Category: Prayers

“When Peter saw this, he addressed the people as follows…” –Acts 3:12 Mass Readings: April 5 First: Acts 3:11-26; Resp: Psalm 8:2,5-9; Gospel: Luke 24:35-48 Listen to the Mass Readings When Peter preached the next time after Pentecost, the Lord led many to believe. “The number of the men came to about five thousand” (Acts 4:4). In this preaching, Peter proclaimed that: God healed the lame man to glorify Jesus (Acts 3:13). His fellow Israelites and all of us “disowned the Holy and Just One” (Acts 3:14) and “put to death the Author of life” (Acts 3:15). “God raised [Jesus]...

“Jesus approached and began to walk along with them.” –Luke 24:15 Mass Readings: April 4 First: Acts 3:1-10; Resp: Psalm 105:1-4,6-9; Gospel: Luke 24:13-35 Listen to the Mass Readings Jesus wants to give us a real Easter. He wants to come to us in a new way and manifest His risen glory. He may come to us as a stranger criticizing us and saying: “What little sense you have! How slow you are to believe!” (Lk 24:25) Jesus may open our eyes to His risen presence by interpreting the Scriptures (Lk 24:27) and breaking the bread of the Eucharist (Lk...

“She supposed He was the gardener.” –John 20:15 Mass Readings: April 3 First: Acts 2:36-41; Resp: Psalm 33:4-5,18-20,22; Gospel: John 20:11-18 Listen to the Mass Readings Mary Magdalene stood at the foot of Jesus’ cross on Good Friday (Jn 19:25). “In the place where He had been crucified there was a garden,” and in this garden Jesus was buried (Jn 19:41-42). Jesus had earlier prophesied that “unless the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat. But if it dies, it produces much fruit” (Jn 12:24). This garden at Calvary contained the...

“They, in turn, convened with the elders and worked out their strategy, giving the soldiers a large bribe.” –Matthew 28:12 Mass Readings: April 2 First: Acts 2:14,22-33; Resp: Psalm 16:1-2,5,7-11; Gospel: Matthew 28:8-15 Listen to the Mass Readings Satan’s first attempt to keep the great news of Jesus’ Resurrection from a world enslaved by death was to bribe the guards at Jesus’ tomb. Money from large international organizations is being used “to this very day” (Mt 28:15) in prodigious amounts to finance the culture of death and temporarily obscure the message of the Resurrection. Although this approach has had both...

“They killed Him, finally, hanging Him on a tree, only to have God raise Him up on the third day.” —Acts 10:40 “God did not make death” (Wis 1:13), “for God formed man to be imperishable; the image of His own nature He made him. But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world” (Wis 2:23-24). “The devil, the prince of death” made us his lifelong slaves by manipulating us through our fear of death (Heb 2:14-15). Thus, “sin reigned through death” (Rm 5:21). After millennia of death’s tyranny over the human race, Jesus was conceived and born...