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Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
Why do we find conversion stories so inspirational? Maybe I should be asking, why do I find conversion stories so inspirational. Just yesterday I came across a story about five medical students who were executed in 1943 by the Nazis. The story of one is unique in that he was baptized and received the Eucharist the day before his execution. Today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles always intrigued me because it mentions that Saul who we know to be Paul sought out Christians and dragged them from their homes turning them over to the authorities for persecution and imprisonment and yet became a prominent missionary making Jesus known, loved and served.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
A few years ago, a father named Mark sat in his car, gripping the steering wheel, unable to walk into his own house. Inside, his teenage daughter was drifting further away, and their home had become a quiet battlefield. He whispered to himself words no parent ever wants to say: “We had hoped things would be different by now.” He felt like he had failed. Finally, he went inside… sat on the floor outside her bedroom… and said, “I don’t have the answers. But I am here. And I love you.” That moment—was not strength. It was vulnerability.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
Today’s dramatic healing in the first reading takes place just outside the Temple at what was called the Beautiful Gate. We’re told it was named this because it was grand in size and ornate in design… something to behold, something fitting. But what took place just outside of it that we’ve just heard… brought a different kind of beauty…one that was wrought from the power of Jesus’ Name…one that was shared by Peter and John with that man begging for alms. The meaning of the Beautiful Gate changed…when a man born with a physical disability encountered Peter and John, who had faith in Jesus. If you think about it, the man whose life was changed forever, up until that day, had the same routine, which included being carried to the Temple gate to beg for alms to survive each day. And it must have worked; he must have received enough money or food from others to make it through the day, and then been carried home. That is, until he met two men who had something else to offer.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
As we move towards Holy Week in this Lenten season, the tone of our readings is gradually changing. There is increasing opposition or resistance to Christ. There is opposition to who Christ was, and opposition to his mission. Today in our gospel we hear that “the Jews picked up rocks to stone Jesus” and his response to their action was that “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of these are you trying to stone me?” He had healed the sick, made the blind see, raised the dead, made the lame walk, and here he was being harassed and almost being killed.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
In Lent we often speak about prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. But Lent is also a search for truth: not just ideas about God, but a deeper knowledge of God himself, and a clearer decision about whether we will live as his people. In today’s Scriptures, the Lord reveals two great truths. First, God binds himself to his people in a covenant—a promise he began with Abraham that he intended not for Abraham alone, but for every generation, including our own. God commits himself to us: “I will be your God, and you will be my people.”
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Holy lives of inspiration | Learn more about our faith
The reading from the Book of Wisdom that we heard today will return to us on Good Friday. It speaks of a righteous person who becomes the target of resentment and hostility—not because he has done wrong, but because his goodness exposes the darkness around him. His very life is a challenge to those who reject God. They plot against him, tear at his reputation, and test him to see if God will defend him. Yet, as we hear elsewhere in Scripture, he does not retaliate. He turns the other cheek.
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