CatholicJules.net

By Catholicjules.net

Here are some questions for you to help you discern…

• Is Sunday a day of obligation which you have to attend or do you yearn to attend the Eucharistic Celebration on your own accord?
• Do you attend Mass to see and be seen?
• Do you get upset when your usual seat is taken?
• Do you gossip before,during or even after the Eucharistic Celebration?
• Do you have a reverence for the Lord our God in that you would not dress inappropriately and immodestly? And that you do not use your mobile phone in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament or the Altar? Also you do not talk as to distract others in prayer?
• Do you consciously/unconsciously litter in God’s house? Do you see litter and yet not clear it because you did not put it there in the first place?
• Are you obedient to the Pope our father, to his teaching and council?
• Do you sing the hymns with vigour?
• Are you able to understand the Liturgy of the Word? Do you even know what this means?
• Are you able to draw connections between the New and the Old Testaments in the readings and the Gospel?
• Do you reflect on the Word said during the Mass for the rest of the week?
• Do you feel the Lord’s presence and if not do you know that he is?
• Do you say the Creed with conviction and do you fully understand your declaration?
• Do you know and understand the Sacraments of the Church?
• Do you feel love for your brethren?
• Do you pray for your brethren, especially for the least of your brethren?
• Are you able to feel constant peace and joy in your life?
• Have you forgiven?
• Are you in communion with the brethren (especially the least of)  in your Church and in all the other Churches?
• Are you able to speak the Truth everyday in your life?
• Are you able to share your faith with others?
• Do you make an effort to deepen your faith?
• Do you have a personal relationship with God, Jesus your saviour and Blessed Mother Mary?
• Do you pray daily and often enough to strengthen your relationship?
• Do you know and treat your body as the temple of God? (Do you drink excessively or smoke?, or abuse it in someway)
• Do you think it is okay to view or treat women /men as objects? ( esp. in Movies,Television,Magazines etc.)
• Are you Pro-Life or Pro-Choice?
• “We are a Catholic Family“, Do you know this?
• Do you try your very best each and every time to see Jesus in others?
• Do you try your very best each and every time to be Jesus for others?

These two readings, followed by the Gospel was taken from a morning Mass. See how beautifully interwoven it is? Also if you reflect on all three, you will see just how wonderful it is to be Church.

Come, let us worship Christ, whose bride is the Church.

First reading

Ezekiel 47:1-2,8-9,12

The angel brought me to the entrance of the Temple, where a stream came out from under the Temple threshold and flowed eastwards, since the Temple faced east. The water flowed from under the right side of the Temple, south of the altar. He took me out by the north gate and led me right round outside as far as the outer east gate where the water flowed out on the right-hand side. He said, ‘This water flows east down to the Arabah and to the sea; and flowing into the sea it makes its waters wholesome. Wherever the river flows, all living creatures teeming in it will live. Fish will be very plentiful, for wherever the water goes it brings health, and life teems wherever the river flows. Along the river, on either bank, will grow every kind of fruit tree with leaves that never wither and fruit that never fails; they will bear new fruit every month, because this water comes from the sanctuary. And their fruit will be good to eat and the leaves medicinal.’

Second reading

1 Corinthians 3:9-11,16-17

We are fellow workers with God; you are God’s farm, God’s building. By the grace God gave me, I succeeded as an architect and laid the foundations, on which someone else is doing the building. Everyone doing the building must work carefully. For the foundation, nobody can lay any other than the one which has already been laid, that is Jesus Christ. Didn’t you realise that you were God’s temple and that the Spirit of God was living among you? If anybody should destroy the temple of God, God will destroy him, because the temple of God is sacred; and you are that temple.

Gospel

John 2:13-22

Just before the Jewish Passover Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and in the Temple he found people selling cattle and sheep and pigeons, and the money changers sitting at their counters there. Making a whip out of some cord, he drove them all out of the Temple, cattle and sheep as well, scattered the money changers’ coins, knocked their tables over and said to the pigeon-sellers, ‘Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father’s house into a market.’ Then his disciples remembered the words of scripture: Zeal for your house will devour me. The Jews intervened and said, ‘What sign can you show us to justify what you have done?’ Jesus answered, ‘Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews replied, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this sanctuary: are you going to raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking of the sanctuary that was his body, and when Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the words he had said.

‘We are the Church of Christ, from Mother Church to Mother Church.”