Daily Bible Reflections
for January 10, 2013;

Dear Friend,

This Thursday, remember that He knows you and loves you.

Praying for you,

Bo Sanchez

10
 January
Thursday
TODAY'S READINGS:

DIDACHE | COMPANION | SABBATH
DIDACHE

 

Done Deal
 
For whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith. – 1 John 5:4
 
“Don’t worry, it’s a done deal,” my friend assured me when I followed up on my sales proposal for their company. I was young and inexperienced in sales and my friend volunteered to help me. I wasn’t sure if it was my lack of self-confidence or the lack of trust in my friend’s ability and convincing power that made me doubtful if we could really close the deal. So I was surprised when he handed me the signed sales contract. 
“You really didn’t think I could help you close this deal, did you?” he asked. I shook my head, embarrassed. He just smiled and said, “I wish you’d have a little faith in me.”
I wonder how many times God must have said the same thing to us. Oftentimes, when we are in trouble, we pray not really to seek for guidance but to ask why we have to struggle and suffer. We tend to be easily defeated by doubts and fears that we fail to realize that He has already won the battle over evil and has claimed victory for us. This means that nothing can defeat us if we hold on tight to God. However great our problem is, no matter how difficult things may seem, God has promised to help us get through it. We just have to have faith in His power and claim our victory. It’s a done deal. Jane Gonzales-Rauch (mgr516@gmail.com)
 
Reflection: There is no struggle greater than God’s power to help us overcome them.
 
God our Father, strengthen my faith that I may have full confidence in Your saving grace. Amen.
 
St. Gregory of Nyssa, pray for us.
 

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COMPANION

 

 1ST READING
 
Failure to love a person is a failure to be true to our humanity. It is inhuman not to love. That is a strong statement, but it is true. It is critical that we reflect upon and come to understand the true nature of love as a response that is demanded of us in our interpersonal relationships, as this is essential to our being true human beings. Hatred and war are failures to love; jealousy and envy are failures to love; lying and theft are failures to love. Love should be at the heart and basis of all that we do, think and say.
 
1 John 4:19-5:4
19 Beloved, we love God because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. 5: 1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God, and everyone who loves the Father loves also the one begotten by him. 2 In this way we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, 4 for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith.
 
P S A L M
 
Psalm 72:1-2, 14, 15, 17
R: Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
1 O God, with your judgment endow the king, and with your justice, the king’s son; 2 He shall govern your people with justice and your afflicted ones with judgment. (R) 14 From fraud and violence he shall redeem them, and precious shall their blood be in his sight. 15 May they be prayed for continually; day by day shall they bless him. (R) 17 May his name be blessed forever; as long as the sun his name shall remain. In him shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed; all the nations shall proclaim his happiness. (R)
 
GOSPEL
 
When Jesus opens His ministry in Luke’s Gospel by proclaiming that it is the acceptable year of the Lord, His statement remains true for us even today. Jesus’ ministry ushers in the beginning of the end times and as such we are living in them now. When will Jesus come again? I have no idea and I do not intend to exert any energy trying to figure out the date as it is a waste of time. Instead, I want to spend my time, energy and talents building up and proclaiming the Kingdom of God to the world.
 
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION
The Lord has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor and to proclaim liberty to captives.
 
Luke 4:14-22
14 Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news of him spread throughout the whole region. 15 He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all. 16 He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read 17 and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19 and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” 20 Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. 21 He said to them, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” 22 And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.
Matthew 7-9
think: Let us spend our time, energy and talents building up and proclaiming the Kingdom of God to the world.
 
1st READING 2nd READING
T O D A Y’S BLESSING LIST
Thank You Lord for: ___________________________
 
____________________________________________
 
God’s special verse/thought for me today_________
____________________________________________
 
READ THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR Matthew 7-9 BLESSING
 

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SABBATH

 

God is not our Rival
 
Greek mythology narrates the story of Prometheus. Prometheus came to know that the gods enjoyed fire in their kingdom and they capriciously withheld it from humans and kept it for their own enjoyment. One day, Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to men. The gods became angry and they punished Prometheus for eternity by having a large bird eat up his entrails, then they regenerate and the birds come back to eat them again.
The Promethean myth continues up to this day in many ways. For some people, God is a distant, uninvolved and disinterested God. He created the world and turned His back from it forever. For some, God is a tyrant whose pleasure comes from imposing unreasonable rules on His subjects. Today’s First Reading addresses the latter sentiment. John reminds us: “The love of God consists in this: that we keep his commandments — and his commandments are not burdensome.”
When we see God from the Promethean point of view, God is a tyrant and a rival. When God is seen this way, His commandments will always be viewed as capricious and burdensome.
The glory of Christianity lies precisely in the fact that the unknown God has made Himself known; the unseen God has made Himself visible; the eternal God was born into the world and became man.
In Jesus, the Incarnate One, we see a God who lived out His own commandments even before He gave them out. God did not simply write a moral manual, dropped it from the heavens and left us on our own to figure it out. Blessed John Paul II put it so eloquently when he said that, in Jesus, “God introduced man to man himself.” In short, Jesus, in becoming man, showed humanity how to live as a man and child of God. Jesus did not say “Go!” He said, “Let’s go!”
Yes, God is not our rival. He is our companion. We can trust Him and His commandments are not burdensome. Fr. Joel Jason
 
REFLECTION QUESTION: Have you appreciated the Christmas mystery of God becoming one with us?
 
Prayerfully and with consciousness, pray the following words: “And the Word was made flesh and made His dwelling among us. Amen!”

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