Archive for November 21, 2014

On Today’s Gospel

Posted: November 21, 2014 by CatholicJules in Personal Thoughts & Reflections

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Why do we hold on so tightly to this world? Why can we not see the plan of our Heavenly Father for us? Eternal life with Him together with the saints, our brethren who had returned to Him before us? His great love for us manifested through the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. So that through Him with can share eternal life with Him.

While we are on our pilgrim journey, we have been empowered by the Holy Spirit. We have various gifts on hand to bring the love of God into the hearts of unbelievers. So that they too might have a share of our heavenly inheritance. As they strive to turn away from sin and lead lives worthy of their calling to be children of God our Father.

Lord Jesus Christ Son of the living God, You have given me new life. And I want to always live it out with and in You. Amen

First reading
Apocalypse 11:4-12

I, John, heard a voice saying: ‘These, my two witnesses, are the two olive trees and the two lamps that stand before the Lord of the world. Fire can come from their mouths and consume their enemies if anyone tries to harm them; and if anybody does try to harm them he will certainly be killed in this way. They are able to lock up the sky so that it does not rain as long as they are prophesying; they are able to turn water into blood and strike the whole world with any plague as often as they like. When they have completed their witnessing, the beast that comes out of the Abyss is going to make war on them and overcome them and kill them. Their corpses will lie in the main street of the Great City known by the symbolic names Sodom and Egypt, in which their Lord was crucified. Men out of every people, race, language and nation will stare at their corpses, for three-and-a-half days, not letting them be buried, and the people of the world will be glad about it and celebrate the event by giving presents to each other, because these two prophets have been a plague to the people of the world.’
  After the three-and-a-half days, God breathed life into them and they stood up, and everybody who saw it happen was terrified; then they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, ‘Come up here’, and while their enemies were watching, they went up to heaven in a cloud.

Gospel
Luke 20:27-40

Some Sadducees – those who say that there is no resurrection – approached him and they put this question to him, ‘Master, we have it from Moses in writing, that if a man’s married brother dies childless, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for his brother. Well then, there were seven brothers. The first, having married a wife, died childless. The second and then the third married the widow. And the same with all seven, they died leaving no children. Finally the woman herself died Now, at the resurrection, to which of them will she be wife since she had been married to all seven?’
  Jesus replied, ‘The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection from the dead do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are sons of God. And Moses himself implies that the dead rise again, in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all men are in fact alive.’
  Some scribes then spoke up. ‘Well put, Master’ they said – because they would not dare to ask him any more questions.

On Today’s Gospel

Posted: November 21, 2014 by CatholicJules in Personal Thoughts & Reflections

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There can be no compromise in our worship of our Heavenly Father. No trading on empty promises, no concessions to be made for leading sinful lives without repentance. Nor can we ever disregard reverence for our Heavenly Father, whether in dress, body and mind. Let us always prepare ourselves so that when we receive His Word. We will receive Him with joy into our very beings and be transformed each and every time.

Thank You Lord for sharing Your body, blood, soul and divinity with us, may we always stand ready and worthy to receive You each and everyday. Amen

First reading
Apocalypse 10:8-11

I, John, heard the voice I had heard from heaven speaking to me again. ‘Go,’ it said ‘and take that open scroll out of the hand of the angel standing on sea and land.’ I went to the angel and asked him to give me the small scroll, and he said, ‘Take it and eat it; it will turn your stomach sour, but in your mouth it will taste as sweet as honey.’ So I took it out of the angel’s hand, and swallowed it; it was as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it my stomach turned sour. Then I was told, ‘You are to prophesy again, this time about many different nations and countries and languages and emperors.’

Gospel
Luke 19:45-48

Jesus went into the Temple and began driving out those who were selling. ‘According to scripture,’ he said ‘my house will be a house of prayer. But you have turned it into a robbers’ den.’
He taught in the Temple every day. The chief priests and the scribes, with the support of the leading citizens, tried to do away with him, but they did not see how they could carry this out because the people as a whole hung on his words.