Catholic Daily Reflections
1,218 episodes - English - Latest episode: 20 days ago - ★★★★★ - 383 ratingsMy Catholic Life! presents the beauty and splendor of our Catholic faith in a down to earth and practical way. These daily audio reflections come from the "Catholic Daily Reflections Series" which is available in online format from our website. They are also available in e eBook or paperback format.
May these reflections assist you on your journey of personal conversion!
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Episodes
Divine Mercy Sunday (Year B) - Eternal Contemplation of God’s Mercy
April 06, 2024 11:00 - 7 minutes - 6.71 MBSaint Faustina writes in her Diary: “My mercy is so great that no mind, be it of man or of angel, will be able to fathom it throughout all eternity. Everything that exists has come forth from the very depths of My most tender mercy. Every soul in its relation to Me will contemplate My love and mercy throughout eternity. The Feast of Mercy emerged from My very depths of tenderness. It is My desire that it be solemnly celebrated on the First Sunday after Easter. Mankind will not have peace unt...
Saturday in the Octave of Easter - The Beauty of Repentance
April 05, 2024 11:00 - 5 minutes - 5.15 MBWhen Jesus had risen, early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. Mark 16:9 The first person recorded in Scripture to whom Jesus appeared was Mary Magdalene. Notably, she was the one out of whom Jesus cast seven demons. Being possessed by seven demons has traditionally been understood to mean that she was completely possessed. Prior to Jesus freeing her, satan and His demons had completely taken over her will by her free su...
Friday in the Octave of Easter - The Mystery of the Resurrection
April 04, 2024 11:00 - 6 minutes - 5.71 MBJesus said to them, “Come, have breakfast.” And none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they realized it was the Lord. Jesus came over and took the bread and gave it to them, and in like manner the fish. This was now the third time Jesus was revealed to his disciples after being raised from the dead. John 21:12–14 The appearances of Jesus after His Resurrection were cloaked in mystery. Not a mystery of confusion, but a mystery of profound depth and awe. On this, the th...
Thursday in the Octave of Easter - Becoming a Witness to the Truth
April 03, 2024 11:00 - 6 minutes - 5.52 MBThen he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And he said to them, “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.” Luke 24:45–48 Jesus once again appears to a group of His disciples, and He once again gets straight to the point. He “opened their minds” so that they would understand...
Wednesday in the Octave of Easter - The Word of God Burning Within
April 02, 2024 11:00 - 5 minutes - 4.91 MBAnd it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” Luke 24:30–31 Two of Jesus’ disciples had been discussing the events of the past week as they walked the seven-mile journey along the road from Jerus...
Tuesday in the Octave of Easter - Cling to Jesus Now!
April 01, 2024 11:00 - 5 minutes - 5.12 MBJesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” John 20:17 Mary of Magdala was one of the first persons to whom Jesus appeared. She was deeply devoted to Him, especially because of the great mercy He offered her when He forgave her manifest sins and expelled seven demons from her. After He had done that, Mary became a devout follower and was one of th...
Monday in the Octave of Easter - Humility in the Face of the Resurrection
March 31, 2024 11:00 - 6 minutes - 5.53 MBThe chief priests assembled with the elders and took counsel; then they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him while we were asleep.’ And if this gets to the ears of the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” Matthew 28:12–14 The Lord of all rose from the grave, conquering sin and death, making it possible for us all to share in His glorious Resurrection! Death had lost. Satan had lost. The cor...
Easter Sunday (Year B) - Glory Beyond Imagination!
March 30, 2024 11:00 - 7 minutes - 7.08 MB“Do not be afraid! I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ Behold, I have told you.” Matthew 28:5–7 The Lord has truly risen! Alleluia! Sin and death have been destroyed, and new life has been offered to all who cling to the Savior in faith. What a glorio...
Holy Saturday with Mother Mary
March 29, 2024 11:00 - 4 minutes - 4.38 MBThe Savior of the World died a cruel death upon the Cross. His broken body was laid in the tomb. His disciples scattered and were fearful that they would be next. But our Blessed Mother kept vigil in the perfect hope that her Son would soon rise. Traditionally, Saturdays within the Church year are dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. This ancient tradition developed in part due to the belief that, as others were filled with fear and confusion, Mother Mary kept vigil on Holy Saturday in pray...
Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion (Year B) - “I Thirst!”
March 28, 2024 11:00 - 7 minutes - 6.65 MBAfter this, aware that everything was now finished, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I thirst.” There was a vessel filled with common wine. So they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it up to his mouth. When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, “It is finished.” And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit. John 19:28–30 Consider the thirst of Jesus. Though His physical thirst must have been excruciating as He hung upon the Cross, pouring for...
Holy Thursday, Mass of the Lord’s Supper (Year B) - Eucharistic Freedom
March 27, 2024 11:00 - 6 minutes - 5.67 MB“This day shall be a memorial feast for you, which all your generations shall celebrate with pilgrimage to the LORD, as a perpetual institution.” Exodus 12:11 The holy Triduum begins. Today we fulfill this Old Testament passage, revealing that the Passover would become “a perpetual institution.” This passage concludes our First Reading instruction from the LORD given to Moses and Aaron on how to prepare for the Israelites’ liberation from Egypt. Plague after plague had been inflicted upon th...
Wednesday of Holy Week - Rejecting Empty Promises
March 26, 2024 11:00 - 5 minutes - 4.84 MBOne of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver, and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over. Matthew 26:14–16 The desire for money can become a powerful incentive to betray our Lord. In this Gospel passage, it seems clear that Judas’ betrayal was based on his desire for money. He most likely had some level of faith in our Lord, or h...
Tuesday of Holy Week - The Glory of God in All Things
March 25, 2024 11:00 - 5 minutes - 4.75 MB“Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and he will glorify him at once.” John 13:31–32 Jesus speaks this line about Himself being glorified immediately after Judas leaves the supper to go forth to betray Him. Jesus had just finished washing the feet of His disciples, and soon He would finish the Last Supper, go to the Garden of Gethsemane, be arrested, beaten and crucified. And this was to all take plac...
Monday of Holy Week - Expressing Your Love of God
March 24, 2024 11:00 - 4 minutes - 4.48 MBThen Judas the Iscariot, one of his disciples, and the one who would betray him, said, “Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days’ wages and given to the poor?” John 12:4–5 Jesus was with His disciples at the home of Lazarus, Martha and Mary. He regularly spent time at their home and was close to them. This meal took place just before Jesus entered into Jerusalem for the first Palm Sunday and Holy Week. It was six days before Jesus would die on the cross. Recall that Lazarus had rece...
Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion (Year B) - Hosanna! To the Suffering Christ!
March 23, 2024 11:00 - 6 minutes - 6.03 MBThose preceding him as well as those following kept crying out: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come! Hosanna in the highest!” Mark 11:9–10 Throughout Jesus’ life, He traveled to Jerusalem many times. As a child, He was presented in the Temple. At age twelve, He was found teaching the teachers of the Law in the Temple. As He grew, He made regular pilgrimages to the Temple. During His temptation in the desert, th...
Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent - The Effects of Jesus’ Ministry
March 22, 2024 11:00 - 5 minutes - 5.15 MBSo the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we going to do? This man is performing many signs. If we leave him alone, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our land and our nation.” John 11:47–48 Jesus’ public ministry had two primary effects upon the people. For many, they were coming to believe in Him and were hanging on His every word. They sought Him out and began to understand that He was the promised Messiah. This was...
Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent - Entering the Desert
March 21, 2024 11:00 - 5 minutes - 4.93 MB“If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me; but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may realize and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” John 10:37–39 These words spoken by Jesus took place during the feast of the Dedication in Jerusalem. Jesus had been preaching clearly about His relationship with the Father in Heaven, and this was causing some to become outraged to the point of them trying to arrest Him rig...
Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent - Living in the Moment
March 20, 2024 11:00 - 5 minutes - 5.25 MBJesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.” So they picked up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area. John 8:58–59 When Moses encountered God in the burning bush, God revealed His name: I AM. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that this revelation of God’s name “is at once a name revealed and something like the refusal of a name.” It expresses that God is “infinitely above everything that we can understand or say...
Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent - The Truth Will Set You Free
March 19, 2024 11:00 - 4 minutes - 4.38 MBJesus said to those Jews who believed in him, “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31–32 These words have the potential to make a transforming difference in our lives. Note that Jesus spoke these words “to those Jews who believed in him.” That is, those who had accepted His word and were, therefore, His true disciples. We who also believe in Jesus should consider these words carefully. The heart of th...
March 19, Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Husband of Mary - The Greatness of Saint Joseph
March 18, 2024 11:00 - 5 minutes - 5.02 MBWhen Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home. Matthew 1:24 What is it that made Saint Joseph so great? He wasn’t immaculately conceived as our Blessed Mother was. He was not divine like Jesus. But he was the head of the Holy Family, its guardian and its provider. He became the legal father of the Savior of the World and the spouse of the Mother of God. But Joseph is not great only because he was given such incredible privileges. First a...
Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent - Public Sinners
March 17, 2024 11:00 - 5 minutes - 4.63 MB“Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” John 8:7 This is a powerful line spoken by Jesus. The judgmental and condemning Pharisees brought a woman to Jesus who had apparently been caught “in the very act of committing adultery.” Was she a sinner? Yes, indeed she was. But this story is not so much about whether or not she was a sinner. It was about the attitude Jesus had toward sinners as compared to that held by the self-righteous, judgmental and conde...
The Fifth Sunday of Lent (Year B) - Suffering Transformed by Glory
March 16, 2024 11:00 - 6 minutes - 5.58 MB“I am troubled now. Yet what should I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it and will glorify it again.” John 12:27–28 Our Lord’s human soul was “troubled.” Other translations state that His soul was in agony. After expressing His interior suffering, Jesus identified the human temptation caused by this suffering: to flee from His “hour.” Of course Jesus dismis...
Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent - Attacks From the evil one
March 15, 2024 11:00 - 5 minutes - 4.76 MBThe guards answered, “Never before has anyone spoken like this man.” So the Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd, which does not know the law, is accursed.” John 7:46–49 Hopefully the Pharisees mentioned above went through a deep interior conversion before they died. If they did not, then their day of particular judgment would have been shocking and frightening to them. The greatest act of love eve...
Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent - The New Moses
March 14, 2024 11:00 - 5 minutes - 5.33 MBJesus moved about within Galilee; he did not wish to travel in Judea, because the Jews were trying to kill him. But the Jewish feast of Tabernacles was near. But when his brothers had gone up to the feast, he himself also went up, not openly but as it were in secret. John 7:1–2; 10 The Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was one of three great feasts during which the people made a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem to commemorate God’s saving action in their lives. This particular feast was to co...
Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent - Human or Divine Praise?
March 13, 2024 11:00 - 4 minutes - 4.13 MB“How can you believe, when you accept praise from one another and do not seek the praise that comes from the only God?” John 5:44 It’s quite normal and healthy for a parent to praise a young child for the good that they do. This healthy positive reinforcement is a way of teaching them the importance of doing good and avoiding what’s wrong. But human praise is not an infallible guide of what is right and wrong. In fact, when human praise is not based in the truth of God, it does great damage....
Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent - Amazement and Awe
March 12, 2024 11:00 - 5 minutes - 4.84 MB“Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for what he does, the Son will do also. For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything that he himself does, and he will show him greater works than these, so that you may be amazed.” John 5:25–26 The most central and most glorious mystery of our faith is that of the Most Holy Trinity. God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God yet three distinct Persons. As divine “Persons,”...
Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent - Patient Endurance
March 11, 2024 11:00 - 4 minutes - 4.47 MBOne man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be well?” John 5:5–6 Only those who have been crippled for many years could understand what this man endured in life. He was crippled and unable to walk for thirty-eight years. The pool he was laying next to was believed to have the power of healing. Therefore, many who were sick and crippled would sit by the pool and try to ...
Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent - Faith in All Things
March 10, 2024 11:00 - 4 minutes - 4.45 MBNow there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, who was near death. Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” John 4:46–48 Jesus did end up healing the royal official’s son. And when the royal official returned to discover his son healed, we are told that “he and his whole household came to believe.” Some came to beli...
