Meditation
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DAILY MEDITATION: “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me”
By Admin Webmaster 2/14/2024 5:58:19 AMToday is the first Thursday of Lent. The ashes our Church placed on our foreheads yesterday are still fresh, introducing us into this holy time, a forty-day journey. Jesus, in the Gospel, teaches us two paths: the Way of the Cross that He must walk, and our path in following Him.
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DAILY MEDITATION: "Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them"
By Admin Webmaster 2/13/2024 7:01:49 AMToday we start our itinerary towards Easter, and the Gospel reminds us of the fundamental Christian duties, not only as a preparation for the liturgical time, but also as a preparation for the Eternal Easter: “Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father” (Mt 6, 1).
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DAILY MEDITATION: “Watch out, guard against the leaven of the Pharisees”
By Admin Webmaster 2/12/2024 6:35:17 AMToday, —once again— we can see the wisdom of our Lord Jesus. His behavior is amazing, as it is so different from the rest of the people…, it is original. He has just worked some miracles and now He is going somewhere else where the Grace of God must also reach.
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DAILY MEDITATION: “Amen, I say to you, no sign will be given”
By Admin Webmaster 2/10/2024 7:23:26 PMToday, it looks like the Gospel does not say too much about Jesus or about us. “Why does this generation seek a sign?” (Mk 8, 12). Commenting on this episode of Jesus' life, Saint John Paul II said: “Jesus invites us to discern between the words and the deeds testimony of (or a “sign of”) the arrival of God's Kingdom.”
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DAILY MEDITATION: “If you so wish, you can make me clean”
By Admin Webmaster 2/10/2024 12:45:05 AMToday, the Gospel invites us to contemplate the faith of this leper. We know that, in the times of Jesus, lepers were socially marginalized and considered impure. The healing of the leper foretells the salvation that Jesus proposes to everyone, and calls us to open our hearts so that He can transform them.
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DAILY MEDITATION: “They have nothing to eat”
By Admin Webmaster 2/9/2024 6:32:03 AMTo whom is the Lord calling? The text says: “he summoned the disciples” (Mk 8, 1), that is, He calls me, not to send them home hungry, to give them something to eat. Jesus sympathizes with them —this time in heathen land— because they are hungry.
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DAILY MEDITATION: “He has done all things well”
By Admin Webmaster 2/8/2024 5:40:08 AMToday, the Gospel presents us with a miracle of Jesus: he makes the deaf hear and the mute speak. The people were astonished and said: “He has done all things well” (Mk 7, 37).
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DAILY MEDITATION: “Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him. She came and fell at his feet.”
By Admin Webmaster 2/7/2024 5:59:07 AMToday, we see the faith of a woman who did not belong to God's chosen people, but trusted Jesus could cure her daughter. That mother “was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter” (Mk 7, 26). Pain and love bring her to insistently beg, ignoring scorn, delays or indignities...
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DAILY MEDITATION: "Nothing that enters one from out¬side can make that person unclean"
By Admin Webmaster 2/6/2024 9:18:46 AMToday, Jesus teaches us that God made everything good. But our intentions —which are not always right— may contaminate what we do. This is why Jesus Christ says: “Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.” (Mk 7, 15).
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DAILY MEDITATION: “Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders?”
By Admin Webmaster 2/5/2024 10:09:02 AMToday, we are given to see how some late traditions of the Masters of the Law had actually manipulated the true meaning of the Fourth Commandment of God's Law. Those scribes taught that sons offering money and goods to the Temple were doing well. But, according to these teachings, parents could no longer ask or dispose of these goods.
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DAILY MEDITATION: “And as many as touched it were healed”
By Admin Webmaster 2/4/2024 6:47:44 AMToday, in the Gospel we see the tremendous power of contact with Our Lord’s person: “They laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak; and as many as touched it were healed” (Mk 6, 56). The slightest physical touch can work miracles for those who approach Christ with faith.
