Tagged: memory verse

“The Lord has made His salvation known.” —Psalm 98:2 God can work through us or despite us. Certainly, He would prefer to work through us. However, lest we think that we are irreplaceable, the Church holds up Jonah as a sign for us (Lk 11:29). The fruit which God produced through Jonah was remarkable, for an entire city repented and turned to the Lord (Jon 3:10). But first Jonah had to spend three days “buried” inside a great fish (Jon 2:1). Then on the third day, Jonah received a new life, a foreshadowing of Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead on...

“Please let me, your servant, have two mule-loads of earth, for I will no longer offer holocaust or sacrifice to any other god except to the Lord.” —2 Kings 5:17 When Naaman, the healed Syrian general and leper, took two mule-loads of Jewish dirt back home with him, he was literally breaking new ground in his relationship with the Lord. We too must guard against “getting in a rut” in our love for the Lord. We must always be seeking to grow more deeply in love with Him, or we put ourselves in danger of falling away from loving Him...

“Next it goes out and returns with seven other spirits far worse than itself, who enter in and dwell there. The result is that the last state of the man is worse than the first.” —Luke 11:26 When someone is freed from an unclean spirit, seven other spirits more wicked than the first one can return to the person, if he opens the door to demons through his unrepented sins. Pope St. John Paul II called for a “new evangelization.” By this, he meant the evangelization of nations and cultures which were formerly Christian but have lost the faith. When...