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

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TODAY’S WORD…

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Jesus said,

“Turn away from your sins and believe the Good News!”

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– Mark 1:15 (GNT)

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REFLECTION…by Pope Francis…

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“Jesus persuaded people with kindness, with love,

and with His behaviour Jesus touched the depth of people’s heart

and they felt attracted by God’s love and spurred to change their life. […]

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How many times we also feel the need of a change that involves our whole person!

How many times we say to ourselves:

‘I must change, I can’t continue this way …

My life, on this path, won’t bear fruit; it will be a futile life and I won’t be happy.’

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How many times these thoughts come to us, how many times!

… And Jesus, by our side, with His hand extended says to us:

“Come, come to Me. I’ll do the work: I will change your heart;

I will change your life: I will make you happy.”

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But do we believe this or not? […]

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It’s like this. Jesus who is with us invites us to change our life.

It is He, with the Holy Spirit, who sows this anxiety in us to change our life and to be somewhat better.

Therefore, let us follow this invitation of the Lord and not put resistances,

because only by opening to His mercy do we find true life and true joy.

We only have to open the door wide, and He does all the rest.

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He does all,

but we have to open wide our heart so that He can heal us and make us go forward.

I assure you that we will be happier.”

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REPETITIVE PRAYER FOR TODAY…

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Come into my heart, Lord, and change it.

Heal me, change my life, and fill me with Your Truth and Joy!

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TODAY’S WORD…

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Jesus stood and said in a loud voice,

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.

Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said,

rivers of living water will flow from within them.”

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– John 7:37-38 (NIV)

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REFLECTION…

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“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.”

In Ezekiel 47, we read about the torrents of water which would pour out of the temple.

Our Lord presents Himself as He who can fill man’s heart and bring him peace.

Ii is in this connection that St Augustine exclaims:

"You made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you"

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All those who come to Jesus receive new life abundantly.

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PRAYER…

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I am thirsty Lord – fill me with Your Spirit.

I am thirsty Lord – let me drink from the water of life that only You bring.

I thirst for You Lord.

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Revive my spirit with Your living water, that I may know You better;

that I may better recognize Your voice;

that I may be more willing do Your Will;

that I may completely trust in You.

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Lord, fill me till I overflow;

fill me till my heart finds peace;

fill me till my heart is so full of You that streams of living water will flow out onto my loved ones,

onto those I come in contact with every day of my life.

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Amen.

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TODAY’S WORD…

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When the kindness and love of God our Saviour was revealed, He saved us.

It was not because of any good deeds that we ourselves had done,

but because of His own mercy that He saved us,

through the Holy Spirit, who gives us new birth and new life by washing us.

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God poured out the Holy Spirit abundantly on us through Jesus Christ our Savior

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– Titus 3:4-6 (NIV)

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REFLECTION…

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God has a new life for you, because He loves you.

It is a gift. You cannot earn it or deserve it.

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Today’s verses summarise Christian teaching on the Incarnation, the Redemption

and on the application of salvation to the individual.

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The coming of Christ has opened up a new panorama.

The Incarnation is the revelation of God our Saviour,

who makes known His goodness and kindness and love.

Through Christ, He is our Redeemer: "He saved us … because of His own mercy."

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As Christians, our access to salvation is something gratuitous:

without any prior merit on our part, God’s mercy has sought us out;

Baptism is the door to salvation, for it is the sacrament of rebirth and renewal;

the Holy Spirit sent by Christ makes the waters of Baptism effective;

His grace gives life to the soul and entitles it to eternal life.

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PRAYER…

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O wonderful loving Father, thank You for the personal attention that You give me.

Thank you for your mercy of which I am most undeserving.

Thank You for leading me to realise that I need to be renewed;

for planting inside me the desire to be renewed.

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Holy Spirit, I welcome You;

I give You my heart and my intellect, my entire self

– take them, empty them from everything which is not from You

and fill them with Your love.

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Amen.

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TODAY’S WORD…

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Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers,

but fellow citizens with God’s people

and also members of His household,

built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,

with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone.

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In Him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.

And in Him you too are being built together

to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit.

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– Ephesians 2:19-22 (NIV)

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REFLECTION…

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Christ Jesus is the chief cornerstone and this indicates His strength.

