Category: Prayers

“Come to the water!” —Isaiah 55:1 Our heavenly Father repeatedly commands us to come. He commands: “All you who are thirsty, come to the water!” (Is 55:1) He commands the poor to “come, receive grain and eat” (Is 55:1) and to come, “drink wine and milk” (Is 55:1). Next, our Father commands us to come specifically to Him. He says: “Come to Me heedfully, listen, that you may have life” (Is 55:3). If we come to Him, He will renew with us the everlasting covenant (Is 55:3). Jesus Himself tells us: “Come to Me” (Mt 11:28). We obey our Father’s...

“This man does not deserve death; it is in the name of the Lord, our God, that he speaks to us.” —Jeremiah 26:16 God’s Word is a two-edged sword (Heb 4:12), which comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. When God’s Word and our wills cross, we are tempted to blame the teacher, preacher, pastor, or prophet. We blame the mail-carrier for the mail. The Israelites did this to Jeremiah. He insisted that the Israelites argument wasn’t with him but with the Lord Who had sent him (Jer 26:15). The religious authorities of Jesus’ day confused the messengers with the...

“If you disobey Me, not living according to the law I placed before you and not listening to the words of My servants the prophets, whom I send you constantly though you do not obey them…” –Jeremiah 26:4-5 At daily Mass, we have been reading from the prophet Jeremiah for about ten days. We will continue to read from Jeremiah for another week. Day after day, we read that God’s Word spoken through Jeremiah and almost all other prophets was not accepted. The hardness of the human heart is so great that even Jesus, the greatest Prophet, was not accepted...

God “tried again.” –Jeremiah 18:4 In business, a common saying is: “Why is there never time to do the job right the first time, but always time to do it over again?” Have you ever worked hard at a project, only to have a co-worker spoil the end result through carelessness or sabotage? Now you must “try again” through no fault of your own. Can you remember a situation of which you could say: “I thought I had toiled in vain, and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength”? (Is 49:4) Hold that situation in memory. Now picture the Lord at...

” ‘Do you believe this?’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ she replied. ‘I have come to believe that You are the Messiah, the Son of God: He Who is to come into the world.’ ” –John 11:26-27 St. Martha went out to meet Jesus on the road near her home. At this place on the road, Jesus challenged and graced Martha to believe that He is the Resurrection and the Life (Jn 11:25-26). Martha responded by making what is possibly one of the greatest acts of faith ever (Jn 11:27). Thus, this place on the road became a place of faith. Jesus stopped...