In today's reading, Jesus tells his detractors that they will be condemned because they have closed their minds to a greater truth about God that he was teaching. Are we open to learning something new about God, or might Jesus level the same charge at us?
In the Letter to the Hebrews we read that the word of God is able to discern all things. This election season, let us use it as our standard rather than some political ideology or social theory.
In Luke's version of the Beatitudes, we learn that God loves those who are materially poor, and Jesus challenges us to do something to help them here and now and to live with integrity.
When the Christian community began cheating one another and fighting among themselves, Paul called them to remember that they left that quarrelsome life behind when they became justified in the name of Jesus.
God invites us to join in the work of salvation by offering us wisdom and grace in the Eucharist, but we have to choose to partake of these gifts if we want to be coworkers in creating the Kingdom,
Jesus said to let the little children come to him, because the kingdom of heaven belongs so such as them. Children can have a very profound and simple trust in God that can be our guide when we feel our faith flagging.
God called Jeremiah to become a prophet and promised to give him the words to speak when it was time. In life, we often find it difficult to know what to say at times. In conversations that matter, we should be open to prayer and allowing God to inspire us with the right words to say.
The spiritual bonds that we can form with others by living out the will of God can be even more profound and important than the the ties of kinship that bind us to our biological family.
While at sea with his disciples, Jesus rebuked a violent squall and told it to be quiet, and it obeyed. His disciples were amazed. Can we trust in the power of Jesus? Do we have a sense of the awesomeness of God?
Jesus famously said that we cannot serve two masters, God and mammon. If we serve God first, then we can have healthy attitude towards our own material goods, not clinging to them, but using them to help those who do not have enough.
The Letter of James advises those who are sick to be anointed with oil by the elders of the church, which is part of the basis for our Anointing of the Sick, a beautiful sacrament of healing and comfort that does not need to be put off until the end of life.
Building on Jesus' teaching against divorce and the Church's teaching that the family as the domestic church is the basic building block of a stable society, we are challenged to reach out to help families that are struggling, to help them draw closer to God's love.
