Jeremiah, Chapter 26, verse 19
Have you ever been around people who cannot handle
the truth! Speaking the truth got Jeremiah in dire straits. Unmoving, the temple
officials and elders trashed Jeremiah nonetheless they were too afraid to kill
him.
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At
the beginning of Jehoiakim's reign, God tells Jeremiah to stand in the court of
the temple and speak to all the people and cities of Judah. They're getting
another chance to repent. Maybe they'll actually listen this time.
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If
the people don't finally come to their senses, God's going to do the same thing
to Jerusalem that he did to Shiloh up north: it'll be devastated, but the
priests and prophets don't want to hear it, and they threaten to kill Jeremiah.
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The
king's officials come to the temple, and the priests and prophets tell them
about what Jeremiah had just prophesied. They think he should die for it.
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Jeremiah
says that he's only saying what God has made him say. If they want to kill him
they can go right ahead, but innocent blood will be on their hands.
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The
officials and the people agree that Jeremiah shouldn't be put to death. Some of
the elders point out that Micah prophesied about Jerusalem's destruction during
Hezekiah's reign and Hezekiah didn't kill him.
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And
besides, God changed his mind and actually didn't destroy Jerusalem that time.
Maybe that'll happen again.
The Devil and other demons would like us to believe that they are outdated, unenlightened superstitions, but the Catholic Church remains firm, clear, and consistent in her teaching about this reality.
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Our
heavenly Father has placed over each of us an angel under whose protection and
vigilance we may be enabled to escape the snares secretly prepared by our
enemy, repel the dreadful attacks he makes on us.
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Never
was anyone, conceived been liberated from the Devil’s dominion except by faith
in our Lord Jesus Christ, the mediator between God and humanity, who was
conceived without sin, was born and died. He alone by His death overthrew the
enemy of the human race, cancelling our sins, and unlocked the entrance to the
heavenly kingdom, which the first man by his sin had locked against himself and
all his posterity. COUNCIL OF FLORENCE (ECUMENICAL, 1431– 1445), SESSION 2
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Men
are separated into two diverse and opposite parts, of which the one steadfastly
contends for truth and virtue, the other of those things which are contrary to
virtue and to truth. The one is the kingdom of God on earth, namely, the true
Church of Jesus Christ; and those who desire from their heart to be united with
it, so as to gain salvation, must of
necessity serve God and His only-begotten Son with their whole mind and with an
entire will. The other is the kingdom of Satan, in whose possession and control
are all who follow the fatal example of their leader and of our first parents,
those who refuse to obey the divine and eternal law, and who have many aims of
their own in contempt of God, and many aims also against God. POPE LEO XIII,
HUMANUM GENUS (PAPAL ENCYCLICAL, 1884), 1
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Satan
manages to sow in man’s soul the seed of opposition to the one who “from the
beginning” would be considered as man’s enemy— and not as Father. Man is
challenged to become the adversary of God! The analysis of sin in its original
dimension indicates that, through the influence of the “father of lies,”
throughout the history of humanity there will be a constant pressure on man to
reject God, even to the point of hating Him: “Love of self to the point of
contempt for God,” as St. Augustine puts it. POPE JOHN PAUL II, DOMINUM ET
VIVIFICANTEM (PAPAL ENCYCLICAL, 1986), 38
Prayer and fasting are extraordinary
means (we may call them violent means) when other simpler ways are of no avail
against the powers of hell. Look into the earthly life of our Savior. He is our
model. He dwelt with us in order to teach us how to form our lives inwardly and
outwardly. Christ Himself fasted often and accorded it high praise in His
teaching. Recall how He fasted forty days before entering upon His work of
teaching. At the beginning of Lent the Church wishes to stamp this fact deep in
our hearts: our fasting must be in union with and in imitation of Christ's.
Recall when the disciples were unable to cure a possessed boy, asked, "Why
could we not cast him out?," and Jesus answered, "This kind can be
driven out in no way except by prayer and fasting" (Mark 9:29). Now
another saying of Jesus comes to mind. When John's disciples began to reproach
Him, "Why do Your disciples not fast?," He replied: "Can you
make the wedding guests fast as long as the bridegroom is with them? As long as
they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come
when the bridegroom will be taken away from them; in those days they will
fast" (Luke 5:35). There is a hidden depth of meaning in these words. The
coming of Christ among men was a wedding feast. Fasting had no place. But it is
most proper to fast when the divine Bridegroom is taken away. Fasting on
Fridays and during Holy Week, then, is in accord with Christ's own wishes. Once
our Savior compared Himself with the Baptist in these words, "John came
neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a devil!’ The Son of Man
came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Behold a glutton and a wine
drinker.’" John was a man devoted to penance, an ascetic, who fasted
throughout his life. Not so Christ. His way of living was not based exclusively
upon self-denial and mortification, but upon an ordered enjoyment of life. So
we learn from the Savior that fasting should be the exception, not the rule, in
Christian morality. Let us consider the passage in the Sermon on the Mount
where Jesus speaks of the three important pious exercises of fasting, prayer,
and almsgiving. He highly recommends all three, but warns against practicing
these virtues in a pharisaical manner.
The main points in Jesus' doctrine on
fasting, then, are:
- Fasting is
an extremely important means of resisting the inroads of hell (hence
Lent).
- Fasting
should be practiced as a memorial of Christ's death (Friday, Holy Week).
- Fast days
occur by way of exception in Christian life, they are not the normal
practice.
- Fasting
holds a place alongside prayer and almsgiving as a pious exercise.
So let us worship God in His tabernacle for His
goodness, truth and beauty. When we talk about the tabernacle of the Lord we
are talking about the Bless Sacrament were Jesus is really present—body, blood,
soul and divinity. Yet, there is another tabernacle which we do not recognize
easily. That is our very bodies and those of others when we receive the
Eucharist. We need to acknowledge Christ is in others just as we genuflect
before the tabernacle. He must be worshipped! According to Church law, the
tabernacle, which keeps the consecrated Eucharistic hosts, should be
“immoveable, made of solid or opaque material, locked so that the danger of
profanation may be entirely avoided.” We also as a tabernacle should be
immoveable in our faith, give others solid support and lock our hearts from the
love of the world. We should, apart from making our regular attendance at Mass,
drop by the church and make a short “visit” to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
The visit needn’t be long, just a few minutes to greet Jesus and offer a silent
prayer.
Daily Devotions
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Manhood of
the Master-Day 4 week 7
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Do
40 min. in front of the Blessed Sacrament.
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Please
pray for me and this ministry
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