GOSPEL OF LUKE

OUR THEME for today's lesson is WISDOM. Everyone has a name. I think every person’s SOUL should have a name. Each Catholic believer’s soul should be named THEOPHILUS which means “friend of God”. FOR WHAT PURPOSE: (not for entertainment or socializing in the name of worship) but “that you may know the truth”! [Lk 1:4] We call this wisdom! MARY, the mother of God and mother of the Church is given to us that we may know that true wisdom only comes from God. This wisdom that sets the scene for the most PROFOUND AND WELCOME PEACE in the heart of man.

OUR THEME for today's lesson is the virtue of FORTITUDE: Fortitude means: natural human courage, natural human strength, and natural human steadfastness .The human struggle demands that we use all of these, because we live in a broken world. Let us now speak of FORTITUDE in a spiritual sense. The Holy Spirit makes the natural human gift of fortitude supernatural. So fortitude is a supernatural virtue. The Spirit of Pentecost gives us a supernatural courage, a supernatural strength, a supernatural steadfastness. The Spirit helps ordinary men and women accomplish extraordinary things in life. Christ gives us the Spirit. The Spirit gives us the gift of supernatural fortitude.

OUR THEME for today's lesson is FAITHFULNESS. Lk Chapter 6:46. "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do what I tell you?” Natural faith leads man to seek and find God. When a person (man, woman, child) comes to Christ and is baptized in the Church, he receives into the temple of his human personhood the very gift of God himself. By receiving the Holy Spirit, and acting on it, natural faith is made supernatural. Faith is a virtue. We say that faith (as with hope and love) is a theological virtue. “Theology” means the “study of God” (THEO—God, OLOGY—study). When we say the “study” of God, we’re talking about more than books and classes. In saying that faith is intimately connected with the study of God, we mean, Faith is my free gift of living discipleship I give to God.

OUR THEME for today's lesson is HEALING. From St. Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 11 verses 20-34, we learn an amazing truth. The Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ in the Holy Eucharist is for the healing and good health of your body and soul. In the priest’s private communion prayer at the altar, he acknowledges to God the power of the Eucharist to save. He whispers his allegiance to the Eucharist, “Let it not bring me condemnation, but health in mind and in body.”

OUR THEME for today's lesson is MERCY (Lk Ch. 9:23): “And he said to all, ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.’” The cross is a sign of mercy because Jesus the great high priest chose it as his very own altar. On this altar of his own choosing, the high priest Jesus, himself, was the sacrifice, the “spotless lamb” spoken of in Sacred Scripture. No wonder the Luke’s gospel says, “And all were astonished at the majesty of God”! [Lk 9:43]

OUR THEME for today's lesson is TAKING ACTION. The Word of God is the light of faith, hope and love. All human hopes and dreams and human suffering leads to the cross and to a person, Jesus Christ, who took action for the sake of all men and women of good will who suffer in this world. The Word of God says, TAKE ACTION! Go to the cross of Christ! Go to the one person in all of heaven and earth who suffered, died and rose from the dead so that you might live. Jesus Christ is that person. He is the only one to whom you can entrust your very self. Entrust your hopes and dreams, your life’s work and life’s journey, your today and all your tomorrows (even to eternity) to Jesus, and to Jesus alone. Jesus, who is life itself, gives you life. Jesus, who is courage itself, gives you courage to TAKE ACTION and change your life.

OUR THEME for today's lesson is the KINGDOM OF GOD. The "Kingdom of God" refers to the mystery of salvation which mortal man never masters, a divine mystery which Christians don’t altogether understand—and happily so. In God’s Kingdom, it’s not hard to discover two realities which seem to be in conflict but actually aren’t. We often just don’t understand how the God and the World of the Spirit works. Born in a feed trough, Jesus presides at the heavenly banquet. The shame of the cross is the glory of God’s merciful kingdom. Quite unlike the kingdom of man, there are never any losers in the KINGDOM OF GOD. In God’s Kingdom, a paradox always refers to a win-win situation. There are only winners in God’s miraculous Kingdom.

OUR THEME for today’s lesson is REJOICING. St. Paul wrote to his beloved Church of Philippi: Phi 4:4. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.” St. Luke says, “Rejoice with me!” [Lk 15:6,9] and “make merry and be glad!” [Lk 15: 23,32] Christians are to be known for rejoicing. “To rejoice” means to experience and celebrate the great gift of God’s goodness. The experience of joy is the celebration of the goodness of God, the goodness of his creation, and the goodness of his human creatures.

OUR THEME for today's lesson is SIGHT AND INSIGHT. The Book of Hebrews tells us that, in the sacred order of God’s Kingdom, supernatural insight is to be preferred to the natural sight of the eyes: [Heb 11:1] “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” What are the important things that human eyesight cannot see? God, for one. Eternity for another. Yet our salvation is to be found precisely in the things that our natural eyes cannot see. We may say that eyesight is like seeing by the light of a lamp, whereas insight is like “lightning flashes (that) light up the sky from one side to another”. [Lk 17:24] By placing our trust in the good things of God’s heaven that we cannot see, we “increase our faith” [Lk 17:5] by making a “leap of faith”.

OUR THEME for today's lesson is CONFRONTATION. Christ came to confront the world’s sin and the sin of every man, woman and child. There is not a single person on earth who does not want to be rescued from futility and despair. All of us want to be delivered from “the howling waste of the wilderness” [cf. Deu 32:10] Only by confronting our need for reconciliation and union with God, will we find the path to genuine peace in this troubled world. Therefore, reform your lives: “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” [Mt 3:10]

OUR THEME for today's lesson is SACRIFICE. “Sacrifice” comes from the Latin word "sacrificium". A gift truly becomes a sacrifice, therefore, when the giver and the receiver understand the “solemn” nature of what they’re doing. In one person is revealed an overwhelming need. In another person is revealed the astonishing response. A sacrifice, in the proper or formal sense, invites the giver and receiver to step together onto holy ground. Both giver and receiver acknowledge the solemnity, the utmost seriousness, of what they’re doing. Both understand that self-less giving and receiving is a reflection of the sacred.

OUR THEME for today's lesson is ASSENT. Remember, the Church is a voluntary society. To give your assent to Christ and his Church means that you solemnly receive and affirm voluntarily what Christ and his Church propose as true. To give your assent to the Church’s teachings means saying, "I concur with them", "I endorse them", and "I maintain them" in my life. It goes without saying: Only by giving your full assent—“I believe”—to the Truth of the Church, can you give your full consent to membership within the Church.