Category: Bible Reading & Meditation
“She decided to bathe.” —Daniel 13:15 Today’s first reading is more than a story of good triumphing over evil. It’s an Old Testazment preview of Baptism. When Susanna enters her bath (Dn 13:17-18), she is surrounded by the powers of evil, as represented by the two corrupt elders. Susanna is immersed in a dilemma of whether to save her life by yielding to evil or to cling to holiness and purity at the cost of her life (Dn 13:22). Susanna rises from her bath determined to trust in God, saying to the evil judges, “It is better for me to...
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“I wish to know Christ and the power flowing from His resurrection; likewise to know how to share in His sufferings by being formed into the pattern of His death. Thus do I hope that I may arrive at resurrection from the dead.” —Philippians 3:10-11 In two weeks, we will celebrate Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead. To share in His Resurrection, we must “share in His sufferings by being formed into the pattern of His death” (Phil 3:10). “You can depend on this: If we have died with Him we shall also live with Him” (2 Tm 2:11). The cross...
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“My God, in You I take refuge.” —Psalm 7:2 When Jeremiah realized people were plotting to kill him, he “prayed” to the Lord: “Let me witness the vengeance You take on them” (Jer 12:20). When Jesus was plotted against by His enemies and crucified, He also prayed while hanging on the cross: “Father forgive them; they do not know what they are doing” (Lk 23:34). Unlike Jeremiah, Jesus did not seek His enemies’ death but their salvation. He loved His enemies so much that He offered Himself in sacrifice and gave them the opportunity for eternal life with Him. When...
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“Let Me alone, then, that My wrath may blaze up against them to consume them. Then I will make of you a great nation.” —Exodus 32:10 The Lord offered Moses the opportunity to start all over without the bothersome people who fashioned a golden calf and worshiped it. Moses, however, prefigured Jesus and asked God to forgive them and love them. We all are tempted to be discontent with the people the Lord has put into our lives to love. We wish our spouses were perfect, our children were angels, and our parents were sinless. We sigh: “If only my...
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Jesus “was speaking of God as His own Father, thereby making Himself God’s equal.” —John 5:18 “The reason why” the religious leaders of Jesus’ time were “determined to kill [Jesus] was that He not only was breaking the sabbath but, worse still, was speaking of God as His own Father, thereby making Himself equal to God” (Jn 5:18). Jesus could have possibly spared His life had He simply told the religious authorities that He wasn’t really God, that people were misinterpreting His claims. However, Jesus made it more clear that He was God, and meant to claim that He was...
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