Tagged: Give Us This Day

Give Us This Day

Homily for the Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year C

The power of a parable lies in its ability to shock us, or to suddenly flip things upside down. Parables make us sit up and pay attention because they challenge our view of the world. For example, the Parable of the Sower puzzles us because the farmer throws seeds everywhere, on the path, on rocky ground, among thorns. The Parable of the Good Samaritan shocks us because the Samaritan passer-by takes care of the Jew who’s been robbed. But today’s Parable of the Dishonest Steward may be the...

Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Ludolf Backhuysen

The Faith that Banishes All Fear

In today’s gospel, the disciples wake Jesus up out of fear that they will perish at sea in their little boat. After calming the wind and water, Jesus asks them, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?” It has been said that the most common phrase in the Bible is “Be not afraid.” In today’s meditation from Give Us This Day, Charles de Foucauld reminds us why: Complete freedom from fear is one of those things we owe wholly to Our Lord. To be afraid...

Sunrise

Who Will You Be This Day?

National Vocation Awareness Week ends this weekend, and today’s gospel meditation on John 1:35-42 by Rachel Subras in Give Us This Day fits the occasion well: You are called like Simon to leave aside your plans and go when summoned, to be beheld and known by God’s own, and be renamed. You do have a choice. You can retreat, take comfort in the familiar, and risk missing your calling. Or you can set out, take on the discomforts of the strange and the stranger, and live into, live up...

Theotokos

Mary: A Model of God’s Invitation to Shared Life and Sacrifice

How wonderful to open up the January issue of Give Us This Day and discover that the very first meditation of the new year is by my diocese’s very own Bishop Blase Cupich. Here is the conclusion of his meditation on this Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God: This blessed virgin agreed not only to give birth to the Son of the Most High God. She also consented to enter into a unique relationship with God, a relationship that is so intimate that only the bond between a...