Saturday February 24, 2024

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Today you are making this agreement with the Lord: He is to be your God and you are to walk in his ways. (From Deuteronomy 26:16-19)

Good News Reflection for:

Saturday of the First Week of Lent
February 24, 2024

Today’s Readings:

Deuteronomy 26:16-19
Psalm 119:1-2, 4-5, 7-8
Matthew 5:43-48
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022424.cfm
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/daily-mass-reading-podcast-february-24-2024

Wow! God wants to glorify you!

Wow! God wants to glorify you! Imagine that God the Father is so pleased with you that he’s telling the angels how wonderful you are. What is he saying? Can you imagine it?

Today’s first reading says, “Today you are making this agreement with the Lord: He is to be your God and you are to walk in his ways….”

God’s part in this covenant is: “I will then raise you high in praise and renown and glory!”

Our part of the covenant is to be holy. This gives glory to God. By your holiness, you are praising him because you’re acknowledging that his ways are good.

God the Father in turn glorifies you and praises you. Yes, really! He is so pleased with you that he’s telling the angels and Saints in heaven how wonderful you are.

When we sin, we violate our covenant. We break our relationship with God. That is to say, we break ourselves. The promise is always there because God never fails to fulfill his part of the covenant.

It’s easy to say with our lips that the ways of God are good, but when our decisions conflict with the covenant that God has made with us, we hurt ourselves: We feel pain, stress, worry, fear, lonely and unloved. And we hurt others at the same time.

The ways of God can feel painful, too (for example, as I mourn the unexpected loss of my husband). Still we must remind ourselves, “Wow! God wants to glorify you!”

In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus tells us to love our enemies. An enemy is anyone who’s unloving toward us. It hurts to give love when we are not loved. But this is a different kind of pain; it’s the pain of the Cross. It’s unity with Christ on the Cross. In the midst of this pain, the Lord is our God, and our covenant relationship with him strengthens us and blesses us. He glorifies us.

Wouldn’t you rather suffer with Jesus and experience the joy of his glorious resurrection than suffer the self-destruction of turning away from Jesus? The problem is: Our natural inclination is to avoid all kinds of suffering, and this is probably the root cause of the sins of all faith-filled Christians.

Identify a sin you’re struggling with. Then ask the Holy Spirit, “What am I trying to protect myself from when I commit this sin?” For example, when I sin against God by disbelieving his Word about answering our prayers, I’m unthinkingly trying to protect myself from disappointment. Once we bring out into the open the lies that interfere with our trust in God, holiness becomes much easier. Wow! God wants to glorify you!

© 2024 by Terry A. Modica

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