The Fourth Sunday of Lent (Year B) - Seeking the Full Truth
March 09, 2024 12:00 - 6 minutes - 5.71 MBJesus said to Nicodemus: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” John 3:14–15 The line quoted above concludes a dialogue that Jesus had with Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin. This is the first of three times Nicodemus is mentioned in the Gospel of John. The second time he appears is when he reminds the other members of the Sanhedrin that a man must be first heard b...
Saturday of the Third Week of Lent - Being Justified by Mercy
March 08, 2024 12:00 - 4 minutes - 3.74 MBJesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else. “Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector.” Luke 18:9–10 This Scripture passage introduces the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. They both go to the Temple to pray, but their prayers are very different from each other. The prayer of the Pharisee is very dishonest, whereas the prayer of the tax collector is exce...
Friday of the Third Week of Lent - Hold Nothing Back
March 07, 2024 12:00 - 4 minutes - 3.7 MB“Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Mark 12:29–30 Why would you choose anything less than to love the Lord your God with ALL your heart, with ALL your soul, with ALL your mind, and with ALL your strength? Why would you choose anything less? Of course, we do choose many other things to love in life, even though Jesus is clear with this commandment. The trut...
Thursday of the Third Week of Lent - The Kingdom of God is Upon Us
March 06, 2024 12:00 - 4 minutes - 4.15 MB“But if it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you.” Luke 11:20 The Kingdom of God can come upon us in a variety of ways. The line from today’s Gospel above comes in the middle of a story of Jesus casting out a demon from a man who was mute. Once the demon was cast out, the mute man began to speak, and all were amazed. And though some were amazed and grew in faith as a result, others turned their amazement into irrationality. The irrationa...
Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent - The Height of the New Law
March 05, 2024 12:00 - 4 minutes - 4.07 MB“I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” Matthew 5:17–18 The Old Law, the law from the Old Testament, prescribed various moral precepts, as well as ceremonial precepts for worship. Jesus makes it clear that He is not abolishing all that God taught through Moses and the Prophets. This is because the New Testament is the c...
Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent - Forgiving From the Heart
March 04, 2024 15:12 - 5 minutes - 4.63 MBPeter approached Jesus and asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.” Matthew 18:21–22 Forgiveness of another is difficult. It’s much easier to remain angry. This line quoted above is the introduction to the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. In that parable, Jesus makes it clear that if we want to receive forgiveness from God, then we must forgive others. If...
Monday of the Third Week of Lent - The Permissive Will of God
March 03, 2024 12:00 - 5 minutes - 4.61 MBWhen the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong. But he passed through the midst of them and went away. Luke 4:28–30 One of the first places Jesus went to begin His public ministry was His own home town. After entering the Synagogue and reading from the Prophet Isaiah, Jesus proclaimed that the prophecy of Isaiah was now fulfi...
The Third Sunday of Lent (Year B) - A Dual Cleansing
March 02, 2024 12:00 - 6 minutes - 6.23 MBHe made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” John 2:15–16 All four Gospels speak of Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple. However, there is a difference between the way this event is portrayed in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) and in the way it is po...
Saturday of the Second Week of Lent - Consolation for the Repentant Sinner
March 01, 2024 12:00 - 5 minutes - 5.08 MB“Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when your son returns who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf.” Luke 15:22–24 This was the reaction of the faithful son in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Recall that after squandering his inheritance, the Prodigal Son returns home humiliated and poor, asking his father if he will take him back a...
Friday of the Second Week of Lent - Building the Kingdom
February 29, 2024 12:00 - 4 minutes - 4.15 MB“Therefore, I say to you, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit.” Matthew 21:42 Are you among those from whom the Kingdom of God will be taken away? Or among those to whom it will be given so as to produce good fruit? This is an important question to sincerely answer. The first grouping of people, those who will have the Kingdom of God taken away from them, are represented in this parable by the tenants of the vineyard. It is clea...
Thursday of the Second Week of Lent - A Powerful Contrast
February 28, 2024 12:00 - 5 minutes - 4.86 MBJesus said to the Pharisees: “There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores.” Luke 16:19–21 One of the reasons this story is so powerful is because of the clear descriptive contrast between the rich man and Lazarus. The contrast is not only ...
Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent - Facing the Cross with Courage and Love
February 27, 2024 12:00 - 5 minutes - 5.32 MBAs Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the Twelve disciples aside by themselves, and said to them on the way, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.” Matthew 20:17–19 What a conversation that must have been! As Jesus was traveling to Jerusalem with the Twelve jus...
Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent - True Greatness
February 26, 2024 15:05 - 4 minutes - 4.05 MB“The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Matthew 23:11–12 Do you want to be truly great? Do you want your life to truly make a difference in the lives of others? Deep down this desire for greatness is placed within us by our Lord, and it will never go away. Even those who live eternally in hell will hold on to this innate desire, which for them will be the cause of eternal pain, since that desire will ...
Monday of the Second Week of Lent - Mercy Goes Both Ways
February 25, 2024 12:00 - 4 minutes - 4.37 MBJesus said to his disciples: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.” Luke 6:36–37 Saint Ignatius of Loyola, in his guide for a thirty-day retreat, has the retreatant spend the first week of the retreat focusing upon sin, judgment, death and hell. At first, this can seem very uninspiring. But the wisdom of this approach is that after a week of these meditations, re...
Second Sunday of Lent (Year B) - Glory Overshadowing the Cross
February 24, 2024 12:00 - 6 minutes - 5.49 MBJesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them. Mark 9:2–3 Just six days prior to this glorious event of the Transfiguration, Jesus spoke for the first time to His disciples about His pending crucifixion and death. He taught them that “the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribe...
Saturday of the First Week of Lent - The Perfection of Love
February 23, 2024 12:00 - 4 minutes - 4.17 MB“But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” Matthew 5:44–45 Today’s Gospel ends with Jesus saying, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” This is a high calling! And it is clear that part of the perfection to which you are called requires a generous and total love even for those you may con...
Friday of the First Week of Lent - Beyond Forgiveness
February 22, 2024 12:00 - 5 minutes - 5.17 MB“Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.” Matthew 5:26 Was our Lord here giving legal advice regarding a criminal or civil case and how to avoid prosecution? Certainly not. He was presenting us with an image of Himself as the just Judge. And He was exhor...
February 22, Feast of the Chair of St. Peter - The Church Shall Always Prevail
February 21, 2024 12:00 - 4 minutes - 4.14 MB“And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Matthew 16:18–19 There are several foundational truths taught to us by this passage above. One of those truths is that “the gates of the netherworld” shall never prevail against the Church....
Wednesday of the First Week of Lent - The One True Sign of the Cross
February 20, 2024 12:00 - 4 minutes - 4.27 MBWhile still more people gathered in the crowd, Jesus said to them, “This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” Luke 11:29 The crowd seemed to be a mixed bunch. First, there were those who wholeheartedly believed in Jesus. The Twelve, for example, left everything behind to follow Him. His mother and various other holy women believed in Him and were His faithful followers. But within the growing crowd, it appeared that there...
Tuesday of the First Week of Lent - Praying the Our Father
February 19, 2024 12:00 - 4 minutes - 4.27 MBJesus said to his disciples: “In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Matthew 6:7–8 Recall that Jesus used to go off by Himself at times and spend the whole night in prayer. Thus, it’s clear that Jesus is in favor of long and sincere times of prayer, since He gave us His own example as a lesson. But there is clearly a difference between that which our Lord did all night and that which He criticized the pag...
Monday of the First Week of Lent - The Least Deserving
February 18, 2024 12:00 - 5 minutes - 5.3 MBJesus said to his disciples: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” Matthew 25:31–32 What an image to ponder! Try to imagine this scene. At one definitive moment in the future, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, now also in human form as the “Son of Man,” will return to ea...
First Sunday of Lent (Year B) - The Ministry of Angels
February 17, 2024 12:00 - 6 minutes - 5.82 MBThe Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him. Mark 1:12–13 What an amazing event we reflect upon today. Jesus, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity humbled Himself in two ways in the passage quoted above. First, He allowed Himself to endure the temptations of satan. Second, He permitted His very own creation, the good angels, to minister to Him in ...