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DAILY MEDITATION: “Everyone is looking for you”
By Admin Webmaster 2/3/2024 4:36:31 AMJesus’ hand is extended towards us as we lie overwhelmed by so many evils; it's enough to open our own, and we will find ourselves standing and renewed for service. We can “open” our hand through prayer, taking example from the Lord: "Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed" (Mk 1, 35).
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DAILY MEDITATION: “‘Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.’..."
By Admin Webmaster 2/2/2024 8:29:17 AMJesus tells them: “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” (Mk 6, 31). In God's plans there is a place of rest! But there is more, as our whole existence, with all that entails, must rest in God. An anxious Saint Augustine claims: “You made us for you and our heart is restless while not resting with You.” God's rest is creative; not “anesthetic”: bumping into God's love makes us focus on our heart and our thoughts.
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DAILY MEDITATION: “Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace”
By Admin Webmaster 2/1/2024 6:43:06 AMThe Holy Spirit had assured Simeon “that he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord” (Lk 2, 26), and today, led by the Holy Spirit, he has gone into the Temple. He is not a levite, nor a scribe, nor a doctor of the law, he is just a “righteous and devout man, awaiting the consolation of Israel” (Lk 2, 25). But the Holy Spirit blows where it wills (cf. Jn 3, 8).
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DAILY MEDITATION: “Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two (…).”
By Admin Webmaster 1/31/2024 8:47:15 AMToday, the Gospel refers to the Apostles' first apostolic mission. Jesus Christ sends the Twelve to preach, to heal the sick and to prepare the ways of our definite salvation. This is the mission of the Church, and our mission, too. The II Vatican Council asserted, “Christian vocation is by its very nature a vocation to the apostolate...
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DAILY MEDITATION:“Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him?..."
By Admin Webmaster 1/30/2024 8:20:34 AMToday, God also speaks to us through the Scriptures. At the synagogue, the Scriptures were read and, afterwards, the learned ones commented upon them and explained the sense of the message God wanted to transmit through them. The following thought is attributed to Saint Augustine: “As we speak to God through prayer, God speaks to us through reading.”
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DAILY MEDITATION: “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction.”
By Admin Webmaster 1/29/2024 8:09:28 AMToday, the Gospel presents us with two of Jesus' miracles that speak of the great faith of two entirely different persons. Whether Jairus —an official of the synagogue— or that poor ailing woman, both displayed much faith: Jairus is certain Jesus can cure his daughter, while that good old woman knows that just touching Jesus' robe will be more than enough to deliver her from her very serious bleeding.
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DAILY MEDITATION: “Unclean spirit, come out of the man!”
By Admin Webmaster 1/28/2024 6:27:44 AMToday, we find a fragment of the Gospel that might induce someone to smile. Imagining a herd of some two thousand pigs rushing down a cliff and into a lake, is a sort of funny image. But the truth is that those herdsmen did not find any humor in what had happened; they were very angry and begged Jesus to leave their neighborhood immediately.
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DAILY MEDITATION: “What is this? A new teaching with authority”
By Admin Webmaster 1/26/2024 9:23:42 PMToday, Christ addresses us with His forceful cry, without doubts and with authority: “Quiet! Come out of him!” (Mk 1, 25). He speaks to the evil spirits that live within us and prevent us from being free, as God has created and desired us to be.
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DAILY MEDITATION: “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?”
By Admin Webmaster 1/26/2024 10:10:58 AMToday, we see how our Lord scolds his disciples for their lack of faith: “Do you not yet have faith?” (Mk 4, 40). They had seen demonstrations of His divine power that proved beyond doubt that Jesus Christ was God's Envoy. Nevertheless, some of His closest followers did not believe Him. They did not realize that they should fear nothing because the Lord was with them.
