Tagged: Daily Reflections

12 REASONS TO PRAY FOR THE DEAD

“It is the will of Him Who sent Me that I should lose nothing of what He has given Me; rather, that I should raise it up on the last day.” –John 6:39 When we pray for the dead, we: obey the Lord and His Church, love our neighbor, express our unity with the other members of God’s family, help purify people in purgatory, help those in purgatory to go to heaven, face death and thereby become more aware of reality, express and strengthen our faith in the power of prayer, receive the benefit of the prayers of those in...

THE PATH OF HOLINESS

“Who can ascend the mountain of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place?” –Psalm 24:3 When we are baptized, we become saints, that is, we become holy. We receive a new nature (see Gal 6:15) and become sharers in the divine nature (2 Pt 1:4). In Baptism, we begin the process of becoming holy, that is, of being like God (1 Jn 3:2). To grow in holiness, we should renew our Baptisms daily and continue to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior (see 2 Pt 2:20). Our lives will be a “great period of trial” (Rv...

THE SPIRIT OF SUBMISSION

“Slaves, obey your human masters with the reverence, the awe, and the sincerity you owe to Christ.” –Ephesians 6:5 Everyone should submit to each other (Eph 5:21). Wives should submit to husbands (Eph 5:22), children to parents (Eph 6:1), and employees to employers (Eph 6:5). Those in authority should submit to the Lord (see Eph 6:4, 9). The Lord wants to create an entire culture of submission. If we accept God’s call to be submissive in circumstance after circumstance, we will open ourselves to being filled with the Spirit. The beginning of this teaching on submission in Ephesians is verse...

MEN OF LOVE

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church. He gave Himself up for her.” –Ephesians 5:25 Our modern culture chokes on the opening of today’s first reading, “Wives should be submissive to their husbands” (Eph 5:22). Yet that is not the most radical sentence of this passage. St. Paul’s call for husbands to love their wives, in the same way as Jesus loves the Church, is an extraordinarily radical challenge, both for the culture of Paul’s time, and for every age since. In Paul’s time, wives were considered the property of the husband and had no rights at all....

DIRTY JOKES

“As for lewd conduct or promiscuousness or lust of any sort, let them not even be mentioned among you; your holiness forbids this.” –Ephesians 5:3 As long as they don’t commit adultery or fornication, many people feel they have done all right. Yet the Bible tells us to be pure as Jesus is pure (1 Jn 3:3), not even to look lustfully (Mt 5:28) or mention sexual impurity. So much for dirty jokes and the vast majority of TV programs and commercials. The Lord considers our bodies temples of the Holy Spirit. He’s the Owner of our bodies, including our...