you for this mission of love if you will love in the way our Lord commands. My merciful Lord, Your love is beyond my own ability to comprehend. Your love is absolute and always seeks the good of the other. Give me grace, dear Lord, to love with Your heart and to forgive to the extent that You have forgiven. Use me, especially, to be an instrument of salvation and mercy to those who need it most in my life. Jesus, I trust in You.  Source of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read Online“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. But woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.” Luke 6:24–26Is it dangerous to be rich, to be filled, to laugh, and to have all speak well of you? According to Jesus, it appears so. Why would Jesus warn against these things? And before that, why would He pronounce it blessed to be poor, hungry, weeping and insulted? Essentially, Jesus was condemning four common sins—greed, gluttony, intemperance, and vainglory—and promoting their opposite virtues.Poverty, in and of itself, is not sufficient for holiness. But in Luke's Gospel, Jesus declares it blessed to be poor, literally. This goes further than Matthew's Gospel which says it is blessed to be “poor in spirit.” To be poor in spirit is to be spiritually detached from the material things of this world so that you can be fully open to the riches of God. One common tendency among those with material wealth is to rationalize that even though they have many things, they are detached from them. Hopefully that is the case. However, in Luke's version of the Beatitudes, Jesus directly says, “Blessed are you who are poor” and “woe to you who are rich.” In this teaching, we discover a second blessing not found in Matthew's version. In addition to spiritual detachment (poverty of spirit) being identified as a blessing, literal poverty is proclaimed as the easier way to achieve this spiritual detachment. Material wealth, though not a sin in and of itself, brings with it many temptations toward attachment, self-reliance, and self-indulgence. Thus, spiritually speaking, it is easier to be detached when one is poor, rather than when one is rich. This is a hard truth for both the poor and the rich to accept. The poor often want to be rich, thinking that if they were, they would share their wealth with others and remain detached. The rich often enjoy being rich and believe that they are more spiritually detached than they actually are.Being “hungry” is also identified as a blessed state, whereas being “filled” is a dangerous state. When you are literally hungry, either from fasting or from lack of an abundance of food, it is easier to turn your hunger and thirst toward God so as to be filled by Him and to more easily trust in His providence. An abundance of food, especially fine food, tempts you with a gluttonous satisfaction that makes it difficult to hunger and thirst for God and His holy will in a complete way. Therefore, if you refrain from indulgence and experience hunger, you will be blessed to be free from gluttony and even the temptation toward it.“Laughing” and “weeping” in this case are not referring to joy and despair. Rather, they are referring to those who are always seeking fun and an indulgent life. Many people live for fun, entertainment, and momentary pleasures. Weeping refers to those who have discovered that the fleeting pleasures of the world can never satisfy. Constant entertainment, therefore, brings with it a real temptation, whereas the loss of that form of fleeting pleasure helps eliminate that temptation.Finally, Jesus declares it blessed to be hated, excluded, insulted, and denounced as evil on account of Him rather than being spoken well of by all. In this case, Jesus is referring to the praise that comes from things that mean nothing from an eternal perspective. When all speak well of us, praising qualities and accomplishments that are not true Christian virtues, we will be tempted to rely upon that praise for our satisfaction. But this form of satisfaction is nothing other than vainglory and never truly satisfies in the end. However, when one sees and praises the virtues of God within us, God is praised first and foremost, and we are blessed to share in God's glory. Reflect, today, upon whether you prefer to be rich, to indulge in the best of foods, to be constantly entertained and to be the envy of others, or whether you see the temptations this type of life brings. Reflect also upon the concrete spiritual blessings that come to those who are literally poor, hungry, temperate and humble. This is a very demanding teaching from Jesus. If it doesn't sit well with you, then know that it is a sign that you still have various attachments in life. Reflect, especially, upon the beatitude that is most difficult to embrace, and make that beatitude the source of reflection and prayer. Doing so with honesty and openness will result in you being among those who are truly blessed in the eyes of God. My blessed Lord, You were poor, hungry, temperate and humble to the perfect degree. For these reasons, You were filled with perfect virtue and were satisfied to the greatest degree. Please open my eyes to the deceptions of this world so that I can live with You a life of true holiness, experiencing the riches of the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus, I trust in You!Image: Sermon on the Mount by Danijel Dukić, license Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 InternationalSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read OnlineAnd he came down with them and stood on a stretch of level ground. A great crowd of his disciples and a large number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and even those who were tormented by unclean spirits were cured. Everyone in the crowd sought to touch him because power came forth from him and healed them all. Luke 6:17–19The Gospel of Luke presents us with what is traditionally known as the “Sermon on the Plain.” Almost everything Luke includes in this sermon is also found in Matthew's “Sermon on the Mount.” Matthew, however, adds some teachings not found in Luke. Matthew's sermon has three chapters while Luke's has only one.In this, the introduction to this “Sermon on the Plain,” from which we will be reading all