The Catholic Daily Reflections Series was written to help you enter more deeply into the Holy Scriptures and the Catholic Liturgy on a daily basis. Through these reflections and prayers, you are invited to embrace the Word of God in a personal, engaging, challenging and transforming way. Catholic Daily Reflections: Ordinary Time September 1–November 27, 2021 is available in a variety of forms. See our website for electronic or audio/video versions or to sign up for our free daily email at: www.mycatholic.life. The paperback and eBook versions here offer an easy way for you to daily ponder the holy Gospel during Ordinary Time. Below is a sample reflection to give you a preview of our approach. May God bless you on your journey of personal conversion! Sunday, September 5, 2021 Be Opened! Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B “Ephphatha!”— that is, “Be opened!” Mark 7:34b These are powerful words. Why are they powerful? They are powerful because they are more than words. They are words that actually accomplish what they say. These words are spoken by Jesus after the deaf man is brought to Him with the request for healing. By saying the command “Be opened!”, the deaf man’s ears are opened and his speech impediment is removed. When Jesus speaks, His word changes things. This is true in this story, but it is also true in our lives. We all are deaf and struggle with a speech impediment in the sense that we do not always hear the voice of God and we do not always speak His word and words of charity. For that reason, these words of Jesus must be spoken to us. We must let Him take us off to a quiet place alone and speak to us. We must let Him say those words to us: “Ephphatha!–Be opened!” What is it that you are not hearing properly? What is it God has been saying to you for a long time that you refuse to hear? What is it you have allowed yourself to become deaf to? Let our Lord open the “ears” of your heart so that you can hear all that He wishes to say to you. Once that happens, Jesus will also help you speak His words of truth and love. Reflect, today, upon how open you are to hearing the voice of God. We all struggle at times with listening, and we especially may struggle listening to God. Spend some time alone with our Lord and let Him heal you, so that you can hear and understand all that He is saying to you. Lord, I do not always listen to You. Please speak Your words of healing to me so that I can hear You more clearly. In hearing You, may I listen to all that You have to say. Jesus, I trust in You.

The Catholic Daily Reflections Series was written to help you enter more deeply into the Holy Scriptures and the Catholic Liturgy on a daily basis. Through these reflections and prayers, you are invited to embrace the Word of God in a personal, engaging, challenging and transforming way. Catholic Daily Reflections: Ordinary Time September 1-November 27, 2021 is available in a variety of forms. See our website for electronic or audio/video versions or to sign up for our free daily email at: www.mycatholic.life. The paperback and eBook versions here offer an easy way for you to daily ponder the holy Gospel during Ordinary Time. Below is a sample reflection to give you a preview of our approach. May God bless you on your journey of personal conversion! Sunday, September 5, 2021 Be Opened! Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B "Ephphatha!"-- that is, "Be opened!" Mark 7:34b These are powerful words. Why are they powerful? They are powerful because they are more than words. They are words that actually accomplish what they say. These words are spoken by Jesus after the deaf man is brought to Him with the request for healing. By saying the command "Be opened!", the deaf man's ears are opened and his speech impediment is removed. When Jesus speaks, His word changes things. This is true in this story, but it is also true in our lives. We all are deaf and struggle with a speech impediment in the sense that we do not always hear the voice of God and we do not always speak His word and words of charity. For that reason, these words of Jesus must be spoken to us. We must let Him take us off to a quiet place alone and speak to us. We must let Him say those words to us: "Ephphatha!-Be opened!" What is it that you are not hearing properly? What is it God has been saying to you for a long time that you refuse to hear? What is it you have allowed yourself to become deaf to? Let our Lord open the "ears" of your heart so that you can hear all that He wishes to say to you. Once that happens, Jesus will also help you speak His words of truth and love. Reflect, today, upon how open you are to hearing the voice of God. We all struggle at times with listening, and we especially may struggle listening to God. Spend some time alone with our Lord and let Him heal you so that you can hear and understand all that He is saying to you. Lord, I do not always listen to You. Please speak Your words of healing to me so that I can hear You more clearly. In hearing You, may I listen to all that You have to say. Jesus, I trust in You.

