8 Aug
Fri
18th Week in Ordinary Time
St Dominic, priest
Nah 2:1,3;3:1-3,6-7
(R.Ps)Deut 32:35-36,39,41
Mt 16:24-28
(Ps Wk II)
How To Pray With Shalom
Home Page of Shalom
Index of This Month
 
 

Jesus tells his disciples that they must daily pick up their cross and follow him. Just as Jesus did not get to choose his cross, neither do we. Jesus' cross was not just the wooden beams he carried to Golgotha. Jesus embraced his cross each and every day of his whole life. His cross was his willingness to be faithful to God's will: to embrace his successes and failures and mixed results each day as he tried to love others as God loves him. We don't need to go looking for our cross — that's a veiled way of trying to choose our own rather than accepting the one God has for us — because like a faithful pet it will be there waiting to greet us each and every day.

What profit is there if one gains the whole world but loses one's life? We only truly find our lives when we lose them to Christ, when we live in the present moment with God, seeking to know God's will for us and to keep it. What profit is there in it? It's a thing called heaven — not just after our death, but here and now as well. That is the message Jesus preached as the good news.



Lord, may our lives reflect You, O God!


DAILY OFFERING
Eternal Father, I offer You everything I do this day; my thoughts, words, joys and sufferings. Grant that, vivified by the Holy Spirit and united to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, my life this day may be of service to You and to others. I also pray that all those preparing for marriage discover in Sacrament the source of Christ's grace for living a fithful and fruitful love. Amen.

PRAYING WITH THE CHURCH
INTENTION
That refugees, forced by violence to abandon their homes, may find a generous welcome and the protection of their rights.
Elaboration

- END -


© Copyright Shalom 2014. All rights reserved.