Catholic Bible Study Made Simple

If you were told that you were to have a king, and absolute monarch, in your life, would you want it to be Jesus is that King. Life goes better if we recognize that He is King and we desire His kingship.

The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings

The blog post can be found here: Blog Post

Are you ready for the second coming of Christ? These scriptures seem to indicate that even the elect will not escape the calamities that are prophesied to happen before His return.  We are called to be knowledgeable of what God has told us and alert for the signs.

The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings

The blog post can be found here: Blog Post

Many of us have decent relationships with God; however, few of us are trusting enough in God’s provision to do what the widows in these readings did, give everything they had to God and His representative. More amazing is that the widow of the first reading was probably a pagan.

The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings

The blog post can be found here: Blog Post

How many gods do you have in your life: money, power, position, or any of the others our world suggests that we should place before all else in our lives? Or do you place the LORD God first in your life? Do you have a loving relationship with Him? These readings call us to place the true God first in our lives and to love Him. Out of that love is to flow love for His children around us.

God as Father demonstrated His great love for us by sending His Son to redeem us. Jesus is the perfect High Priest. He continues that role by continuously interceding for us with the Father.

The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings

The blog post can be found here: Blog Post

Jesus came to heal and to free. That continues to be His role. Consider what inside you that needs to be healed. Where is your spiritual blindness? What is it that has you in bondage that you cannot be free to be the person that God not only created you to be but calls you to be every day?

Jesus has the answer. Jesus is the answer.

The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings

The blog post can be found here: Blog Post

What is it you ask of Jesus? Is it something as self-serving as James and John’s request? Unfortunately, too often we ask God for what we want to satisfy our desires, not God’s. We want, power, prestige, recognition, authority, wealth, and at the end eternal life; but I want these now. Jesus’ call to us is different.

“You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” (John 13:13–14, RSV2CE)

“If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” (John 15:10–14, RSV2CE)

The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings

The blog post can be found here: Blog Post

“[T]he wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity.” (James 3:17, RSV2CE) Why do we so often seek the wisdom of this world and the things that this world says we should? We allow ourselves to be deceived because we do not use the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, as a means of separating what is false from what is true.

We are to repent of, turn around from, our faulty way of thinking we must have our hearts and minds renewed by the Word that has been given to us, believe it, and live by it.

The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings

The blog post can be found here: Blog Post

Our culture says that marriage is a matter of convenience rather than a covenant relationship established by God. Genuine marriage is between two parties who are committed to laying down their lives for each other.

In Jesus’ day, the idea of a throw away marriage was common as well. Jesus reminds the religious leaders that it was because of the hardness of Hebrew hearts that Moses allowed divorce.

Our issue with God’s law may not lie with marriage, but most of us have areas of hardness in our hearts that question the truth of what God has said about one area or another of our lives.

Jesus laid down His life for His bride, the Church. If we are to be imitators of Christ Jesus, we must lay down our lives for our spouses.

The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings

The blog post can be found here: Blog Post

Our God is a God of surprises. He surprised the Israelite leaders in the first reading. He surprised the disciples in the gospel reading. And He didn’t ask anyone’s permission to pull off His surprise. Nor did He care if what He did didn’t follow and expected way of doing things.

Unwarranted disgust can result when God does not do things the way we expect Him to, especially if He choses to use someone we think not worthy of His choosing, someone who is not a member of the club.

We are much better disciples when we allow God to be God and satisfy ourselves for the part He has given us to play rather than comparing ourselves with other and judging their worth.

The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings

The blog post can be found here: Blog Post

The second reading calls us to account for our attitudes and actions, as does most of the Letter of James. He was a follower of Jesus; and surely, he observed the words and actions of the apostles as they jockeyed for position and attempted to force their views upon Jesus.

This should give us hope. If those who were closest to Jesus were unable to receive, understand, and live the message, why are we surprised that we are not consistent in our Christian life. It was only the Holy Spirit who changed their way of thinking, understanding, and living. The Holy Spirit can do the same for us.

The Mass readings can be found here: Scripture Readings

The blog post can be found here: Blog Post