Category: Bible Reading & Meditation

“When you have a reception, invite beggars and the crippled, the lame and the blind.” –Luke 14:13 According to Jesus, feeding the poor is a personal responsibility. The poor must be our personal friends. We should try to get to know them by visiting them, while encouraging them to call or drop in on us. The government and Church are not to take our place in feeding the poor but to supplement our individual efforts. We should open our homes to the poor and serve them with our own hands. We can supplement this by writing a check to a...

“One of the scribes came up, and when he heard them arguing he realized how skillfully Jesus answered them. He decided to ask Him, ‘Which is the first of all the commandments?’ Jesus replied: ‘This is the first…’ ” –Mark 12:28-29 The first of all the commandments is: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone!” (Mk 12:29; Dt 6:4) Since He is our only Lord, and we must not use our time, energy, and resources for anyone or anything else, “therefore you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with...

“Go and sit in the lowest place.” –Luke 14:10 How’s this for humility? Jesus was with God in the glory of heaven. Then He humbled Himself to take on human flesh and dwell on earth (Jn 1:14). He was born in the “lowest place,” a stable, and was laid in a manger, an animal feeding trough from which no person would dream of eating (see Lk 2:7). He did not live in the royal city, Jerusalem, but in the lowly, disregarded village of Nazareth (see Jn 1:46). During His public ministry, He was homeless (see Lk 9:58) and was thrown...

“It is the will of Him Who sent Me that I should lose nothing of what He has given Me; rather, that I should raise it up on the last day.” –John 6:39 When we pray for the dead, we: obey the Lord and His Church, love our neighbor, express our unity with the other members of God’s family, help purify people in purgatory, help those in purgatory to go to heaven, face death and thereby become more aware of reality, express and strengthen our faith in the power of prayer, receive the benefit of the prayers of those in...