Testimony of someone I had the privilege of praying over a couple of weeks back, just met in him today for a short while at a retreat…
Hey Julian, i wasn’t able to catch up with u earlier. Anyways about my knee, the past week i felt some improvements. 🙂 it’s a bit stronger. Before i keep havibg the “loose” feeling, but now it feels tighter. Praying That God will continue to heal me. Thanks for the prayer brother!
Then as I was about to leave our Parish feast day dinner.. A lady ask me to pay for her and her young uncle present…
When you prayed over me and Thomas just now, all I felt was a sense of peace. A peace I know that has come from God. I’m a little overwhelmed by life right now. Things have been a little busy with work, our feast day, and my mom just had a mini stroke and is still in SGH.
That peace I felt just now, was the peace I need. So thank you so much Julian!!!!!
Word of the ‘Living Father’: Scott Hahn Reflects on the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ
Readings:
Deuteronomy 8:2–3, 14–16
Psalm 147:12–15, 19–20
1 Corinthians 10:16–17
John 6:51–58
The Eucharist is given to us as a challenge and a promise. That’s how Jesus presents it in today’s Gospel.
He doesn’t make it easy for those who hear Him. They are repulsed and offended at His words. Even when they begin to quarrel, He insists on describing the eating and drinking of His flesh and blood in starkly literal terms.
Four times in today’s reading, Jesus uses a Greek word—trogein—that refers to a crude kind of eating, almost a gnawing or chewing (see John 6:54, 56, 57, 58).
He is testing their faith in His Word, as today’s First Reading describes God testing Israel in the desert.
The heavenly manna was not given to satisfy the Israelites’ hunger, as Moses explains. It was given to show them that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
In today’s Psalm, too, we see a connection between God’s Word and the bread of life. We sing of God filling us with “finest wheat” and proclaiming His Word to the world.
In Jesus, “the living Father” has given us His Word come down from heaven, made flesh for the life of the world.
Yet, as the Israelites grumbled in the desert, many in today’s Gospel cannot accept that Word. Even many of Jesus’ own followers abandon Him after this discourse (see John 6:66). But His words are Spirit and life, the words of eternal life (see John 6:63, 67).
In the Eucharist we are made one flesh with Christ. We have His life in us and have our life because of Him. This is what Paul means in today’s Epistle when he calls the Eucharist a “participation” in Christ’s body and blood. We become in this sacrament partakers of the divine nature (see 1 Peter 2:4).
This is the mystery of the faith that Jesus asks us believe. And He gives us His promise: that, sharing in His flesh and blood that was raised from the dead, we too will be raised up on the last day.
At a wake last week I was catching up with a sister in Christ whom I had not seen in a while. She was asking how I lost so much weight, from 105kg at one point to 83kg. I was sharing with her my new change in lifestyle, diet and exercise. She was also curious about my faith journey.
I shared with her just how amazing it has been journeying as a student of Encounter School of Ministry. How I had been bolder in praying for people, healing and ministering to them through our Lord. But as I was speaking I confessed that I was not as zealous as I had been in the first three quarters of school. This last quarter on inner healing and deliverance inadvertently zapped away the fire somehow. But after our long talk, I offered to pray over her. After which I asked how she felt. She shared that her heart was pounding as I uttered the prayer for our Lord’s love to pour out and fill her heart. Praise the Lord!
Then on Thursday 8 June I met Brother Jake a visiting Professor in Theology from the Philippines for lunch together with my daughter. It was a wonderful opportunity to share my adventure in the Lord with this very humble servant of the Lord. The fire in my heart was rekindled and so while attending the 2nd day of the triduum leading up to St Anthony’s feast day, the lord highlighted an elderly Indian lady dressed in a beautiful Sari. She was limping in pain to a seat in a pew a few rows in front of me. I went up and sat beside her and told her that the Lord put in on my heart to pray for her and if she was OK with it. I then proceeded to pray for the Lord to fill her with His peace and the healing of her leg. She was touched that a stranger would come up and pray for her.
Then at mass on the last day of the triduum the Lord led me to pray for four fellow sisters and brothers in Christ. For one brother, He put in my heart fifteen minutes before mass was to start, to buy a loaf of bread and give it to him. I ran about 80m to the supermarket across the road to buy two loaves one for him and one for my family. There was a blessing of the bread, and so after mass I sought that elderly brother out. Prayed over him and presented the loaf for him to bring home to his family. The Lord truly makes all things new! For had the Lord not put it my heart to buy the loaf for that brother I would not have gone out there and then as I wanted to finish the devotional pray to our Patron Saint. Praise the Lord.
Today’s first reading is so precious because it is a guide for Christians on their pilgrim journey to their Heavenly inheritance given by St Raphael one of the seven angels who stand ever ready to enter the presence of the glory of the Lord. If one says that it is simply a work of fiction, I would rather we review that statement simply with this thought, “Is Tobit not an inspired work of God?”
Always and above Bless God, utter His praise before all the living.
Testify to His goodness and all He has done in your life.
Never tire of giving Him thanks (heart of gratitude towards the Lord Your God)
Proclaim His wondrous deeds.
Do what is good and avoid all evil.
Pray, give alms with right conduct.
Do not hoard your wealth.
Do not hesitate to do what is right, make haste to help those in need.
If you reflect a little more deeply on today’s Gospel, you will see that the poor widow did all as it is mentioned above in one way or another.
Blessed be God who lives forever in our midst and in our hearts. Amen
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First reading
Tobit 12:1,5-15,20
‘I am one of the seven angels who stand ever ready to enter the presence of the glory of the Lord’
When the feasting was over, Tobit called his son Tobias and said, ‘My son, you ought to think about paying the amount due to your fellow traveller; give him more than the figure agreed on.’ So Tobias called his companion and said, ‘Take half of what you brought back, in payment for all you have done, and go in peace.’
Then Raphael took them both aside and said, ‘Bless God, utter his praise before all the living for all the favours he has given you. Bless and extol his name. Proclaim before all men the deeds of God as they deserve, and never tire of giving him thanks. It is right to keep the secret of a king, yet right to reveal and publish the works of God. Thank him worthily. Do what is good, and no evil can befall you.
‘Prayer with fasting and alms with right conduct are better than riches with iniquity. Better to practise almsgiving than to hoard up gold. Almsgiving saves from death and purges every kind of sin. Those who give alms have their fill of days; those who commit sin and do evil, bring harm on themselves.
‘I am going to tell you the whole truth, hiding nothing from you. I have already told you that it is right to keep the secret of a king, yet right too to reveal in worthy fashion the works of God. So you must know that when you and Sarah were at prayer, it was I who offered your supplications before the glory of the Lord and who read them; so too when you were burying the dead. When you did not hesitate to get up and leave the table to go and bury a dead man, I was sent to test your faith, and at the same time God sent me to heal you and your daughter-in-law Sarah. I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who stand ever ready to enter the presence of the glory of the Lord.
‘Now bless the Lord on earth and give thanks to God. I am about to return to him above who sent me.’
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Gospel
Mark 12:38-44
This poor widow has put in more than all
In his teaching Jesus said, ‘Beware of the scribes who like to walk about in long robes, to be greeted obsequiously in the market squares, to take the front seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at banquets; these are the men who swallow the property of widows, while making a show of lengthy prayers. The more severe will be the sentence they receive.’
He sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the treasury, and many of the rich put in a great deal. A poor widow came and put in two small coins, the equivalent of a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, ‘I tell you solemnly, this poor widow has put more in than all who have contributed to the treasury; for they have all put in money they had over, but she from the little she had has put in everything she possessed, all she had to live on.’
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