June 9
Our Lady of Grace
St. Ephrem, Deacon and Doctor of the Church
Today's Gospel: Matthew 5:13-16
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| Photo created by Google AI Image Creator. |
Jesus looked at the crowd on
that hillside and said something that should have been impossible. “You are the
light of the world.”
Exactly as you are sitting on
that hillside with your dusty sandals and your ordinary life and your
collection of doubts and failures and half-kept promises. You are the light. Don't hide
it.
St. Ephrem was a deacon. Not
a priest or a bishop. Just a man with a pen and an unquenchable love for God
and Our Lady. He wrote hymns, hundreds of them, because he understood that
truth set to music reaches places that arguments never can. He called Our Lady
the most pure dwelling place of Christ. He sang it until people couldn't forget
it. A deacon with a song. That was enough to make him a Doctor of the Church.
You don't have to be the most
powerful person in the room to light it up.
I want my life to be a song I
present to the Lord. It doesn’t have to be a perfect or polished one. But the
real one, with all its battles, all its losses, all its long roads and hard
seasons and sins. I’ve had three strokes. Thirty years of one life, eight years
staying steady to the course and now two years into a new life. Through all of
it the rosary never left my hands, and Jesus has never left my heart. I refuse
to be ashamed of my love for Him. I refuse to put the beads down. The Rosary is
a lamp that will never go out.
Our Lady is the city set on a
hill that cannot be hidden. Every apparition. Every title. Every shrine built
in her honor across every century and every continent. Heaven keeps putting her
lamp on a stand and the world keeps trying to hide it. It never will.
Something to sit with today:
What is the song your life
is presenting to the Lord right now, and are you letting it be heard? Jesus
needs to be the absolute center of your daily journey through life.
Keep your faith bold, don’t
let anyone put out that flame. Stand with those who believe like you and pray
for those who oppose you.
“Jesus Christ of
Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that
this man stands before you healed. Jesus is “‘the stone you builders
rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’ Salvation
is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to
mankind by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:10-12
Love Jesus with all your
heart. If you are living in the world, it will devour and spit you out and keep
you away from Jesus. What is your song of love for the Lord?
Rosary Man Jim 🌹
Freely given. Freely shared.
