† Quote of the Day "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you." — St. Martha (John 11: 21-22) Today's Meditation "My great God, you know all that is in the universe, because you yourself have made it. It is the very work of your hands. You are omniscient, because you are omnicreative. You know each part, however minute, as perfectly as you know the whole. You know mind as perfectly as you know matter. You know the thoughts and purposes of every soul as perfectly as if there were no other soul in the whole of your creation. You know me through and through; all my present, past, and future are before you as one whole. You see all those delicate and evanescent motions of my thought which altogether escape myself. You can trace every act, whether deed or thought, to its origin and can follow it into its whole growth and consequences. You know how it will be with me at the end; you have before you that hour when I shall come to you to be judged. How awful is the prospect of finding myself in the presence of my judge! Yet, O Lord, I would not that you should not know me. It is my greatest stay to know that you read my heart. Oh, give me more of that openhearted sincerity which I have desired. Keep me ever from being afraid of your eye, from the inward consciousness that I am not honestly trying to please you. Teach me to love you more, and then I shall be at peace, without any fear of you at all." —St. John Henry Newman, p.150
An excerpt from Everyday Meditations Daily Verse "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Laz′arus...[Jesus] cried with a loud voice, 'Laz′arus, come out.' The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with bandages, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, 'Unbind him, and let him go.'" — John 11:5 &43-44 | St.s Martha Mary And Lazarus St. Martha (1st c.) was a pious Jewish woman from Bethany near Jerusalem. She was a close friend of Jesus during his earthly ministry, as was her brother, St. Lazarus, and her sister, St. Mary of Bethany (St. Mary Magdalene - separate feast day on July 22nd). The Gospels tell us that "Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary and Lazarus." Martha would serve the Lord faithfully when he was a guest in her home, once busying herself so much with her work that she neglected to spend time enjoying his presence, for which she earned a gentle rebuke from Our Lord. Martha had great faith in Christ, especially evidenced in her belief that he could raise her brother Lazarus from the dead. In the Gospels we read that St. Martha testified that Jesus was the Son of God even before his Passion and Resurrection. According to tradition, after the Ascension of Jesus into heaven, St. Martha gathered a group of women together to live, pray, and do penance in common, one of the early Christian houses of consecrated women. St. Martha is the patron of servers, maids, butlers, servants, single laywomen, homemakers, housewives, and cooks. Together, these siblings share a feast day on July 29th. Find a Devotional for This Saint: St. Martha. Find a Devotional for This Saint: St. Mary. Find a Devotional for This Saint: St. Lazarus. The Morning Offering recognizes that there are varying views on the identity of St. Mary of Bethany and St. Mary Magdalene. You can read articles from the Vatican concerning this topic here: Decree of the Congregation for Divine Worship on the celebration of Saints Martha, Mary and Lazarus, in the General Roman Calendar. Mary Magdalene, Apostle of the Apostles. | Memorial of Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus Lectionary: 401/607
Reading 1 JER 13:1-11 The LORD said to me: Go buy yourself a linen loincloth;
wear it on your loins, but do not put it in water.
I bought the loincloth, as the LORD commanded, and put it on.
A second time the word of the LORD came to me thus:
Take the loincloth which you bought and are wearing,
and go now to the Parath;
there hide it in a cleft of the rock.
Obedient to the LORD's command, I went to the Parath
and buried the loincloth.
After a long interval, the LORD said to me:
Go now to the Parath and fetch the loincloth
which I told you to hide there.
Again I went to the Parath, sought out and took the loincloth
from the place where I had hid it.
But it was rotted, good for nothing!
Then the message came to me from the LORD:
Thus says the LORD:
So also I will allow the pride of Judah to rot,
the great pride of Jerusalem.
This wicked people who refuse to obey my words,
who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts,
and follow strange gods to serve and adore them,
shall be like this loincloth which is good for nothing.
For, as close as the loincloth clings to a man's loins,
so had I made the whole house of Israel
and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the LORD;
to be my people, my renown, my praise, my beauty.
But they did not listen. Responsorial Psalm DEUTERONOMY 32:18-19, 20, 21 R. (see 18a) You have forgotten God who gave you birth.
You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you,
You forgot the God who gave you birth.
When the LORD saw this, he was filled with loathing
and anger toward his sons and daughters.
R. You have forgotten God who gave you birth.
"I will hide my face from them," he said,
"and see what will then become of them.
What a fickle race they are,
sons with no loyalty in them!"
R. You have forgotten God who gave you birth.
"Since they have provoked me with their 'no-god'
and angered me with their vain idols,
I will provoke them with a 'no-people';
with a foolish nation I will anger them."
R. You have forgotten God who gave you birth. Alleluia Jn 8:12 R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the light of the world, says the Lord;
whoever follows me will have the light of life.
R. Alleluia, alleluia. Gospel JN 11:19-27 Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary
to comfort them about their brother [Lazarus, who had died].
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,
she went to meet him;
but Mary sat at home.
Martha said to Jesus,
"Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.
But even now I know that whatever you ask of God,
God will give you."
Jesus said to her,
"Your brother will rise."
Martha said to him,
"I know he will rise,
in the resurrection on the last day."
