 From: MorningOffering Website | † Quote of the Day "We must pray literally without ceasing— without ceasing—in every occurrence and employment of our lives . . . that prayer of the heart which is independent of place or situation, or which is rather a habit of lifting up the heart to God as in a constant communication with Him." -St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Today's Meditation "Who is Lucifer? He is a pure spirit, and was the most enlightened of all pure spirits, but is now at war with God and with His rule. The mystery of sin is merely the result of this conflict, which manifests itself in every possible way. Lucifer, as much as in him lies, will leave no stone unturned to destroy what God has made and ordered. Wherever he enters, there is the work of God defaced." —Jean-Pierre de Caussade, p. 114
An excerpt from Abandonment to Divine Providence Daily Verse "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels." -Isaiah 61:10 |  EWTN Daily Saint | | St Catherine Of Sweden St. Catherine of Sweden (1331-1381) was the fourth of eight children born to St. Bridget of Sweden and her husband, Ulfo. As a child she was sent by her parents to be educated in a convent, and was later given in marriage to a German nobleman. Catherine was able to persuade her husband, a virtuous young man, to live together in a mutual vow of perpetual chastity. They lived happily together in complete devotion to God. After the death of her father, and with her husband's consent, Catherine accompanied her mother to Rome. While there, Catherine's husband died. She continued to be a companion to her mother and rejected further offers of marriage. Her mother worked to establish a new religious order, called the Order of the Holy Savior, or the Bridgettines. After her mother's death, Catherine took her body back to Sweden for burial while continuing the work of establishing the Bridgettines. She later traveled back to Rome to advocate for her mother's canonization and for Pope Urban VI to ratify her Order. While in Rome she became great friends with St. Catherine of Siena. St. Catherine of Sweden finally returned to Sweden and became abbess of the newly founded Bridgettines, living the rest of her days as a model of prayer and penance. St. Catherine of Sweden is the patron saint against abortions and miscarriages. Her feast day is March 24th. | Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent Lectionary: 252 Reading I Numbers 21:4-9 From Mount Hor the children of Israel set out on the Red Sea road,
to bypass the land of Edom.
But with their patience worn out by the journey,
the people complained against God and Moses,
"Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert,
where there is no food or water?
We are disgusted with this wretched food!" In punishment the LORD sent among the people saraph serpents,
which bit the people so that many of them died.
Then the people came to Moses and said,
"We have sinned in complaining against the LORD and you.
Pray the LORD to take the serpents away from us."
So Moses prayed for the people, and the LORD said to Moses,
"Make a saraph and mount it on a pole,
and whoever looks at it after being bitten will live."
Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole,
and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent
looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. Responsorial Psalm Psalm 102:2-3, 16-18, 19-21 R. (2) O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you.
O LORD, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you.
Hide not your face from me in the day of my distress.
Incline your ear to me; in the day when I call, answer me speedily.
R. O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you.
The nations shall revere your name, O LORD, and all the kings of the earth your glory,
When the LORD has rebuilt Zion and appeared in his glory;
When he has regarded the prayer of the destitute, and not despised their prayer.
R. O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you.
Let this be written for the generation to come, and let his future creatures praise the LORD:
"The LORD looked down from his holy height, from heaven he beheld the earth,
To hear the groaning of the prisoners, to release those doomed to die."
R. O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you. Verse Before the Gospel The seed is the word of God, Christ is the sower;
all who come to him will live for ever. Gospel John 8:21-30 Jesus said to the Pharisees:
"I am going away and you will look for me,
but you will die in your sin.
Where I am going you cannot come."
So the Jews said,
"He is not going to kill himself, is he,
because he said, 'Where I am going you cannot come'?"
He said to them, "You belong to what is below,
I belong to what is above.
You belong to this world,
but I do not belong to this world.
That is why I told you that you will die in your sins.
For if you do not believe that I AM,
you will die in your sins."
So they said to him, "Who are you?"
Jesus said to them, "What I told you from the beginning.
I have much to say about you in condemnation.
But the one who sent me is true,
and what I heard from him I tell the world."
They did not realize that he was speaking to them of the Father.
So Jesus said to them,
"When you lift up the Son of Man,
then you will realize that I AM,
and that I do nothing on my own,
but I say only what the Father taught me.
The one who sent me is with me.
He has not left me alone,
because I always do what is pleasing to him."
Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him. | Praise to You Oh Lord Jesus Christ! |  From Word Among Us WAU.org | Daily Meditation: Numbers 21:4-9 We have sinned in complaining against the Lord. (Numbers 21:7) How easy it can be to forget all that God has done for us! Look at today's first reading, for example. The Israelites had seen God perform countless signs and wonders as he rescued them from slavery and led them toward the Promised Land. But when faced with the hunger and thirst of their long sojourn in the desert, they questioned whether God cared for them at all. It took an outbreak of deadly snakes to get them to finally repent! But what God did next was curious. Yes, he gave them a way to be healed from the snakes' bites—by having them gaze upon a bronze serpent that Moses had mounted on a pole. But he didn't make the snakes go away! Wouldn't you expect God to get rid of the threat altogether, now that the people had turned back to him? Maybe, but maybe not. The fact that God allowed the snakes to remain shows us that he didn't send them just to punish his people for complaining against him. He didn't want to just shut them up. He had deeper and more important goals in mind. He wanted to teach them more about what it means to live by faith in him. He wanted them to learn that they could trust him, even in those times when danger was all around them. Fast-forward to today, and we can see that we're not very different from the Israelites. We, too, can be tempted to complain about the challenges of life—especially when "snakes" show up to make things worse. But we have something even more powerful than a bronze serpent to gaze upon. We have the cross of Christ, the greatest symbol of God's love and power to help us overcome evil and sin. We have the testimony of the Son of God, who endured the greatest of evils yet never lost faith in his Father—and who was raised up because he trusted in the Lord! So the next time you want to grumble about your life, lift up your eyes to the cross. The next time you feel surrounded by snakes, fix your eyes on Christ crucified. Let him show you how to live in trust and how to walk by faith. Let him show you that no force in heaven above or on earth below can ever separate you from the love of God! "Jesus, help me to keep my eyes fixed on your cross!" Psalm 102:2-3, 16-21
John 8:21-30 | Reflections with Brother Adrian: |  Audio of 2 Cents | From today's Holy Gospel: ".. So Jesus said to them,
"When you lift up the Son of Man,
then you will realize that I AM,
and that I do nothing on my own,
but I say only what the Father taught me.