The Church is founded on this strong, stable bedrock;

this cornerstone is what gives it its solidity.

Every faithful Christian,

every living stone of this temple of God,

must stay fixed on the solid cornerstone of Christ by cooperating in his or her own sanctification.

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God gives the Holy Spirit so that we can be joined to the body of Christ (the Church, the Christian community).

Our new life in the Spirit allows us to be individually strengthened in faith,

to be more closely united with other Christians in the Church

and to experience a communion with them in the Spirit.

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QUOTE…

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""The Church will shake if its foundation shakes, but can Christ shake?

As long as Christ does not shake, so shall the Church never weaken until the end of time"”

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– St. Augustine

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PRAYER…

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O Lord, my God, I fall to my knees and thank You for Your incredible and boundless love.

Your power is beyond my comprehension.

Your awesome holiness is beyond my understanding.

Yet Your infinite grace is mine because of Your love which cost You so much.

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Thank You for building me up to become a dwelling place for Your Holy Spirit.

Thank You. I am not worthy Lord. Thank You Lord!

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TODAY’S WORD…

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A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.

To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice [the gift of wisdom];

to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge.

The same Spirit gives great faith to another,

and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing.

He gives one person the power to perform miracles,

and another the ability to prophesy.

He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit.

Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages [the gift of tongues],

while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said.

It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts.

He alone decides which gift each person should have.

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– 1 Corinthians 12:7-11

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REFLECTION…

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As we grow in faith in the Holy Spirit in us,

we begin to experience Him working in us in new ways so that we can serve others.

He will equip us with spiritual gifts,

gifts which will give us a new power to do His work.

The diversity of gifts and graces is as important as their basic unity,

because all have the same divine origin and the same purpose – the common good (“so we can help each other”).

By distributing various kinds of spiritual gifts and ministries,

the Holy Spirit enriches the Church of Jesus Christ with different functions

and equips us, the faithful, for the work of service to build up the body of Christ.

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PRAYER…

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My Lord, my Jesus, thank You for sending us the Spirit of Truth.

Thank You for equipping me with all I need to get to know You better.

Give me the grace to accept the gifts of Your Spirit with thankfulness and humility, that I may do Your work;

that I may be a small light in the community;

that I may place You first

and be strengthened to be a witness to others according to Your will.

Amen.

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TODAY’S WORD…

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The fruit of the Spirit

is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,

faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

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– Galatians 5:22-23 (NRSV)

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REFLECTION…

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When the Holy Spirit is released in you, you will begin to experience a new kind of life.

You will know God in a new way.

That new life will grow in you until you become a changed person.

St Paul describes the result by saying:

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

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When we allow ourselves to be led by our instincts,

this is often referred to as “following our animal instinct”.

On the other hand, when we act as our reason advises,

we are leading a rational, human, life.

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Similarly, when one allows the Holy Spirit to act,

one’s life becomes life according to the Spirit

– a supernatural life, a life which is no longer simply human but divine.

This is what happens when a person is in the state of grace

and is mindful of the treasure he or she bears within.

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The soul then becomes a good tree which is known by its fruits.

Its actions reveal the presence of the Divine Advocate, our Protector,

and because of the spiritual delight they give the soul,

these actions are called fruits of the Holy Spirit.

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QUOTE…

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"Those blessed fruits…the Spirit produces

and shows forth in the just, even in this mortal life

– fruits replete with all sweetness and joy.

Such must, indeed, be from the Spirit

who in the Trinity is the love of the Father and the Son,

filling all creatures with immeasurable sweetness.”

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– St. Augustine

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PRAYER…

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My Lord God Almighty,

I want to thank You especially for sending, as promised by Jesus,

the Holy Spirit of truth, to help, guide and console us and to be with us forever.

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Father, I pray,

let the way that I live from now on reflect the fruit of Your Spirit.

Let me be filled to overflowing

with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,

faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

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In Jesus’ holy name I pray. Amen.

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a Light for my path.Psalm 119:105

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TODAY’S WORD…

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Jesus said,

“A new command I give you: Love one another.

As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

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– John 13:34 (NIV).

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REFLECTION…

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The world has degraded the definition of the word “love”

to a sexual activity.

