HOME IMPROVEMENT

“After she and her household had been baptized, she extended us an invitation: ‘If you are convinced that I believe in the Lord, come and stay at my house.’ ” —Acts 16:15

After her conversion, the first words of Lydia, the first convert of the Western world, involved making her home a base for evangelization. Jesus stayed at home for about thirty years before His three years of public ministry. The Church met primarily in homes for its first three hundred years. The Church fathers taught that the Christian home is a “domestic church” (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1656, 1666). The Lord has clearly and repeatedly made the statement that the home is foundational and central to Christianity.

Consequently, Satan tries to destroy our homes through abortion, contraception, promiscuity, unfaithfulness, and divorce. He attacks the home through TV, the Internet, and other forms of media. Satan makes it seem economically necessary to work away from home for most of our waking hours. He has been largely successful in getting meals, education, recreation, medical care, and business taken out of the home. The home is then relegated to a boarding house where residents merely sleep and entertain themselves.

By the power of the risen Christ and with wisdom from the Holy Spirit, let us restore our homes to their crucial place in God’s plan of salvation. Risen Lord Jesus, in these last days of Easter, raise our homes from the ruins of our culture of death.

PRAYER: Father, protect me from being brainwashed.
PROMISE: “When the Paraclete comes, the Spirit of truth Who comes from the Father — and Whom I Myself will send from the Father — He will bear witness on My behalf. You must bear witness as well.” –Jn 15:26-27
PRAISE: Pope St. John I made peace between the emperors of the East and West.