Category: Prayers

“Choose life…by loving the Lord, your God, heeding His voice, and holding fast to Him.” –Deuteronomy 30:19, 20 Moses offered a three-fold plan for God’s people: to love God, to obey what He commands by heeding His Word, and to stay with God by holding fast to Him (Dt 30:19-20). Jesus offered the same plan. He declared: “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (see Jn 14:21; 15:9-10), and stay with Me (Jn 15:5, 7; Mt 26:38). The best way to love, obey, and stay with Jesus is to follow His plan in Luke 9:23: deny ourselves for the purpose...

“Give me back the joy of Your salvation, and a willing spirit sustain in me.” –Psalm 51:14 Why Lent? Some answers are: to return to the Lord with our whole heart (Jl 2:12), to receive God’s grace, mercy, and blessing (Jl 2:13-14), to do penance in fasting, weeping, and mourning (Jl 2:12), to prepare for Easter, to walk with those who are preparing to be baptized at Easter, to prepare to renew our baptismal promises, in obedience to the Holy Spirit and the Church, to “be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20) and others, even our enemies, because “now is...

“Appear not before the Lord empty-handed.” –Sirach 35:4 God’s Word commands us not to come before the Lord empty-handed (Sir 35:4). This means we must come to the Lord with our offerings – with the fruit of our service, finances, parenting, work, and life. Nonetheless, in another sense, we are to appear before the Lord with empty hands – we hold back nothing from the Lord. We offer it all to him. Every physical possession is a gift from Him, and we offer them all back to Him. Our spiritual fruit is His, not ours. We don’t hold on to...

“Return to the Lord and give up sin.” –Sirach 17:20 In today’s eucharistic readings, the Church gives us a Lenten “trailer,” to use movie terminology. Today’s first reading from Sirach fits well on Ash Wednesday, which begins the season of Lent in two days. “Turn again to the Most High and away from sin, hate intensely what He loathes” (Sir 17:21). “Return to the Lord and give up sin, pray to Him and make your offenses few” (Sir 17:20). “But to the penitent He provides a way back” (Sir 17:19). “Happy is he whose fault is taken away, whose sin...

“Praise no man before he speaks, for it is then that men are tested.” –Sirach 27:7 When we open our mouths and speak, we open our inner selves and reveal publicly: our “heart’s abundance” (Lk 6:45), our faults and sins (Sir 27:4), and the bent of our minds (Sir 27:6). Therefore, be “slow to speak” (Jas 1:19), don’t talk too much (Prv 10:19), and “let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for edifying, as fits the occasion, that it may impart grace to those who hear” (Eph 4:29, RSV-CE). “All of us...