Category: Bible Reading & Meditation

“Forty years shall you suffer for your crimes.” —Numbers 14:34 Today’s Eucharistic readings strongly show that faith makes the difference between life and death. A mother’s “great faith” in Jesus (Mt 15:28) saved her daughter. The complete lack of faith of the Israelites, who had recently walked through the Red Sea on dry land, meant that they would die in the desert (Nm 14:29). Did you know that the Lord considers it a crime (Nm 14:34) to lack faith in Him and discourage (Nm 13:32) others from having faith in Him? Faith is not an add-on for the Christian life;...

“Peter and those with him had fallen into a deep sleep; but awakening, they saw His glory.” —Luke 9:32 Jesus took Peter, James, and John off by themselves, and “went up onto a mountain to pray” (Lk 9:28). “While He was praying, His face changed in appearance and His clothes became dazzlingly white” (Lk 9:29). However, Peter, James, and John had fallen into a deep sleep (Lk 9:32). When they awoke, they were in a fog (Lk 9:34). They heard God tell them to listen to Jesus (Lk 9:35). They saw Jesus transfigured in radiant glory, but they missed the...

“Would that we had meat for food! We remember the fish we used to eat without cost in Egypt, and the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.” —Numbers 11:4-5 Sometimes we’re more interested in the salad bar than in salvation! After liberation from 430 years of slavery, the only thing the Israelites can say is: “Where’s the beef?” (see Nm 11:4) Jesus was healing people by the thousands, but the disciples wanted to stop the proceedings so everyone could go and buy something to eat (Mt 14:15). “Such as these will end in disaster! Their god...

“That is the way it works with the man who grows rich for himself instead of growing rich in the sight of God.” —Luke 12:21 The Lord wants His children to be rich, not for themselves, but rich in what matters to Him. “You are well acquainted with the favor shown you by our Lord Jesus Christ: how for your sake He made Himself poor though He was rich, so that you might become rich by His poverty” (2 Cor 8:9). When we were baptized into Christ, we were baptized into His riches. Accordingly, the eyes of our hearts must...

“This fiftieth year you shall make sacred by proclaiming liberty in the land for all.” —Leviticus 25:10 We all must worship. If we don’t worship God, then we worship ourselves, and eventually demons. “What am I saying — that meat offered to an idol is really offered to that idol, or that an idol is a reality? No, I mean that the Gentiles sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to become sharers with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and also the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the...