The Catholic Daily Reflections Series was written to help you enter more deeply into the Holy Scriptures and the Catholic Liturgy on a daily basis. Through these reflections and prayers, you are invited to embrace the Word of God in a personal, engaging, challenging and transforming way. Catholic Daily Reflections: Ordinary Time May 24–August 31, 2021 is available in a variety of forms. See our website for electronic or audio/video versions or to sign up for our free daily email at: www.mycatholic.life. The paperback and eBook versions here offer an easy way for you to daily ponder the holy Gospel during Ordinary Time. Below is a sample reflection for Easter Sunday to give you a preview of our approach. May God bless you on your journey of personal conversion! Tuesday, May 25, 2021 An Exchange of Gifts Tuesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel who will not receive a hundred times more…” Mark 10:29–30 Jesus’ statement above is in response to Peter who said to Him, “We have given up everything and followed you.” It was as if Peter were patting himself on the back, attempting to highlight just how much he and the other disciples had sacrificed to follow Jesus. And it was true, they did give up everything of their former life. They left home, their occupation, their relationships and everything that had been part of their daily established life in response to the call of Jesus. They were truly all in. In hearing this statement from Peter, Jesus does not give the expected response. He doesn’t say to Peter, “Yes, you have, that’s very impressive Peter. Good job and thank you!” Instead, Jesus immediately explains to Peter that the sacrifice he and the others have made is worth it. Their unwavering commitment to follow Jesus would be repaid with gifts beyond their imagination. Thus, Jesus was saying that the gifts that He would bestow upon them would be exponentially greater than every sacrifice they made. This was not a belittling of Peter’s self-sacrifice; rather, it was a form of encouragement by Jesus. He was encouraging Peter, and the other disciples, to have full confidence in their decision to follow Him. Their sacrifice would yield a hundred fold return. That is truly a good investment. It can be tempting for us all, at times, to feel as though God asks too much of us. It’s true that God asks much of us. He asks everything from us. He asks for the complete and total gift of our lives to Him. He calls us to abandon all selfishness and to dedicate ourselves to His holy will without exception. But if we understand the reward of our self-giving, then the sacrifices we make will pale in comparison to the reward. Reflect, today, upon whether or not you can say those words of the Apostle, Saint Peter: “Lord, I have given up everything to follow You.” Have you truly given your life completely to Christ Jesus? Are there things that you still hold back, not wanting to “sacrifice” for our Lord? Ponder those words of Peter and allow yourself to see the areas of your life you still need to surrender over to Jesus. And as you do so, allow the reward promised by our Lord to motivate you to the point that you truly hold nothing back and truly have given up everything to follow His holy will. My generous Lord, You ask everything of me. You ask me to abandon everything in my pursuit of Your perfect will. Give me the grace I need to answer Your call and to live sacrificially for You without counting the cost. You are generous beyond description, dear Lord, and I trust that following You will produce an abundance of good fruit. Jesus, I trust in You.

"The Second Vatican Council called the Bible 'the food of the soul.' Yet, for many Catholics, their engagement with Scripture is often limited to what they hear at Mass--and the dull, safe, predictable homilies that obscure rather than break open up the Word of God. In Food for the Soul, a riveting three-part series, celebrated philosopher Peter Kreeft invites the faithful—clergy and laity alike—to a heart-to-heart relationship with Christ the Word through the Word of the Scriptures." --

The New Jerusalem Bible: Standard Edition will satisfy the great need for an authoritative version of "the greatest story ever told" in a package so attractive, user friendly, and affordable, this edition is destined to become a classic. Using the same translation that has been hailed as "truly magnificent" (Journal of Bible Literature), the Standard Edition has a completely redesigned interior, set in a two-column format for easy reading. With all the best features of much more cumbersome and costly versions, this Bible is a must-have for home, church, and school.

We all face stress and tension in our daily lives. We might even wonder why our God of abundant goodness doesn’t remove the everyday struggles we face. Jesus’ interactions with Martha and Mary in the Gospel provide us the key to understanding how God shows us his love by allowing tensions in our lives. As we follow the sisters’ transformative journeys through their own struggles, reflecting on what transpires between Scripture verses, we see their initial tension become the catalyst that drives both Mary and Martha to the feet of Jesus — the place where all discover peace. Grace in Tension explores the areas where stress arises in our own lives. Each chapter ends with a thought-provoking prayer to inspire us to go to God with our problems, followed by questions for reflection to help us see all the ways he’s working for our good. God doesn’t create any of it, but he does show up amid life’s difficulties, ready to lead us through. No matter how big or small our struggle, when we seek him out, he reveals what we need to do to resolve our tension, transforming it into grace. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Claire McGarry is the founder of MOSAIC of Faith, a ministry for mothers of infants to school-aged children to explore their faith through motherhood. She contributes regularly to CatholicMom.com and blogs at ShiftingMyPerspective.com. She is the author of Lenten devotional With Our Savior, and her work has appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul, Keys for Kids, These Days, and Focus on the Family magazine. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and three children.