Category: Prayers

“Joseph her husband, an upright man unwilling to expose her to the law, decided to divorce her quietly.” –Matthew 1:19 When St. Joseph did not divorce Mary, he made one of the greatest acts of faith in history. Humanly speaking, he had every reason to divorce her. The only thing dissuading Joseph from the divorce was a dream he had in which an angel told him to take Mary as his wife (Mt 1:20). Enlightened by this dream, Joseph did not divorce Mary (Mt 1:24). Thus he did not divorce Jesus, the Baby in Mary’s womb. Like Joseph, we all...

“Pardon our sins for Your name’s sake.” –Psalm 79:9 The prophet Ezekiel explains that God delivered His sinful people to uphold the greatness of His own name throughout the nations (Ez 36:22). It was important to the Lord that He would not be regarded by the pagans as a fickle God Who promised to be God of His people, but then abandoned them when they strayed from Him. Justice is on God’s side (see Dn 9:7); yet even more than being just, God is compassionate and merciful (Dn 9:9; Ps 103:8; Ex 34:6). Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI even made the...

“Unfortunately, many go about in a way which shows them to be enemies of the cross of Christ.” –Philippians 3:18 Jesus commanded us to take up our crosses each day (Lk 9:23). A Roman cross existed only for the purpose of causing a person’s death. A daily cross is daily dying to self. This is the ultimate life of love, which is the greatest expression of freedom. However, a life of daily crosses and daily dyings requires so much love that we may not choose this life of selfless love and thereby be paralyzed by selfishness and fear. Only by...

“This will prove that you are sons of your heavenly Father, for His sun rises on the bad and the good, He rains on the just and the unjust.” –Matthew 5:45 We Christians maintain we are adopted sons and daughters of the perfect, all-holy, infinite Father Who created everything. This seems to be an outlandish claim, but we believe it is true, and we base our lives and afterlives on it. We believe God the Father adopted us when we were baptized because: He told us so through the Church and her Scriptures (see Rm 8:15). Our lives have been...

“The Lord’s way is not fair!” –Ezekiel 18:25 When someone, even God, acts in a way contrary to our standards, we claim that the person is unfair. When we begin to see how God does things, we move toward the conclusion that God’s thoughts and ways are very different than ours (Is 55:8-9). Then we are tempted to “say, ‘The Lord’s way is not fair!’ ” (Ez 18:25) One of our standards is to “rest on our laurels,” to take it easy after we’ve already worked hard. This standard may be acceptable in some cases, but it is never acceptable...