Praise and glory to you, God our loving Father for this gift of another Monday; help us to live in solidarity with your Son Jesus Christ as brothers and sisters, heirs of your kingdom in heaven that in our work and studies, we may always be guided by the Holy Spirit to seek and follow your Holy Will.
For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then, heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
Romans 8:15-17
So many times, O Lord, we are like that synagogue official in the gospel today: blinded not only by material things but most of all by our religion - the worst blindness we have which we refuse to admit; hence, we continue to plunge deeper into its darkness of self-righteousness as we outwardly profess we believe in you, we worship you alone when in fact we have many other gods ruling over us like our pride and ego, our religious positions and titles, even our ministries that are all self-serving, too far from the people specially the poor and sick, and much too far from you, dear God.
Give us the grace, dear Father, through your Son Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds and hearts to search more his light to illumine the darkness within us and to find more his face among one another so that we may be truly in solidarity with him and your people. Amen.
