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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
Holy lives of inspiration | Love thy Neighbor
There is a notion in chemistry called activation energy. The idea being that, even for reactions that are going to give off a lot of energy, you have to supply a little energy up front to get them going. Think about lighting a match in order to start a big campfire. Tons of energy given off, but without the match, the kindling and the wood just sit there. An analogous idea can be found in the very colloquial business saying, “It takes money to make money.” Imagine if you had been able to invest $1000 in Nike or Apple or Tesla when the company first went public.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
Every generation of young people have the saints for whom they feel a particular devotion. Teenagers and children today clearly love Blessed Carlo Acutis, who will be canonized on September 7. It makes sense; he’s one of them, a teenager himself, and someone who effortlessly used the tools of our digital world. Many Catholics around my age, we Gen X Catholics, feel a special connection with today’s saint, Maximilian Kolbe. Maybe it’s because ours was really the last generation to grow up in the shadow of World War II -- with a real consciousness of it as a battle for humanity’s soul -- since many of us had grandparents who had fought in Europe or Japan.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Why pray?
Jesus is both God and Man. God is both One and Three. These theological mysteries of our faith, where seemingly impossible things go together, continue a pattern of more immediate, personal mysteries that many of the heroes in our Scriptures were asked to embrace. Before the burning bush, Moses asked the Lord, “Why send me to convince Pharaoh, when I am such a poor speaker?” At the Annunciation, Mary replied to the angel, “How can I give birth to the Messiah since I am a virgin?”
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Holy lives of inspiration | Why pray?
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown.” This is an old saying that expresses the suffering and difficulties that leaders can endure. In each of today’s Scripture readings we see an important leader of God’s people go through a different kind of trial. In the first reading from the Book of Numbers, we hear yet another “grumbling story,” where the people Israel speak rebelliously against God and His servant Moses. Today’s scene, in fact, represents quite an escalation in this dynamic, for here we see not simply an unnamed crowd of complainers, but Moses’ own sister and brother, Miriam and Aaron, challenging the reality of Moses’ unique relationship with God and criticizing Moses’ decision to marry a foreigner. The sense of betrayal Moses would have felt must have been enormous.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
In today’s Gospel, we see the nitty gritty reality of the Incarnation. The Eternal Son of God chose to humble Himself and be born as a man. And not just a man, but a man living in Nazareth, one of the most insignificant villages in His country. And not just a man living in Nazareth, but a manual laborer. And so, despite Jesus’ powerful teaching and wondrous miracles, the people of Nazareth disrespect Him: isn’t this man just one of us? And isn’t He even one of the more lowly ones among us? And the response of Jesus’ neighbors, when you think about it in merely human terms, actually does make some sense. I mean, before Jesus, can you think of any other great figure in history, anyone who led an important movement, who wasn’t a member of the elite class or a military figure? I can’t. And yet, here Jesus is, proclaiming that He is ushering in the Kingdom of God. Really? A carpenter? From Nazareth? Not a nobleman. Not a general.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
For many years today’s feast day was simply the Memorial of Saint Martha. Pope Francis gave a beautiful gift to the Church by changing it to the Memorial of Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. In doing so, he changed today into a celebration of family.
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