week, Luke points out that large numbers of people came from far and wide to listen to Jesus. This crowd included many Jews but also included many people from the pagan territory of Tyre and Sidon. And what was it that drew so many of them? They came to “hear” Jesus preach and “to be healed.” They wanted to hear the words of Jesus since He spoke with great authority and in a way that was changing lives. And they were especially amazed by the healing power that Jesus manifested. The last line of the passage above gives great emphasis to this desire for healing. “Everyone in the crowd sought to touch him because power came forth from him and healed them all.”It's interesting that Jesus performed so many powerful miracles as He went about His public ministry. This was especially the case as He began His ministry. He became a sort of instant celebrity to many and was the talk of the many surrounding towns. But it's also interesting to note that, as time went on, Jesus gave more emphasis to His teaching than He did to the miracles.What is it that draws you to our Lord? Perhaps if there were numerous manifest miracles performed today by God, many people would be amazed. But physical miracles are not the greatest work of our Lord and, therefore, should not be the primary focus of our relationship with Him. The primary reason we should be drawn to our Lord is because His holy Word sinks in deeply, changes us and draws us into communion with Him. This is clearly seen by the fact that now that the Gospel message has been deeply established and the Church formed, physical miracles are rare. They do happen, but not in the same way that they did as Jesus first established His public ministry.Reflect, today, upon the primary reason you find yourself drawn to our Lord. Seek out His living Word, spoken within the depths of your heart. The most important miracle that takes place today is that of interior transformation. When a person hears God speak, responds to that Word, and allows Him to change their life, this is among the most important miracles of grace that we could ever encounter. And this is the central reason we should be drawn to Him, seek Him out and follow Him wherever He leads.My miraculous Lord, please draw me to Yourself, teaching in the wilderness of my interior life of silence and solitude. Help me to seek You out so that I can hear Your Word, spoken to me to give me new life. May I always listen to You so that Your holy Word will transform me more fully, making me into the new creation You desire me to be. Jesus, I trust in You.Image: Cosimo Rosselli, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Read Online“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” Matthew 1:20–21Today we celebrate one of the most consequential birthdays in the history of the world! Certainly, the only birthday more important is that of our divine Lord Himself. But today we honor His mother, and our mother, too.The Blessed Virgin Mary was born into our world without the stain of original sin. She was preserved from experiencing fallen human nature through the gift of her Immaculate Conception. Thus, she was the first to be born in the perfection of human nature after the fall, and she continued to experience this grace throughout her life, responding to God with her free will every step of the way.All of us enjoy celebrating our birthdays. Children especially love it, but most everyone looks forward to that special day each year when family and friends honor them and celebrate them in a special way. For that reason, we can be assured that even our Blessed Mother loved her birthday while here on earth and continues to enjoy this special celebration in Heaven. Of course, she did not enjoy her birthday because she wanted to be pampered or given special attention. She, perhaps more than anyone other than her divine Son, rejoiced on her birthday because of the deep spiritual gratitude she had to God for all that He did in her life.Try to ponder the heart and soul of our Blessed Mother from her perspective. She would have been intimately united to each person of the Most Holy Trinity throughout her life. She would have known God, living in her soul, and would have been in awe of what God had done to her. She would have pondered these graces with deep humility and exceptional gratitude. She would have seen her soul and mission from the perspective of God, keenly aware of all that He had done for her.As we honor the birthday of our Blessed Mother, it's also an important opportunity for each of us to ponder the incredible blessings that God has bestowed upon each one of us. No, we are not Immaculate as Mother Mary was. We were each born into original sin and have sinned throughout our lives. But the blessings of grace, given to each one of us, is exceptionally real. We only need to work to have the eyes to see these graces. Baptism, for example, bestows upon the soul an eternal transformation. Though our sin may cloud that transformation at times, the transformation is eternal. Our souls are changed. We are made new. Grace is poured into our hearts, and we become children of God. And for the soul who is able to perceive the countless other ways that God bestows blessings, gratitude is the only appropriate response.Reflect, today, upon the glorious celebration of the birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God. Begin by trying to rejoice in her life through her eyes. Try to imagine what she saw as she looked into her own graced soul. From there, try to rejoice, also, in your soul. Be grateful for all that God has done for you. Work to have eyes that see these countless graces and allow yourself to rejoice in God's blessings with our Blessed Mother. My dearest Mother, happy birthday! Today I rejoice in the incredible gift that God gave to you in your Immaculate Conception and birth into our world. I pray that I may honor you in a fitting way this day and to especially understand more clearly the beauty of your graced soul. Pray for me that I may also rejoice in the countless graces bestowed upon me by our merciful God. I love you, dear Mother. Precious Jesus, through the heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I trust in You!  Image: Domenico Ghirlandaio, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.