Category: Daily Reflections

“After Jesus was baptized, He came directly out of the water. Suddenly the sky opened and he saw the Spirit of God descend like a dove and hover over Him.” —Matthew 3:16 “Mary” Christmas on this last day of the Christmas season, the celebration of the Baptism of Jesus. The Lord is calling us to end Christmas by going back to Baptism, the beginning of our Christian life. Today is an ideal time to renew our baptismal promises by rejecting Satan, all his works, and all his promises and by believing ever more deeply in the Triune God. When we...

“He must increase, while I must decrease.” —John 3:30 “A controversy about purification arose between John’s disciples and a certain Jew” (Jn 3:25), but John the Baptizer did not join in the dispute because he was committed to living so that Jesus would increase. St. John was losing his popularity to Jesus. When this was brought to his attention, John was completely joyful (Jn 3:29), for he wanted Jesus to increase. John was thrown into prison for stating the truth about the adultery of Herod and Herodias (Jn 3:24; see also Mk 6:17ff). However, John was not intimidated or manipulated,...

“Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee.” —Luke 4:14 On Sunday, the last day of Christmas, our true Love, Jesus, will give us a deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit, the true Christmas Spirit. On Sunday, we will celebrate the Baptism of Jesus, when the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in fulfillment of one of Isaiah’s prophecies (see Lk 4:18; Is 61:1). On that last day of Christmas, we will be given a renewal of our Baptisms and Confirmations. We will have a new Pentecost and a deeper life in the Spirit. We will end Christmas in...

“Love, then, consists in this: not that we have loved God but that He has loved us and has sent His Son as an Offering for our sins.” —1 John 4:10 Every Christmas season, the Lord through the Church calls us to read, pray, and live the first letter of John. In this letter, the Lord calls us His “beloved,” who are called to love one another (1 Jn 4:7). The Lord God even reveals that He is Love and those who abide in Love abide in Him (1 Jn 4:16). Because God is Love, it is most important that...

“Every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh belongs to God, while every spirit that fails to acknowledge Him does not belong to God. Such is the spirit of the antichrist which, as you have heard, is to come; in fact, it is in the world already.” —1 John 4:2-3 Most of us are Christians. That means that we do things not primarily because they are good but because they are ways of imitating Christ. For example, we heal the sick not primarily to help the sick but to imitate Christ, for He heals the sick (see Mt...