A LAMP TO MY FEET. A LIGHT FOR MY PATH.

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TODAY’S WORD…

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Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.

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– Psalm 51:10 (NRSV)

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REFLECTION…

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Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.

This is a prayer of the true penitent and believer;

a prayer of wonderful faith in God’s pardoning and renewing love.

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This is a prayer of bold hope in God’s healing grace

– that divine grace which helps us recognise and acknowledge our weaknesses;

cleanses and renews our heart;

builds up our faith and determination;

and keeps us close to Him.

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REPETITIVE PRAYER FOR TODAY…

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Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.

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TODAY’S WORD…

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Give all your worries and cares to God,

for He cares about you.

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– 1 Peter 5:7 (NLT)

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REFLECTION…

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The Lord has not promised us that we will avoid all worries, cares and difficulties.

However, He would like us, in faith, to entrust them to Him

and has promised us the strength to overcome them

– if we ask Him for it.
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Let us trust in God, therefore.

He takes care of us,

He is concerned about our lives!

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Let us place our full trust in Jesus,

and He will carry us through.

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REPETITIVE PRAYER FOR TODAY…

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Jesus, I trust in You.

Help me, Lord, please give me the strength!

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TODAY’S WORD…

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Whenever you face trials of any kind,

consider it nothing but joy,

because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

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– James 1:2-3 (NRSV)

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REFLECTION…

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Everyday adversity: problems, trials, temptations

– all these test our faith.

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These trials act as a test of perseverance in the pursuit of good

and help the soul to grow in patience,

which is a much needed virtue

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Being patient and steadfast

reflects enduring perseverance,

and is quite different

from the mere passive endurance of suffering.

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Being patient and steadfast,

comes from the virtue of fortitude

and leads one to accept suffering as something sent by God.

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Fortitude is grounded on hope

and on faith put to the test;

and it is also very fruitful,

and produces immense and infectious Christian joy!

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REPETITIVE PRAYER FOR TODAY…

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Lord, thank You for all the blessings You have given me

– in good times and in bad I will praise You!

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TODAY’S WORD…

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A leper came to Jesus

and pleaded on his knees:

“If You want to” he said “You can cure me.”

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– Mark 1:40 (TJB)

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REFLECTION…

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This leper’s plea is the perfect example

of how, as true believers, we should pray to God.

On our knees we implore,

“Lord, ‘if You want to, You can cure me.’”

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Rather than a straightforward request, “Please cure me…”,

we subject ourselves to God’s will

and, full of faith and hope,

we must trust fully in Him

and be ready to accept

that He may not cure us,

if for whatever divine reason, it is not His will.

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God does not always respond to our desires,

and He frequently allows circumstances we wish He would not.

Our requests will not always coincide with His purpose

nor, therefore, with His response.

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Jesus, as always, gave us the perfect example

when, in the Garden of Gethsemane, He prayed in anguish:

"Father, if You are willing,

take this cup from me;

yet not my will but Yours be done." (Lk 22:42)

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On that occasion,

Jesus still had to endure the Cross;

but on the third day He rose victorious

…and we were saved!

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Why God permits that one is healed and another not,

only He, in His wisdom, knows,

but if we believe in Him and Trust in Him and in His purpose,

then we must cling to His goodness

and follow the example of His Son.

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REPETITIVE PRAYER FOR TODAY…

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Lord, I trust in You – Your will be done.

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TODAY’S WORD…

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“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things,
and desperately wicked.
Who really knows how bad it is?
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But I, the Lord, search all hearts
and examine secret motives.
I give all people their due rewards,
according to what their actions deserve.”

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– Jeremiah 17:9-10 (NLT)

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REFLECTION…

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God cannot be deceived;

He sees right into the heart of each and every one of us,

judging us individually on our merits.

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Think about your real self,

turn to those deep recesses of your being

where God who probes the heart awaits you,

and where you yourself decide your own destiny in the sight of God.

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How am I truly now, in the eyes of the Lord?

Are my heart and conscience clean?

Are my thoughts pure?

Are my motives genuine and loving?

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REPETITIVE PRAYER FOR TODAY…

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Here I am Lord, search me.

Shine Your light on my soul and revive it;

in my heart and renew it.

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TODAY’S WORD…

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Jesus said,

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son,

so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish

but may have eternal life.”

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– John 3:16 (NRSV)

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REFLECTION…

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How precious we must be in the eyes of the Creator,

if we gained so great a Redeemer,

and if God `gave His only Son’

in order that we `may not perish but may have eternal life.’

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How precious we must be in God’s eyes!

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QUOTE…

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“‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son’ for its salvation.

All our religion is a revelation of God’s kindness, mercy and love for us.

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`God is love’ (1 Jn 4:16), that is, love poured forth unsparingly.

All is summed up in this supreme truth, which explains and illuminates everything.

The story of Jesus must be seen in this light.

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`(He) loved me’, St. Paul writes.

Each of us can and must repeat it for himself

– `He loved me, and gave Himself for me’ (Gal 2:20)."

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– Blessed Pope Paul VI

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REPETITIVE PRAYER FOR TODAY…

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Jesus, You loved me, and You gave Yourself for me.

Thank You, Jesus. I love You, Jesus. Forgive me Jesus.

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TODAY’S WORD…

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We know that we have come to know Jesus

if we keep His commands.

Whoever says, ‘I know Him,’ but does not do what He commands is a liar,

and the truth is not in that person.

