Category: Memory Verse

“…not turning your back on your own.” –Isaiah 58:7 It is possible for our Lenten fasting to have the effect of focusing on ourself. For example, we focus on our hunger pains, our weight loss, our inconvenience, our lightheadedness. Fasting that centers on ourself is not the kind of fasting the Lord wishes (see Is 58:5). Are our days of fasting only leading us to complain to the Lord, “Why do we fast, and You do not see it? afflict ourselves, and You take no note of it?” (Is 58:3) To such fasting, the Lord responds: “Was it really for...

“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...