Posts Tagged ‘follow him’

On Today’s Gospel

Posted: July 5, 2024 by CatholicJules in Personal Thoughts & Reflections
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What can be more devastating then the absence of the Lord our God in our lives? We are lifeless as we become souless without Him. Today’s first reading says it beautifully! ”A famine not of bread, a drought not of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord.” Why would we allow it to come to that? Our wilfulness? Our stubbornness? Our refusal to turn away away from sin? Are we drawn to temptation which leads us astray?

Even now, the love of God the most high is calling us through His Son our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. “Follow me.” Let us not tarry and run to Him.

Save us Lord Jesus, save us. Amen

Saint Antony Mary Zaccaria, pray for us… Priest 


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First reading
Amos 8:4-6,9-12 ·


A famine not of bread, but of hearing the word of the Lord


Listen to this, you who trample on the needy and try to suppress the poor people of the country, you who say, ‘When will New Moon be over so that we can sell our corn,
and sabbath, so that we can market our wheat? Then by lowering the bushel, raising the shekel, by swindling and tampering with the scales, we can buy up the poor for money, and the needy for a pair of sandals, and get a price even for the sweepings of the wheat.’
That day – it is the Lord who speaks –
I will make the sun go down at Noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight.
I am going to turn your feasts into funerals, all your singing into lamentation; I will have your loins all in sackcloth, your heads all shaved. I will make it a mourning like the mourning for an only son, as long as it lasts it will be like a day of bitterness.
See what days are coming – it is the Lord who speaks – days when I will bring famine on the country,
a famine not of bread, a drought not of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord.
They will stagger from sea to sea,
wander from north to east, seeking the word of the Lord
and failing to find it.


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Gospel
Matthew 9:9-13


It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick

As Jesus was walking on, he saw a man named Matthew sitting by the customs house, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.
    While he was at dinner in the house it happened that a number of tax collectors and sinners came to sit at the table with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ When he heard this he replied, ‘It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. Go and learn the meaning of the words: What I want is mercy, not sacrifice. And indeed I did not come to call the virtuous, but sinners.’

On Today’s Gospel

Posted: August 20, 2019 by CatholicJules in Personal Thoughts & Reflections
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Does all the things we have come from the Lord our God? If so then why do we hold on so tightly to what we have such that it is very difficult for us to let go? Yes not all of us are rich, in fact it is pointless to compare our wealth with others for we are rich in many different ways. Question really is how much are we willing to give up for our Lord? For our sisters and brothers? Can we leave behind physical, emotional, sentimental ties behind to follow our Lord? Knowing that even while we may be little in numbers, wisdom, gifts and talents; when we offer up all we have He will multiply them. Great is our God and with Him nothing is impossible!

We fret and worry over inconsequential worldly things, when our only concern should be; how are we living in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ and working to build His Kingdom?

Lord Here I am to do Your will, uphold me in Your strennght that I may do great things to glorify Your name. Amen

First reading

Judges 6:11-24 ·
‘Peace be with you; have no fear; you will not die’

The angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah which belonged to Joash of Abiezer. Gideon his son was threshing wheat inside the winepress to keep it hidden from Midian, when the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘The Lord is with you, valiant warrior!’ Gideon answered him, ‘Forgive me, my lord, but if the Lord is with us, then why is it that all this is happening to us now? And where are all the wonders our ancestors tell us of when they say, “Did not the Lord bring us out of Egypt?” But now the Lord has deserted us; he has abandoned us to Midian.’
At this the Lord turned to him and said, ‘Go in the strength now upholding you, and you will rescue Israel from the power of Midian. Do I not send you myself?’ Gideon answered him, ‘Forgive me, my lord, but how can I deliver Israel? My clan, you must know, is the weakest in Manasseh and I am the least important in my family.’ The Lord answered him, ‘I will be with you and you shall crush Midian as though it were a single man.’ Gideon said to him, ‘If I have found favour in your sight, give me a sign that it is you who speak to me. I beg you, do not go away until I come back. I will bring you my offering and set it down before you.’ And he answered, ‘I will stay until you return.’
Gideon went away and prepared a young goat and made unleavened cakes with an ephah of flour. He put the meat into a basket and the broth into a pot, then brought it all to him under the terebinth. As he came near, the angel of the Lord said to him, ‘Take the meat and unleavened cakes, put them on this rock and pour the broth over them.’ Gideon did so. Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff in his hand and touched the meat and unleavened cakes. Fire sprang from the rock and consumed the meat and unleavened cakes, and the angel of the Lord vanished before his eyes. Then Gideon knew this was the angel of the Lord, and he said, ‘Alas, my Lord! I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!’ The Lord answered him, ‘Peace be with you; have no fear; you will not die.’ Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it The-Lord-is-Peace.

Gospel

Matthew 19:23-30
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven

Jesus said to his disciples, ‘I tell you solemnly, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Yes, I tell you again, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.’ When the disciples heard this they were astonished. ‘Who can be saved, then?’ they said. Jesus gazed at them. ‘For men’ he told them ‘this is impossible; for God everything is possible.’
Then Peter spoke. ‘What about us?’ he said to him ‘We have left everything and followed you. What are we to have, then?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I tell you solemnly, when all is made new and the Son of Man sits on his throne of glory, you will yourselves sit on twelve thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children or land for the sake of my name will be repaid a hundred times over, and also inherit eternal life.
‘Many who are first will be last, and the last, first.’