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But if anyone obeys His word,

love for God is truly made complete in them.

This is how we know we are in Him:

whoever claims to live in Him must live as Jesus did.

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– 1 John 2:3-6 (NIV)

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REFLECTION…

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Knowing God is not a merely intellectual exercise

– the immensity of God can not be grasped by man’s limited understanding.

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Knowing the Lord refers to something much simpler and more important:

it means being united to Him by faith and love – by grace.

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True knowledge of the Lord consists in,

doing what He commands,

obeying His word,

and, above all, Christians must identify their life with Christ’s

and live as He did.

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QUOTE…

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"Walk as He walked:

does that not mean giving up the comforts He gave up,

not being afraid of the kind of trials He bore,

teaching what He taught […],

persevering in helping even those who show no appreciation,

praying for one’s enemies,

being kind to evildoers,

serenely tolerating the proud?"

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– St. Prosper

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REPETITIVE PRAYER FOR TODAY…

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Lord, help me be more like You.

Increase in me while I decrease, and let me serve You with all my heart and with all my soul.

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TODAY’S WORD…

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Jesus said,

“It is what comes from inside that defiles you.

For from within, out of a person’s heart,

come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder,

adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit,

lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.

All these vile things come from within;

they are what defile you.”

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– Mark 7:20-23 (NLT)

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REFLECTION…

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The road to sin begins in our thought life.

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Evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder,

adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit,

lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness

– all of these start off as a thought or emotion.

They become sin when we, for whatever reason,

allow ourselves to consider, fantasise and dwell on such thoughts,

which can often leads to actually acting them out.

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As professed Christians,

we should reflect deeply on what Jesus is warning us about,

and take a firm decision to repel and renounce such thoughts, desires and emotions.

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QUOTE…

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“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing.

Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honourable, and right,

and pure, and lovely, and admirable.

Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”

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– St. Paul (Phil 4:8)

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REPETITIVE PRAYER FOR TODAY…

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Lord Jesus, You are my Light.

Come and remove all the darkness from my heart.

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TODAY’S WORD…

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If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels,

but didn’t love others,

I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

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If I had the gift of prophecy,

and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge,

and if I had such faith that I could move mountains,

but didn’t love others,

I would be nothing.

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If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body,

I could boast about it;

but if I didn’t love others,

I would have gained nothing.

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– 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (NLT)

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REFLECTION…

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The love – charity – which God wants us to practice and live by

has nothing to do with selfish desire for physical passionate possession;

nor is it restricted to mere donation of money or goods,

whose motivation is purely humanitarian.

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Love is not to be confused with passion and desire,

nor with sentimentality or mere good fellowship.

Love must also not be confused with that somewhat questionable zeal to help others in order to convince ourselves of how good we are.

That is why if I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body

…but if I didn’t love others,

I would have gained nothing.

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Charity is that love which is to be found in the new order of things established by Christ;

its origin, context and purpose are radically new;

it is born of the love of God for men,

a love so intense that He sacrificed His only-begotten Son.

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“We love because He first loved us.” (1 Jn 4:19)

We Christians are enabled to respond to this love of God

by this gift of the Holy Spirit, charity,

and by virtue of this divine love, we discover God in our neighbour:

we recognise that we are all children of the one Father

and brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ.

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If we are not living by the love that originates from God’s love for us,

then we are not loving God in return,

nor are we truly loving others for His sake.

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The conclusion, therefore, can not be more emphatic:

if I do not live by the love that originates from God’s love for me,

then I would be nothing

and I would have gained nothing.

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REPETITIVE PRAYER FOR TODAY…

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Jesus, help me love like You love and help me gain eternal life.

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TODAY’S WORD…

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Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light to my path.

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– Psalm 119:105 (NRSV)

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REFLECTION…

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…from the ‘Breviloquium’ of St Bonaventure

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The stream of Holy Scripture flows not from human research

but from revelation by God.

It springs from the Father of lights,

from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth takes its name.

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From Him, through His Son Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit flows into us;

and through the Holy Spirit, giving, at will, different gifts to different people, comes the gift of faith,

and through faith Jesus Christ has His dwelling in our hearts.

This is the knowledge of Jesus Christ

which is the ultimate basis of the solidity and wisdom of the whole of Holy Scripture.

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From all this it follows

that it is impossible for anyone to start to recognise Scripture for what it is

if he does not already have faith in Christ infused into him.

Christ is the Lamp that illuminates the whole of Scripture:

He is its gateway and its foundation.

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It is this this faith that is behind all the supernatural enlightenments that we receive

while we are still separated from the Lord and on our pilgrimage.

It makes our foundation firm,

it directs the light of the Lamp,

it leads us in through the gateway.

It is the standard against which the wisdom that God has given us should be measured,

so that no-one should exaggerate his real importance,

but everyone must judge himself soberly by the standard of the faith God has given him.

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The substance and fruit of Holy Scripture is very specific:

the fullness of eternal happiness.

For this is what Scripture is – its words are words of eternal life,

and it is written not just so that we should believe,

but specially so that we should possess eternal life

in which we may see, and love, and have all our desires fulfilled.

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When they are fulfilled,

then we shall know the superabundant love that comes from knowledge,

and so we shall be filled with all the fullness of God. […]

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REPETITIVE PRAYER FOR TODAY…

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Your Word, O God, is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.

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