Tagged: Daily Reflection

“The mother…saw her seven sons perish in a single day, yet bore it courageously because of her hope in the Lord.” –2 Maccabees 7:20 The Seleucids who persecuted the Jewish people at the time of the Maccabean revolt were terrorists. They did not just kill their enemies but did it in such a way as to try to intimidate them. For example, they did not just kill seven Jewish brothers but scalped, dismembered, and fried them one by one, while forcing the remaining brothers and their mother to watch every brutal act. The Seleucids planned that the mother’s anguish would...

“I will leave to the young a noble example of how to die willingly and generously for the revered and holy laws.” –2 Maccabees 6:28 Jesus said: “Whoever loses His life for My sake will save it” (Lk 9:24). “Unless a 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). Eleazar gave a fabulous example to young people of how to live and die for the Lord (2 Mc 6:31). In the very next chapter of 2 Maccabees, seven young men were brutally...

“A blind man sat at the side of the road begging. Hearing a crowd go by the man asked, ‘What is that?’ The answer came that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by.” –Luke 18:35-37 Imagine if you were color-blind and nearsighted with impaired peripheral vision. Could you see? Yes. Would you need healing of your vision? Absolutely. Likewise, we can see spiritually but “we see indistinctly, as in a mirror” (1 Cor 13:12). We should not let the fact that we have some vision keep us from crying out to Jesus for vision good enough to live His abundant life....

“When you see these things happening, you will know that He is near, even at the door.” –Mark 13:29 Immediately before the end of the world, we will have “trials of every sort” (Mk 13:24). “It shall be a time unsurpassed in distress since nations began until that time” (Dn 12:1). “Indeed, had the Lord not shortened the period, not a person would be saved. But for the sake of those He has chosen, He has shortened the days” (Mk 13:20). We will see a mass apostasy from our Christian faith, as the “man of lawlessness,” the Anti-Christ, is revealed...

“I tell you, He will give them swift justice.” –Luke 18:8 There’s a certain kind of prayer that results in “swift justice.” God will not delay long over us when we pray in this way (Lk 18:7). In this way of prayer, we call out to God “day and night” (Lk 18:7) and realize that at all times, even at the best of times, we are in desperate need of God. In this prayer, we cry out: “Save us by Your power, and help me, who am alone and have no one but You, O Lord” (Est C:25). We pray...