Jesus told her,
"I am the resurrection and the life;
whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,
and anyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
Do you believe this?"
She said to him, "Yes, Lord.
I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,
the one who is coming into the world." Or:
LK 10:38-42 Jesus entered a village
where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.
She had a sister named Mary
who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak.
Martha, 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." | Daily Meditation: Jeremiah 13:1-11 So had I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me. (Jeremiah 13:11) God certainly found a memorable way to deliver his message! He told Jeremiah to buy a linen loincloth, put it on, and walk around the village of Parah. He then told Jeremiah to bury the cloth in a damp cave near the river, where it became moldy. The rotting of this fine garment served as a visual parable to the people that dramatized what was happening to their hearts as they distanced themselves from the Lord. Jeremiah's prophetic gesture was clear: we need to cling to the Lord! But clinging to the Lord can sound a little extreme, can't it? How do we "cling" to him when life can be so crowded and chaotic? Maybe instead of worrying whether you're clinging to Jesus every moment of the day, you can try a different approach. Just take a few moments every few hours to examine your heart. Are you at peace? Has the busyness of the day or a temptation or even some sin clouded your connection with the Lord? Are you at odds with someone to the extent that it is interfering with your ability to trust in God's care for you? If you find that you are feeling disconnected from the Lord, offer up a short prayer and ask him to bring you closer. If you realize that you have wandered too far from him, ask for forgiveness right away and correct your path. And if you're struggling in any way, leave it in his hands and move on with your day. Trust that over time, the Lord will help you work through whatever obstacles you may be experiencing. It's not always easy to cling to the Lord. Sometimes it takes a real effort to turn our hearts back to him. But know this: your heavenly Father knows you inside and out. He knows about your struggles, but he also knows how much you love him. He sees your every effort to please him, he appreciates each of them, and he promises to fill them all with his grace. So every time you turn to him in your day, remember that as much as you want to cling to him, he wants it even more. He loves you, and he promises to help you love him in return. "Lord, thank you for loving me so faithfully. Help me to cling to you every moment of my day!" (Psalm) Deuteronomy 32:18-21
Matthew 13:31-35 |  Hear AI Read it to you. Updated 7/10/24 | Reflections with Brother Adrian: | In the Holy Scripture we hear today:
"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."......" end quote. | From Bishop Barron:
"Friends, in today's Gospel, Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and anyone who lives and believes in me will never die."
Jesus came primarily as a warrior whose final enemy is death. It is easy to domesticate Jesus, presenting him as a kindly moral teacher. But that is not how the Gospels present him. He is a cosmic warrior who has come to do battle with those forces that keep us from being fully alive.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus deals with the effects of death and a death-obsessed culture: violence, hatred, egotism, exclusion, false religion, phony community. But the final enemy he must face down is death itself...
Coming to Lazarus' tomb, Jesus feels the deepest emotions and begins to weep. This is God entering into the darkness, confusion, and agony of the death of sinners. He doesn't blithely stand above our situation, but rather takes it on and feels it at its deepest level....." end quote Bishop Barron.
Martha was anxious and worried about many things in her life, remember the moment her brother died? She cried to our Lord, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you" and today He says essentially:
"My child, you are anxious, and worried, about many, too many things. He will live!"
All of those that loved Him will live. We are then called to live with Him. We are called to live with less anxiety.
They say the world faces much anxiety and depression, like a worldwide dark blanket. And I believe it is contagious.
But there is healing from this disillusion, from this ailment, from this malady.
What is it? The healing is Jesus, in His Body, in His blood that began in His life and ministry on this earth.
And the beauty is that me and you are called to heal the world.
The world always offers disgraceful things, beautiful things disfigured, like say, in our perverted world, a beautiful woman, she is stripped of her clothes and is drawn on, with tattoos and then taken advantage of with demonic actions and implants and disgraced more and more from there.
And this is a sign of what we do with the Church. We strip it of its fine dresses, of the ornaments and make them plain, and then we fill it with disgaceful images and people and demons begin to fill it.
There is a remedy to this, and it is Jesus our Savior.
The cause for the ailment is sin. But sin doesn't want the remedy.
Have you ever given medicine to an infant or a toddler and they cry with violent force as they try to wiggle out of your arms as if you were trying to harm them?
But they need the medicine! They need to be healed! They need to be saved!
You are anxious and worried in your serving.
We worry and sometimes we give up. We become anxious and want a quick remedy, so people turn to drugs or pleasures, temporary fixes.
But we need the eternal fix. We need the eternal peace. We need the eternal joy. We need the eternal life to live in the peace and joy of the Lord. And then, we will want to suffer for love. Heaven is backwards my friend. The streets are made of gold because gold is practically worthless. Suffering is worthless to us on earth, but to Heaven it is invaluable. It's purpose is tremendous, that it may bring about sacrificial love for neighbor, and therefore...to God our Father. Sacred Blood of Jesus, inebriate us with the grace to live to do Thy Holy Will. |  audio | Random Bible Verse 1
Isaiah 40:26 26 Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing. | If one day you don't receive these, just visit Going4th.com
God Bless You! Peace | | |
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