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Message of the Day
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Life is an opportunity, benefit from it. Life is beauty, admire it. Life is a dream, realize it. Life is a challenge, meet it. Life is a duty, complete it. Life is a game, play it. Life is a promise, fulfill it. Life is sorrow, overcome it. Life is a song, sing it. Life is a struggle,
accept it. Life is a tragedy, confront it. Life is an adventure, dare it. Life is luck, make it. Life is too precious, do not destroy it. Life is life, fight for it.
- St. Teresa of Calcutta Which of these invitations speak to you at this time?
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Readings of the Day
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1 John 3:22–4:6
Psalm 2:7bc-8,
10-12a Matthew 4:12-17, 23-25 When Jesus heard that John had been arrested,
he withdrew to Galilee.
He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum by the sea,
in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali,
that what had
been said through Isaiah the prophet
might be fulfilled: Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,
the way to the sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles,
the people who sit in darkness
have seen a great light,
on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death
light has arisen. From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say,
“Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He went around all of Galilee,
teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the
Gospel of the Kingdom,
and curing every disease and illness among the people.
His fame spread to all of Syria,
and they brought to him all who were sick with various diseases
and racked with pain,
those who were possessed, lunatics, and paralytics,
and
he cured them.
And great crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, and Judea,
and from beyond the Jordan followed
him. USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Scripture
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“This is how you can recognize God’s Spirit: every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh belongs to God, while every spirit that fails to acknowledge Him does not belong to God.
Such is the spirit of the antichrist.” —1 John 4:2-3
The antichrist “will appear as part of the workings of Satan, accompanied by all the power and signs and wonders at the disposal of falsehood — by every seduction the wicked can devise” (2 Thes 2:9-10). Thus it is humanly impossible to recognize the deceptions of the antichrist who will come at the end of the world and of the spirit of the antichrist which “is in the world already” (1 Jn 4:3).
However, the Lord has provided a way to prevent us from being deceived. The spirit of the antichrist is recognizable because it refuses to acknowledge Jesus in the flesh (1 Jn 4:2).
Prayer: Father, by my obedience to You in Your Word in Your Church, may 2026 be a year of truth and not of deception. Promise: “This is how we know that He remains in us: from the Spirit that He
gave us.” —1 Jn 3:24 Presentation Ministries
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Spiritual Reading
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Dilexi Te: On the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ, by Pope Francis (completed by Pope Leo XIII), 2025.
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/20241024-enciclica-dilexit-nos.html
CHAPTER ONE
THE WORLD CAN CHANGE, BEGINNING WITH THE HEART
30. This in no way implies an undue reliance on our own abilities. Let us never forget that our hearts are not self-sufficient, but frail and wounded. They possess an ontological
dignity, yet at the same time must seek an ever more dignified life. [23] The Second Vatican Council points out that “the ferment of the Gospel has aroused and continues to arouse in human hearts an unquenchable thirst for human dignity”. [24] Yet to live in accordance with this dignity, it is not enough to know the Gospel or to carry out mechanically its demands. We need the help of God’s love. Let us turn, then, to the heart of Christ, that core of his being, which is a blazing furnace of
divine and human love and the most sublime fulfilment to which humanity can aspire. There, in that heart, we truly come at last to know ourselves and we learn how to love. 31. In the end, that Sacred Heart is the unifying principle of all reality, since “Christ is the heart of the world, and the paschal mystery of his death and resurrection is the centre of history, which, because of him, is a history of salvation”. [25] All
creatures “are moving forward with us and through us towards a common point of arrival, which is God, in that transcendent fullness where the risen Christ embraces and illumines all things”. [26] In the presence of the heart of Christ, I once more ask the Lord to have mercy on this suffering world in which he chose to dwell as one of us. May he pour out the treasures of his light and love, so that our world, which presses forward despite wars, socio-economic disparities and uses of technology
that threaten our humanity, may regain the most important and necessary thing of all: its heart. |
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