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DAILY MEDITATION: “This is how it is with the kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land…”
By Admin Webmaster 1/25/2024 8:11:44 AMToday, Jesus is telling people about an experience very close to His life: “a man were to scatter seed on the land…, the seed would sprout and grow… Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear” (Mk 4,26-28). With these words Jesus is speaking of the kingdom of God, consisting “of sanctity and grace, Truth and Life, justice, love and peace”...
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DAILY MEDITATION: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature”
By Admin Webmaster 1/24/2024 8:11:44 AMToday, the Church commemorates the conversion of St. Paul, apostle. The short fragment of the Gospel according to St. Mark contains part of the address on the mission bestowed to the apostles by Jesus, resurrected. His exhortation to go out to the whole world and proclaim the Good News includes the thesis that faith and baptism are necessary essentials for salvation...
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DAILY MEDITATION: “The sower sows the word”
By Admin Webmaster 1/23/2024 10:21:38 AMToday, we hear our Lord teaching the “Sower's parable”. The example is very current. Our Lord is always “sowing”. Lots of people today also listen to Jesus through his Vicar —the Pope—, his ministers and... his faithful laymen and women: Christ has given a share in his priestly mission to all of us, who have been baptized.
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DAILY MEDITATION: “... Whoever does the will of God is brother and sister and mother”
By Admin Webmaster 1/22/2024 11:08:03 AMJesus' answer is by no means a rejection towards His relatives. Jesus just moved away from them to follow the divine call and now, He also means that, intimately, He has given them up too: not because of lack of feelings or scorn of His family ties, but because He completely belongs to God the Father. Jesus Christ actually lived what He precisely expects from His disciples.
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DAILY MEDITATION: “But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness”
By Admin Webmaster 1/21/2024 7:11:52 AMToday, when we read about this event in the Gospel we are more than a little surprised when “The scribes who had come from Jerusalem” recognize Jesus' compassion for the oppressed and witness the divine miracles with which He blesses them, but then say, “He is possessed by Beelzebul”, and “By the prince of demons he drives out demons.” (Mk 3, 22).
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DAILY MEDITATION: “Repent, and believe in the gospel.”
By Admin Webmaster 1/19/2024 9:39:19 PMEvery human action connects with God's eternal plan for us and the calling to listen to Jesus, to follow Him in everything and for everything, and to proclaim Him as the first disciples did, as millions have done and we strive to do.
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DAILY MEDITATION: “He is out of his mind”
By Admin Webmaster 1/19/2024 8:17:48 AMToday, we see how Jesus' own relatives react “He is out of his mind” (Mk 3, 21). Once again, the old proverb “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and in his own house” (Mt 13, 57), is seen to be true. It is unnecessary to say this complaint does not “taint” the Blessed Virgin Mary, because from the beginning to the last moment —when she was at the foot of the Cross...
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DAILY MEDITATION: “Jesus went up the mountain and summoned those whom he wanted”
By Admin Webmaster 1/18/2024 9:31:24 AMToday, the Gospel considers the theology of Christian vocation: “The Lord called those he wanted to be with him and sent them to be apostles” (cf. Mk 3,13-14). First, He calls them: For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy (cf. Eph 1, 4). God loves us, shaping us in Christ, encouraging us to develop the characteristics necessary for us to become His children.
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DAILY MEDITATION: “A large number of people came to him also from Jerusalem,..."
By Admin Webmaster 1/17/2024 8:37:58 AMToday, with the baptisms by John in the Jordan still recent, we should all remember the kind of conversion brought about as a result of our baptism. We have all been baptized into one Lord, into one only faith, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (1Co 12, 13). This is the aim of unity: to form a single body, to be a single unity in Christ, so that the world may believe.
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DAILY MEDITATION: “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?”
By Admin Webmaster 1/16/2024 8:03:54 AMToday, Jesus tells us we must always do good: There is no such thing as a time to do good and a time to overlook our love for others. The love we receive through God brings us to the supreme Law that Jesus left us in the new commandment: “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another” (Jn 13, 34).