Category: Bible Reading & Meditation

WATER-FALLS?

“Then He brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw water flowing out from beneath the threshold of the temple toward the east.” –Ezekiel 47:1 Ezekiel saw a vision of a miraculous trickle of water flowing from the Temple and becoming a great river of life. St. John, the apostle and evangelist, saw the same river as a picture of heaven (Rv 22:1ff). By baptizing us and giving us a new nature, Jesus has made our bodies temples of the Holy Spirit (see 1 Cor 6:19). He promises that rivers of living water will flow out...

WHAT’S YOUR SIGN?

“This was the second sign that Jesus performed.” –John 4:54 In John’s Gospel, Jesus worked seven signs (miracles) “to help you believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, so that through this faith you may have life in His name” (Jn 20:31): 1) changing water into wine at a wedding (Jn 2:1-12), 2) a remote healing of a royal official’s son (Jn 4:46-54), 3) curing a man who was ill for thirty-eight years (Jn 5:1ff), 4) multiplying the loaves and fishes (Jn 6:1-14), 5) walking on the water (Jn 6:19), 6) giving sight to the man born...

KEEPING PROMISES IN THE PROMISED LAND

“On that same day after the Passover on which they ate of the produce of the land, the manna ceased. No longer was there manna for the Israelites, who that year ate of the yield of the land of Canaan.” –Joshua 5:11-12 Each day for forty years, God fed the Israelites with miraculous manna from heaven. When they had entered the promised land and their first harvest was complete, “the manna ceased” (Jos 5:12). What a loving, providing Father our God is! For the forty days of Lent, we, like the Israelites, are journeying through the desert of self-denial toward...

MISPLACED CONFIDENCE

“What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah?” –Hosea 6:4 The Israelite worshippers sang a hymn which expressed their confidence that God would respond favorably to their offerings and sacrifices: “He will heal us…He will bind our wounds…He will raise us up, to live in His presence…as certain as the dawn is His coming” (Hos 6:1-3). Jesus painted a similar picture in today’s Gospel reading. The Pharisee offered sacrifices of tithes, fasting, and a life of holy deeds (Lk 18:11-12). Just as his ancestors did, he prayed confidently to God, offering another splendid sacrifice...

LOVE LETTER

“You shall conceive and bear a Son and give Him the name Jesus. Great will be His dignity and He will be called Son of the Most High.” –Luke 1:31-32 Today we remember the astonishing fact that God became a baby — a tiny human being attached to the wall of a teenage girl’s uterus. The almighty, infinite God became human flesh smaller than your fingernail. No one ever imagined it or prayed for it. God’s Incarnation was so astounding that to the present day we don’t know what to think of it. Why would He do such a thing?...