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When Jesus commanded us to love one another,

He was not talking about having sex with one another,

but about loving, purely, like He did;

about generous self-donation without concern for reward.

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Sexual, physical love, if lived in the order willed by God,

is for Christian spouses and helps them more deeply experience

– by uniting them as one –

the beauty and dignity of the unconditional and self-giving love

that they should have for each other.

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Finally, as believers, we know and understand,

that faithfulness to Christ means being faithful to Him as a person

and also to His teachings.

We must never forget what He Himself told us,

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (Jn 14:15)

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QUOTE…

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“Love…does not seek its own interests.”

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– 1 Corinthians 13:5

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“The secularisation of love

consists in detaching human love in all its forms from God,

reducing it to something purely “profane,”

in which God is out of place and even an annoyance.”

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– Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa

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PRAYER…

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Lord God, Almighty Father,

grant that I will love like Your Son Jesus did,

and in accordance to Your will.

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Remove all selfishness from my love for others;

remove all bias from my feelings.

Help me love like Jesus loved.

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Father, because You are Love

my desire is to honour You

in the way in which I express my love

for all those who You place in my path,

for my friends, my family and my spouse.

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Remove from me all misguided notions of self-fulfilling love

and fill me till overflowing with Your glorious love.

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TODAY’S WORD…

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We should throw off everything that hinders us,

especially the sin that clings so easily,

and keep running steadily in the race we have started.

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Let us not lose sight of Jesus,

who leads us in our faith

and brings it to perfection.

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– Hebrews 12:1-2 (JB)

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REFLECTION…

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Faith fills us with hope

and that hope gives us the determination we need to run the race.

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Ours is not a short and easy race

but a long test which calls for endurance

and an ability to cope with pain and fatigue.

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As true believers, we run the race in spite of all obstacles we encounter along the way,

and all the urgings and temptations from everywhere to pull out of the race

and to simply “lie back and enjoy life, because we only live once!”

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Keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus is what will help us get there.

He too ran the race – and how!

He too was tempted to do otherwise – and how!

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Jesus became one like us to show us the way;

to show us, through His own extreme example,

how the race should be run, with faith, hope and joy in our hearts,

and how not to give up,

so as to finally get to that glorious and joyful destination

which God has promised us,

and which we so yearn for.

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QUOTE…

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" To live, grow and persevere in the faith until the end

we must nourish it with the word of God…”

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– Catechism of the Catholic Church – CCC 162

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PRAYER…

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Lead me, Lord; increase my faith; help me as I run the race of life.

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TODAY’S WORD…

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Endure trials for the sake of discipline.

God is treating you as children;

for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline?

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– Hebrews 12:7 (NRSV)

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REFLECTION…

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God is our caring Father who exudes love

and who, for that same reason, disciplines us – training us in endurance and

self-control

so as to mould and strengthen our character and our resolve

as we go through life seeking to reach that ultimate destination He has prepared for us.

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Much in the same manner as innocent little children love their father and trust Him,

so we too should be with God, our Heavenly Father.

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We must love, revere, respect and trust Him,

fear offending Him,

and respect His Divine plan for us.

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QUOTE…

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The fact that God permits physical and even moral evil

is a mystery that God illuminates by His Son Jesus Christ

who died and rose to vanquish evil.

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Faith gives us the certainty that God would not permit an evil

if he did not cause a good to come from that very evil,

by ways that we shall fully know only in eternal life.

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– Catechism of the Catholic Church – CCC 324

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REPETITIVE PRAYER FOR TODAY…

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Abba, Father, guide me with Your love

and lead me to wisdom and discernment as I entrust my all to You.

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TODAY’S WORD…

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Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus,

on whom our faith depends from beginning to end.

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– Hebrews 12:2 (GNT)

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PRAYER…

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I contemplate on You, my Lord Jesus,

and my heart is filled with a meaningful silence,

which my intellect interprets as the presence of God

– a caring, listening, and understanding God,

who sacrificed Himself out of love for me.

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I look at You, my Lord,

and You look at me,

and I know You are God.

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You know me inside out;

You know my thoughts;

You know my past;

You know all there is to know about me

– lead me into my future, O Lord.

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