Gospel Mystery of the Day                              Monday, May 31, 2021
                                                                  
Good Morning!      
Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path. (Psalm 119)
 
Psalm 33 & Romans 8:14-17
Father God, I lift up my soul to you…  
 
Whenever I become bedazzled or befuddled or consumed in any way with any agenda or issue, I am lifting up my soul to that entity. Both King David the writer of Psalm 33 and St. Paul the writer of the letter to the Romans had lifted up their souls to a string of  false judgments, witnesses, accusers, teachers, reports, oaths to the extent that each became murderers of law-abiding citizens. Both well knew how death-dealing such ‘sin’ (separation from God) could be. But both of these important figures of our Judeo-Christian faith, also came to a point of conversion where they turned back to God, and began to lift up their lives – their heads, their eyes, their hands, their cries, their voices, their prayers, and their very souls only to the Lord God, so that both, by the end of their days died as saints aligned to God their Father. To what  - or to whom- am I lifting up my soul? Father God, I lift up my soul to you. Holy Spirit of God, help us lift up our souls to you.  
 
Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and shield. Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you. (Psalm 33:20-22)
 
There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.
C.S. Lewis  
                       
Soli ad gloriam
Gospel Mystery of the Day on FaceBook
​& www.gospelmysteryoftheday.ca
                                                                                  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
Mark 10:46 – 52

We don’t know what made Bartimeaus, the beggar along Jesus’ path that day, blind.  All we know is that he was aware of his blindness and asked Jesus to have mercy on him. He begged Jesus to let him see again  - and he did! Today there are many things that cloud my vision and can make me blind, blind to the truth, blind to the needs of others around me, and most of all unaware of the glory and the grace of God. My fixation on my own ‘reality’ keeps me in the dark about Truth; my preoccupation with my own needs and comforts gets in the way of me seeing, and responding to, the needs of others; and my finite mesmerized gaze on the time, talents and treasures of this world shut my eyes to the “splendors of God’s wisdom… and how desirable are all his works, and how sparkling they are to see…” (Sirach 42:19,21-22). Do I recognize my own blindness? Am I ready to ask Jesus to have mercy on me – and to let me see again?  Jesus, my Teacher, help me see again!  
 
For the Most High knows all that may be known; he sees the signs of the age. He discloses what has been and what is to be and he reveals the traces of hidden things. He has set in order the splendors of his wisdom. (Sirach: 18b-19   )
 
Open the eyes of my heart, Lord,
Open the eyes of my heart.
I want to see You …
Michael.W. Smith
                       
Soli ad gloriam
Gospel Mystery of the Day on FaceBook
& www.gospelmysteryoftheday.ca
                                                                                  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

                                                                  
John 16:29-33

 
God’s love for us is not uncertain and sentimental like human love, but  unconditional and all-encompassing, all-knowing and always life-giving. This is how he loved Jesus on earth, and loves us now. Jesus was intimately connected to his Father through his lineage and his life of prayer. We too are enfolded by God, unconditionally, in his parental embrace.  God graced his beloved Son with his own character of light, and life and love. We, too, are fashioned in the image of God to come alive and to grow into the light and love Jesus taught with his being human.  God looked after and protected his Son as he grew up, at first by the faith and holiness of Mary and Joseph, and then by Jesus’ own faith and holiness nurtured by his prayer-full response to his Father as he proceeded through his ministry on earth. As we trace the Grace of God’s presence in our lives, it is evident that Father God always protects us and guides our steps into ways of faith and holiness, as much as we are able to respond to his nurture.  God also loved his only begotten Son by allowing him to be separated from him. When Jesus experienced human existence for a time, then was arrested and crucified, God did not abandon his Beloved Son, but rather drew Jesus’ life forward beyond all human intrigue and sin into abundant life, temporally here on earth and eternally in heaven. God extends this separation-toward-resurrection, that is his redemptive love, to us today, by walking with us through the fire of our challenges and sufferings, leading us faithfully beyond the world, the flesh and the devil into our own experiences of abundant life. God’s love for Jesus still continues to be fulfilled as he works with and through his Son as together they continue their constant work of creation in and through the the Holy Spirit that hey gifted into the human realm. Will I turn to God and receive his love for me in all of its various forms, as Jesus received his Father’s love here on earth?  Holy Spirit of God, teach me how you love me like you love your Son, Jesus.     
 
You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of Joy; at your right hand are pleasures forever more.    (Psalm 16:11)
 
In order that obedience be supernatural [and therefore life-giving] it must not proceed from reason, but from faith.
St. Maximilian Kolbe
                       
Soli ad gloriam
Gospel Mystery of the Day on FaceBook
& www.gospelmysteryoftheday.ca
                                                                                  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

John 16:29-33
 
Although I might not be facing direct persecution as a Christian, the stress and anxiety from living in today’s world can so quickly propel me into a place of spiritual battle.  Racing to ‘get things done’ or fending off poisonous blowback from the many people and events that cross my path each day, I can so easily be sucked into a woulda, shoulda, coulda mindset that is the exact opposite of the Peace that Jesus promised to his disciples. No doubt, it does take courage and good cheer to be able to stand up, and walk through the pressures and politics of day to day life in this highly digital and disconnected age. How can I find the courage, the strength and the wisdom to live into Christ’s Peace beyond the world, the flesh and the devil that constantly assail and buffet me around on my life’s journey? Peace is ultimately found through focusing on Jesus, who overcame the ‘world’ –by living into the beatitudes, by dying a death the world threatened and then executed, and by rising again despite the holes of nails and thorns in his flesh and the mortal wound in his side. Will I continually stop to lick my wounds or will I embrace the saving Peace, courage and ‘good cheer’ of the Risen Christ knowing full well that I, too, can walk with Him along the paths of life? Holy Spirit of Jesus, remind me that I can have courage, and extraordinary Peace because you have overcome the world.     
 
Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God daily bears us up; God is our salvation... and to God, the Lord, belongs escape from death.   (Psalm 68:19,20 )
 
In order that obedience be supernatural it must not proceed from reason, but from faith.
St. Maximilian Kolbe
                       
Soli ad gloriam
Gospel Mystery of the Day on FaceBook
​& www.gospelmysteryoftheday.ca
                                                                                  
 
 
 
 
 

 
Ephesians 1: 17-23

 
As a highly educated citizen and orator of Roman and Jewish heritage, and deemed a brilliant writer and philosopher/ theologian in his own right by critics for the past two millennia, Saul of Tarsus, St. Paul, was aware of the ‘hopeful’ trends of his day. St. Paul, writing to the Ephesians, realized how the hope founded in Christ Jesus is different from the hope provided by ideologies, philosophies, and even other spiritual disciplines in his day, and in ours. Through Christ’s death and resurrection, he holds out to us not just a future but the eternity sharing in a ‘glorious inheritance’. By the gift of the Holy Spirit we can set our sights beyond comfort and prosperity to a life that is abundant and full of light, this side of heaven. Indeed, the hope that Jesus is holding out to me today is nothing less than the power to love beyond all fear, forgive beyond all anger and find God beyond all grief. Will I take time to real-ize the extraordinary hope that Jesus is holding out to me today? Holy Spirit of Jesus, help me realize the hope to which you are calling me.    
 
Proclaim the mighty works of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light!   (1 Peter 2 )
 
My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus and his righteousness,
I dare not trust a weaker frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name…
E. Mote
 
                       
Soli ad gloriam
Gospel Mystery of the Day on FaceBook
& www.gospelmysteryoftheday.ca