The Spirit of God will bear witness through you

CATHOLIC DAILY SCRIPTURE READING

Welcome to my blog. The Catholic Church under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit gives us each day at least two readings from the Bible, plus several verses from a psalm which is an inspired response to one of the readings, normally the first.

There is a cycle (a two-year cycle for weekdays and a three-year cycle for Sundays) which covers the major parts of the Old Testament, the Gospels and the New Testament writings.

Through these readings we get our spiritual nourishment. In my blog I give the readings and the inspirations I have received in prayer. I want to share them with others. If they help some to get in touch with God and his image in this world, Jesus the Christ, then my purpose will be fulfilled. May God bless you through his Spirit.

If we wish to grow spiritually, then we must set aside time each day to prayerfully read the WORD OF GOD. In silence we allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us through the reading. We respond with the PSALM.

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Tuesday 19 May 2020

The Spirit of God will bear witness through you

Let us rejoice and be glad and give glory to God

for the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. Alleluia

Prayer

Father, Jesus, your Son, has promised the Holy Spirit to his Church in every age just as in the first generation of believers. May the Spirit be powerfully present in the Church as a whole and in each of its members, to be your dynamic witnesses.

Acts 16:22-34.

Become a believer and you will be saved, and your household too

A mob quickly formed against Paul and Silas, and the city officials ordered them stripped and beaten with wooden rods.  They were severely beaten, and then they were thrown into prison. The jailer was ordered to make sure they didn’t escape. 

So the jailer put them into the inner dungeon and clamped their feet in the stocks.

Around midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening.  Suddenly, there was a massive earthquake, and the prison was shaken to its foundations. All the doors immediately flew open, and the chains of every prisoner fell off!  The jailer  had escaped, so he drew his sword to kill himself.  But Paul shouted to him, “Stop! Don’t kill yourself! We are all here!”

The jailer called for lights and ran to the dungeon and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.  Then he brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, along with everyone in your household.”  And they shared the word of the Lord with him and with all who lived in his household.  Even at that hour of the night, the jailer cared for them and washed their wounds. Then he and everyone in his household were immediately baptized.  He brought them into his house and set a meal before them, and he and his entire household rejoiced because they all believed in God. THE WORD OF THE LORD

Prayerful reflection

Paul and Silas are men filled with the Spirit of God. Nothing can break them. Beaten, insulted and thrown starving into a dungeon with their feet in irons, they still sing the praises of God. The other prisoners are amazed and stay awake listening to them. The same Spirit is the Lord’s gift to you, if you will receive him, as they did.

Don’t look with envy on the first generation of Christians, as if they had a special outpouring of God’s Spirit. Don’t look on Silas and Paul as kind of demi-gods. God’s Spirit is equally available to every generation of believers. If he is not as active in us, that is our fault, not that Jesus has withheld his Spirit.

PSALM (Make the psalm your prayer of gratitude for God’s Word)

Psalm 137(138):1-3,7-8

You stretch out your hand and save me, O Lord.

I thank you, Lord, with all my heart:

you have heard the words of my mouth.

In the presence of the angels I will bless you.

I will adore before your holy temple.

You stretch out your hand and save me, O Lord.

I thank you for your faithfulness and love,

which excel all we ever knew of you.

On the day I called, you answered;

you increased the strength of my soul.

You stretch out your hand and save me, O Lord.

You stretch out your hand and save me,

your hand will do all things for me.

Your love, O Lord, is eternal,

discard not the work of your hands.

You stretch out your hand and save me, O Lord.

Unless I go, the Advocate will not come to you

John 16:5-11

Jesus said to his disciples at the last Supper:

“But now I am going away to the one who sent me, and not one of you is asking where I am going. Instead, you grieve because of what I’ve told you. But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment. The world’s sin is that it refuses to believe in me. Righteousness is available because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more. Judgment will come because the ruler of this world has already been judged. THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD

Prayerful reflection

The disciples are grieving because Jesus is about to leave them for good. They will not see him again in his visible human way. Their life is collapsing and becoming meaningless.

If a loving husband is jailed, what is his greatest pain? He cannot be united in love with his wife and children. He misses them painfully. Without them his life too is meaningless. In these days of Covid-19 what is the pain of the true believer? It is the pain of being unable to be one in love with Jesus, in the physical union with him in the Holy Eucharist.

Jesus consoles his disciples and us with the promise of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit of Father and Son. He is their Love, personified. He is a pure Spirit and is not limited to a body. Jesus in his glorified humanity is at the right side of the Father and in the Holy Eucharist. The Holy Spirit is everywhere. He unites us with Jesus and with the Father.

Filling us as the heat in a furnace fills the iron, through us he will bear witness to Jesus in the world and proof the world so wrong in its unbelief and condemnation of Jesus. Through us he will prove to the world that Jesus is Lord through his Resurrection. Through us the Spirit will prove to the world that Satan, ‘prince of this world’ who ultimately crucified Jesus has been overthrown, with all his deceptive promises.

Like the iron in the fire, do you gladly welcome the Advocate, God’s Spirit, into you?

The Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead,

and so enter into his glory, alleluia.

Prayer

Father, burning with love for Jesus through the indwelling of his Spirit, may we be his witnesses in both word and deed. We make our prayer through your Son, Christ Jesus Our Lord

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