The one who sent me is with me.
He has not left me alone,
because I always do what is pleasing to him."
Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him...." | From Roberto Juarez end of his reflection: "Jesus' interlocutors ask: "Who are you?" And Jesus responds in a way that they don't quite understand. There is a dialogue, but there is no meeting. They listen to the words, but they do not open themselves to their deep meaning. This can happen to us too. We can hear the Gospel many times, but if the heart is not open, the word does not transform. Jesus then introduces a decisive key: "When you raise up the Son of Man, you will know that I am." "To lift" here has a double meaning: to be lifted up on the cross and to be lifted up in glory. The cross is the moment when Jesus is fully revealed. There God's love is manifested to the end. What seems like failure is actually the victory of love. Jesus adds: "I do nothing of my own, but speak as the Father has taught me... He who sent me is with me." The whole life of Jesus is a relationship with the Father. He does not act out of self-interest, nor out of prominence. Live in total communion. This is also the path of the disciple: to live in relationship with God, to let himself be guided by Him. The Gospel ends on a hopeful note: "When I was telling them this, many believed in Him." Despite resistance, doubts, misunderstandings, Jesus' word bears fruit. There are always hearts that open. This Gospel presents us with a fundamental decision: Who is Jesus for us? A character from the past? An admirable teacher? Or the Son of God, the "I Am," who gives meaning to our lives? To believe in Christ is not only to accept ideas, but to trust in Him, to accept His word, to let Him transform our lives. Let us ask the Lord for authentic faith, which goes beyond the superficial, an open heart to recognize his presence, and the ability to look at the cross not as failure, but as a revelation of God's love. May we also be part of those of whom the Gospel says: "Many believed in Him". end quote.
Bishop Barron said: "But what does this mean? There have been numerous attempts throughout the Christian centuries to name the salvific nature of the cross. Let me offer just one take on it. It became clear to the first Christians that somehow, on that terrible cross, sin had been dealt with. The curse of sin had been removed, taken care of. On that terrible cross, Jesus functioned as the "Lamb of God," sacrificed for sin. Does this mean God the Father is a cruel taskmaster, demanding a bloody sacrifice so that his anger might be appeased? No. Jesus's crucifixion was the opening up of the divine heart so that we could see that no sin of ours could finally separate us from the love of God. " end quote.
We should be looking at history, because often it tends to repeat itself they say, right? We've even had people say "hindsight is 20/20" meaning you can see clearly what happened after the fact.
Is that the case with the people of God? Remember those that followed Moses through the desert, they were fed bread from Heaven and more, God provided as their sustenance...but, they got tired, whined, moaned, and complained to the point that our Lord, with foresight of what was happening, had to send a reckoning, a sign with a meaning. The serpents represent evil, like in the book of Genesis, a cunning serpent symbolizes darkness and sin.
What causes us to raise up complaints to the Father?
Look around us today...are all the wars serving as a wake up call, like serpents biting us today and costing many lives?
If you are spiritually awake, I'm not just speaking about physical deaths now.
If you look around you, there are many dying right before our eyes.
Spiritual deaths. You see, since our Lord came, He came to be the Revelation of God's Holy Will.
Our Lord is mounted up on a "pole" and raised up for all to see. He is not a bronze serpent, but the serpents made Him bronze, forever engraved in the eyes of the heart of mankind.
Have you ever seen an ugly crucifix, that depicted a horrible slaughter of a human being? Most crucifixes we see are not ugly, they are kind of pretty, a drop of blood here and there, no real brutally tortured man to see.
But scripture says "He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him" (Isaiah 53:2). Isaiah 53:3 (KJV): "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not". Why do we not really look for Him? Why do we not really want Him? Because, like Eve, and Adam, we sin, and we want to hide like the serpents, in the dark, in the caves, the protection from being found out. Lent is meant to make us come out of the dark and into the light.
Those that love our Lord want to be with Him and serve Him with tender loving care.
Our Lord my friends, is like a hidden gem.
It takes much work to find Him. It takes labor. You have to rend your garments, but more importantly...your heart.
We have to pray like that song says "Jesus, Friend of Sinners" by Casting Crowns. singss "Oh, Jesus, friend of sinners
Break our hearts for what breaks Yours". I am meeting people on their journey of faith. Some are still seeking. Some are becoming enshrined in their disbelief of God and that says you cannot trust Him, and that begins an onslaught of complaints. But some....are believing. We take the good with the bad, and God's angels will sort us all out in the end. May we come to the ugly truth...and see see what truly has happened.... May we be found at His cross, loving Him, like Mother Mary, all the way to the end.... |  Click for Audio | Random Bible Verse Revelation 4:11 "Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created." . . . Word of the Lord! | If one day you don't receive these, just visit Going4th.com
God Bless You! Peace | | |
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