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"The blameless in their walk are [God's] delight" (Prov. 11:20). Your love for God brings Him joy. Our focus so far this month has been on the joy we experience in knowing and serving Christ. Before we turn our attention to the theme of godliness, I want you to consider two additional aspects of joy: the joy of pleasing God, and how to lose your joy. Pleasing God is our topic for today. Perhaps you haven't given much thought to how you can bring joy to God, but Scripture mentions several ways. Luke 15:7, for example, says, "There will be...

“And [Peter] said to Him, ‘Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You’” (John 21:17). Since God knows all things, He knows our struggles and will help us through them. It’s comforting to know that in the vastness of the universe, I’m not lost in insignificance; God knows me personally. Have you ever wondered if He knows you’re there? Some godly people in Malachi’s time wondered that. Malachi spoke words of judgment against the wicked, but the faithful believers feared that God might forget them and that they too would be consumed by God’s wrath. “Then those...

February 16, 2017 Thursday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Gn 9:1-13God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them:"Be fertile and multiply and fill the earth.Dread fear of you shall come upon all the animals of the earthand all the birds of the air,upon all the creatures that move about on the groundand all the fishes of the sea;into your power they are delivered. Every creature that is alive shall be yours to eat;I give them all to you as I did the green plants. Only flesh with its lifeblood still in it you...

Then the angel that talked with me went forth, and said unto me, Lift up now thine eyes, and see what is this that goeth forth. And I said, What is it? And he said, This is an ephah that goeth forth. He said moreover, This is their resemblance through all the earth. And, behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead: and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah. And he said, This is wickedness. And he cast it into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead upon...

SOURCELoosely translated from the original Italian Drafts Part III: the big "renovations" of Bergoglio "Fra Cristoforo I'll tell you a story. Last Thursday, in one of the Bar present in front of the Porta S. Anna (front of the Vatican State), go out for coffee a Monsignor (very near Bergoglio), in his fifties, and a layman.The discussion falls on "dubia". The Monsignor, with making "sufficient" says: "The Pope will never answer to" dubia "of the 4 cardinal. [He] will never fall to their level. Francis has much bigger projects, which do not stop Italy. The only hitch in this period...

(RNS) Lighten up, Ash Wednesday.A New York-based advocacy group called Parity is asking Christians who favor LGBT equality  — “queer positive Christians,” in their parlance — to show their support by wearing “glitter ash” on their foreheads to mark Ash Wednesday (March 1).Ash Wednesday kicks off the six-week somber season called Lent that leads to Easter, and is usually marked in churches with the color purple. Traditionally, plain gray ashes, blessed by a minister or priest, are smeared on the foreheads of Christians to symbolize repentance.“This is a way for queer Christians and queer-positive persons of faith to say ‘We are here,'”...

February 15, 2017 Wednesday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Gn 8:6-13, 20-22At the end of forty days Noah opened the hatch he had made in the ark,and he sent out a raven,to see if the waters had lessened on the earth.It flew back and forth until the waters dried off from the earth.Then he sent out a dove,to see if the waters had lessened on the earth.But the dove could find no place to alight and perch,and it returned to him in the ark,for there was water all over the earth.Putting out his hand, he...

Then I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a flying roll. And he said unto me, What seest thou? And I answered, I see a flying roll; the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits. Then said he unto me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth: for every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it. I will bring it forth, saith...

“These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (vv. 6–7). - Deuteronomy 6:6–9 Commentators on Scripture during the medieval era developed a complex means of interpreting the Bible known as the quadriga. According to the medieval quadriga, every biblical passage had a fourfold meaning—a literal sense, a moral sense, an allegorical sense, and an anagogical sense. To know the literal or...

February 14, 2017 Memorial of Saints Cyril, Monk, and Methodius, Bishop Reading 1 Gn 6:5-8; 7:1-5, 10When the LORD saw how great was man's wickedness on earth,and how no desire that his heart conceivedwas ever anything but evil,he regretted that he had made man on the earth,and his heart was grieved. So the LORD said:"I will wipe out from the earth the men whom I have created,and not only the men,but also the beasts and the creeping things and the birds of the air,for I am sorry that I made them."But Noah found favor with the LORD. Then the...

