Tagged: Prayers in English
“But what I say to you is: offer no resistance to injury.” —Matthew 5:39 Jesus sounds so naive. Everybody knows we must resist injury. Jesus says that after we’ve been hit on one cheek, we should turn the other. We’ll seemingly get killed if we take His advice. However, the Sermon on the Mount is not “advice”; it is the Lord’s command. Nonetheless, we rationalize that Jesus’ message in the Sermon on the Mount is poetic, symbolic, anything but literal. Sometimes Jesus does not speak literally, as when He said to gouge out our eye (Mt 5:29). So we’re tempted...
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“Jesus replied, ‘Blest are you, Simon son of Jonah! No mere man has revealed this to you, but My heavenly Father. I for My part declare to you, you are “Rock,” and on this rock I will build My Church.’ ” —Matthew 16:17-18 Only the Catholic Church would celebrate a chair. We Catholics don’t need much of a reason for a party. The chair represents the authority of the Pope and the unity of the Church. We believe Jesus chose St. Peter as leader of the Church and intended that others succeed Peter as its leader. We rejoice in this...
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“If anyone in this faithless and corrupt age is ashamed of Me and My doctrine, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes with the holy angels in His Father’s glory.” —Mark 8:38 We are never to be ashamed of Jesus (Mk 8:38), His words, or the Gospel (Rm 1:16). We should never be ashamed “of the law of the Most High and His precepts, or of the sentence to be passed upon the sinful” (Sir 42:2). We should never be ashamed of taking measures to be just, cautious, and discreet (Sir 42:3-8). We should always...
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“Your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not allow of favoritism.” —James 2:1 Many Christians do not show partiality, prejudice, or racism by their words. They know this is wrong; so they don’t do it. However, many Christians still show partiality in subtle ways. For example, many Christians choose to live apart from the poor. They may not have asked the Lord about their places of residence. They just assumed that the Lord wanted them to live in the so-called better neighborhoods if they could afford it or even if they couldn’t afford it. These decisions have many...
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“Act on this word. If all you do is listen to it, you are deceiving yourselves.” —James 1:22 The writer of the book of James commands us to be “slow to speak” (Jas 1:19) and to bridle our tongues (Jas 1:26). Between these two references to speech, the writer commands us to be doers of the Word (Jas 1:22, RNAB). The writer may be implying that if we speak too much, we will do too little in living God’s Word. A “big mouth” often does little work. Those who talk too much don’t walk too much. Hot air may not...
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