GOD WILL PROVIDE.

“My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will collapse on the way, and some of them have come a great distance.” (Mark 8: 1.....10).

Saturday 12th February 2022 in the 5th Week in Ordinary Time.  Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." (Psalm 23: 1).

Do you find yourself in constant want or need? Example: I need a new car, shoe, job, suit, house, whatever? If the Lord is truly our Good Shepherd, we ought to be content with what He provides. The promise to provide and protect is one of the great privileges of the children of God. Hence in the Our Father, we pray every day: GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD. Also: DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

In spite of these great assurances of divine provision and protection, there are noticeable insecurities about these in the Christian communities.
The restless spirit harbors the spirit of the world. We are warned not to compromise with the spirit of the world but to allow the word of God to shape our vision of the world. (Cf Romans 12: 2).

"They all ate and were satisfied."

How do you feel when your Good Shepherd feeds you? If you are not satisfied, then what and who can satisfy you? The spirit of the world is a restless spirit, full of discontentment. Reject him. Tell him boldly:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He is my Provider. I shall eat and be satisfied.

Daily Bible Verse @ SeekFirstcommunity.com

IF YOU PRAY WELL, YOU LIVE WELL. IF YOU LIVE WELL, YOU DIE WELL. IF YOU DIE WELL, ALL IS WELL.

"Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him.  She came and fell at his feet.
The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter." (Mark 7: 24.....30)

Thursday 10th February 2022, in the 5th Week in Ordinary Time is the feast of St Scholastica, Virgin and Religious. (480 - 547). Italian. Religious nun.  She founded the Benedictine Nuns that continue to serve the Church for 1500 years. Scholastica is the twin sister of the great St Benedict. St Scholastica is the patron saint of education, convulsive children and  Benedictine Nuns.

Our Gospel today is a battle royale between Jesus and a strong woman. Jesus at first refused to grant her request perhaps to try her faith and persistence. Prayer is a battle.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that Prayer is a battle.  Read the entire paragraph below and mark it very well.

"Prayer is both a gift of grace and a determined response on our part. It always presupposes effort. The great figures of prayer of the Old Covenant before Christ, as well as the Mother of God, the saints, and he himself, all teach us this: prayer is a battle. Against whom? Against ourselves and against the wiles of the tempter who does all he can to turn man away from prayer, away from union with God. We pray as we live, because we live as we pray. If we do not want to act habitually according to the Spirit of Christ, neither can we pray habitually in his name. The "spiritual battle" of the Christian's new life is inseparable from the battle of prayer."  (CCC 2725).

This Syrophoenician prayer warrior has practiced the battle of Prayer for a long time before her encounter with Jesus.

Other battles of Prayer in the Bible:

#1.  Abraham praying to God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah. (Genesis 18: 16 - 33).

#2.  David praying that God spares his child of adultery with Bethsheba.  (2 Kings 12: 13 - 18).

#3.  The struggle of the persistent widow with the unjust judge. (Luke 18: 1 - 8).

St Augustine teaches that you can overcome God through persistent prayer. St Patrick writes that Persistence overcomes Resistance. Persistent Prayer produces results.

“For saying this, you may go.
The demon has gone out of your daughter.” When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed and the demon gone."  (Mark 7: 29 - 30).

Daily Bible Verse @ Seekfirstcommunity.com

TO JESUS THROUGH MARY.

"And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!”—that is, “Be opened!”—And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly." (Mark 7: 31.... 37).

Friday 11th February 2022, in the 5th Week in Ordinary Time is the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. It is also a Day of Prayer for the Sick.

In 1858, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to 14 year-old Marie Bernarde Soubirous  in Lourdes, France. She was to become St Bernadette Soubirous. The first apparition was followed by seventeen others. Many healing miracles happens in Lourdes. Lourdes has become a major pilgrimage center in the world. Six million pilgrims visit Lourdes yearly.

We have a miracle of healing in the Gospel Reading for today. Jesus healed a man that is deaf and with a speech impediment. "Jesus looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!”—that is, “Be opened!”—And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly."

Do you need spiritual, physical or emotional healing? Ask Jesus with faith today. Ask with expectant and persistent prayer. It is Ok to go to Jesus through Mary. That is the way of Lourdes, Fatima and Guadalupe, etc. Believe that Jesus is still making the deaf hear and the dumb speak and cancer disappear and so forth.

"Let My adorers take their place before Me. Their faith, their hope, and their surrender to My merciful love will cause a great tide of healing love to pour forth from My sacred side and radiate from My Face. Thus will My adorers, without leaving My sanctuary, become also My apostles: messengers and instruments of My merciful love and of My burning desire to gather in the lost, to bind up the bruised, to tend the wounded, and to heal the broken-hearted." (IN SINU JESU page 231).

Daily Bible Verse @ Seekfirstcommunity.com

"Unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, says the Lord." (Matthew 18: 3 Communion Antiphon. ).

Tuesday 8th February 2022, in the 5th Week in Ordinary Time. We celebrate the feast of two saints today:
++ St Josephine Bakhita (1869 - 1947). Sudanese. Virgin and Religious. Josephine was brought to Italy as a slave. By Divine Providence, she became a sister of the Canossian order. Her exemplary and holy life was noticed. She bore patiently and heroically her last illness. Pope St John Paul II brought her relics to Sudan where she was canonized in 2000. St Josephine Bakhita is the patron saint of Sudan and victims of human trafficking.

++ St Jerome Emiliani. (1481 - 1537). Italian. Priest. Jerome was wayward as a young man. When he was surprised by grace, his life changed 180 degrees. He founded a religious congregation (Somaschi) which looked after the sick, the poor and orphans and abandoned children. St Jerome Emiliani died of the plague while ministering to the afflicted.

In our key Scripture from Matthew 18: 3 from the Communion Antiphon, Jesus praises the humility of a little child.  What is humility?
Just like love, humility is patient and kind.  Humility is not jealous, conceited or proud. It does not keep a record of wrongs. In short, humility is love. St Josephine Bakhita is an examplar of humility. To climb from a little slave girl to the height of sanctity was done through patience and humility.

St Augustine says that Humility is the queen of virtues. He added that you can still get into Heaven by breaking every Commandment in the Book. But you can never get into Heaven without Humility.

Saints Josephine and Jerome pray for us.

Daily Bible Verse @ Seekfirstcommunity.com