"I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it" (Phil. 1:6). God always finishes what He starts. All who love Christ desire to be like Him in spiritual perfection and absolute holiness. We want to please Him in every respect. However, that noble pursuit is often met with frustration and discouragement as human frailties and sin block our pathway. Paul's cry in Romans 7 is ours as well: "That which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I...

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know . . . what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might” (Ephesians 1:18-19). God’s power is seen in creation, preservation, redemption, and resurrection. Think of all the energy we get from the sun, and multiply that by the innumerable stars in space. But God by His great power created all the stars with no effort whatsoever: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and...

Let us keep our eyes fixed on... Jesus, the leader and perfecter of our faith. (Heb 12:2) This verse from the Letter to the Hebrews has become one of my favorites, for it summarizes so concisely the purpose of our faith, that is, to look at Jesus, to learn from him, and to try to be more like him every day. I was reminded of this truth again recently when I came across something Pope Francis said in one of his homilies at the end of the Christmas Season: “Jesus Christ manifested himself; we are invited to know him, to...

February 13, 2017 Monday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Gn 4:1-15, 25The man had relations with his wife Eve,and she conceived and bore Cain, saying,"I have produced a man with the help of the LORD."Next she bore his brother Abel.Abel became a keeper of flocks, and Cain a tiller of the soil.In the course of time Cain brought an offering to the LORDfrom the fruit of the soil,while Abel, for his part,brought one of the best firstlings of his flock.The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering,but on Cain and his offering he...

The Pope has confided to the world that he is worried. We faithful Catholics agree that there are indeed many pressing concerns: *the persecution of Christians increasing throughout the world *the numbers of Catholics practicing their faith decreasing and churches shuttering *Christian marriage and family life being discarded for the hook-up culture the whole-scale murders of millions of babies That list could go on and on - but none of these amounts to a hill of beans in comparison with this matter that weighs heavily on Pope Francis' mind. What might be this pressing concern? In his own words, "When...

Lest the title of this post confuse you, be confused no more. But prepare. Prepare for the Cross which you, dear Catholic, are about to be nailed to. Carry it and use it to strengthen yourself for the fight of our life that is to come sooner than you think. Gosh, how incredible that we get to live this. We were born for this! We heard a few weeks ago that Bergoglio had ordered a review of Liturgiam Authenticum.  First, a little background is in order. Liturgiam Authenticum was an order of Pope John Paul II and concerned the translations of...

February 12, 2017 Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Sir 15:15-20If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you;if you trust in God, you too shall live;he has set before you fire and waterto whichever you choose, stretch forth your hand.Before man are life and death, good and evil,whichever he chooses shall be given him.Immense is the wisdom of the Lord;he is mighty in power, and all-seeing.The eyes of God are on those who fear him;he understands man's every deed.No one does he command to act unjustly,to none does he give license to sin. Responsorial...

This instrumental is informative, has a true story that happened long ago in the late 1950's, the Lord Jesus reveals to me that, He is Real, also the music is the song, God Be With You, Till We Meet Again, accompanied with lyrics, at the bottom of the video. I cover the song with the mandolin.

The Joy of Intercession "Always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all" (Phil. 1:4). Intercessory prayer is a powerful tool in the hands of a righteous person. There's the story of a special nurse who knew the importance of intercessory prayer. Each day she used her hands as instruments of God's love and mercy toward those in her care, so she found it natural to use her hand as a scheme of prayer. Each finger represented someone she wanted to pray for. Her thumb was nearest to her and reminded her to pray for those who...

“The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth” (Psalm 145:18). Understanding God’s omnipresence should encourage us in times of distress and keep us from sinning. It is a great comfort as a Christian to know that God is always present in me both essentially and relationally. No matter what the trial, He is there. Sometimes He might seem faraway, but He’s really no further away than He’s ever been. His promise to us is, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you” (Heb. 13:5). God is always...