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Message of the Day
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Use me, God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.
- Martin Luther King What "greater purpose" motivates you?
On this MLK Day (U.S.), pray this prayer for guidance and strength.
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Readings of the Day
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1 Samuel 15:16-23
Psalm 50:8-9, 16bc-17, 21 and 23 Mark 2:18-22 One day when
John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, some people came to Jesus and said to him, ‘Why is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?’ Jesus replied, ‘Surely the bridegroom’s attendants would never think of fasting while the bridegroom is still with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they could not think of fasting. But the time will come for the bridegroom to be taken away from them, and then, on that day, they will
fast. No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak; if he does, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and the tear gets worse. And nobody puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins too. No! New wine, fresh
skins!’ USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Scripture
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““Saul answered Samuel: ‘I did indeed obey the Lord.’ ” —1 Samuel 15:20 After blatantly disobeying God, Saul maintained he was obedient. This is typical behavior for human
beings, even for Christians. For example, some Catholic Christians miss Sunday Mass, contracept, ingest pornography on TV, videos, or online, or are racially prejudiced. Then, after committing these serious sins, they go to Holy Communion as if they were obedient to the Lord. Many Christians, like Saul, believe the Lord’s commands are relative and general rather than absolute and specific. When we maintain that we obey God “for the most part,” this is more accurately called
“disobedience.” The Lord commands us to obey Him carefully and exactly (Dt 5:32-33) without “turning aside to the right or to the left” (Dt 5:32). The Lord came not to abolish but to fulfill “the smallest part of a letter” of the Law (Mt 5:18). Jesus obeyed His Father in detail. He did nothing and said nothing except what the Father told Him (Jn 5:19; 12:49). When you love someone, you care about the details of expressing that love. You want everything to be perfect for the
one you love. Obey Jesus accordingly. Prayer: Father, send the Holy Spirit to give me such love that I will obey You in detail. Promise: “The day will come, however, when the Groom will be taken away from them; on that day they will fast.” —Mk 2:20 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 TWO
ACTIONS AND WORDS OF LOVE
32. The heart of Christ, as the symbol of the deepest and most personal source of his love for us, is the very core of the initial preaching of the Gospel. It stands at the origin of our
faith, as the wellspring that refreshes and enlivens our Christian beliefs. ACTIONS THAT REFLECT THE HEART 35. This becomes clear when we see Jesus at work. He seeks people out, approaches them, ever open to an encounter with them. We see it when he stops to converse with the Samaritan woman at the well where she went to draw water (cf. Jn 4:5-7). We see it when, in the darkness of night, he meets Nicodemus, who feared to be
seen in his presence (cf. Jn 3:1-2). We marvel when he allows his feet to be washed by a prostitute (cf. Lk 7:36-50), when he says to the woman caught in adultery, “Neither do I condemn you” (Jn 8:11), or again when he chides the disciples for their indifference and quietly asks the blind man on the roadside, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mk 10:51). Christ shows that God is closeness, compassion and tender love. 36. Whenever
Jesus healed someone, he preferred to do it, not from a distance but in close proximity: “He stretched out his hand and touched him” ( Mt 8:3). “He touched her hand” ( Mt 8:15). “He touched their eyes” ( Mt 9:29). Once he even stopped to cure a deaf man with his own saliva (cf. Mk 7:33), as a mother would do, so that people would not think of him as removed from their lives. “The Lord knows the fine science of the caress. In his compassion, God does not love us with
words; he comes forth to meet us and, by his closeness, he shows us the depth of his tender love”. [27] |
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