Prayer Prompt before reading MK 3:7-12: Come, Holy Spirit, teach me how to pray well, interpret the Scriptures for me so that I may know the Truth about who God the Father is and who God the Son is so that I may know who I am.
“HE TOLD HIS DISCIPLES TO HAVE A BOAT READY FOR HIM BECAUSE OF THE CROWD, SO THAT THEY WOULD NOT CRUSH HIM.” MK 3:7-12
Humbly submit your will to God (Thy Will be done) and consecrate yourself to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through Mary and Joseph.
Why do people desire Jesus? On the surface, because he heals them. Spiritually, he has mercy on them as a sinner and frees them from sin. More deeply though, He has what we want, POWER! Lucifer, the fallen angel, the most powerful angel wanted that power more than anything and could not have it.
Today, Lucifer continues to seek and destroy love wherever he can, especially marriage and the family is under attack. We want to control everything in our lives and we are so upset when our plans don’t work out. We are upset when we can’t control people in our relationships and make them do what we want. Power when used incorrectly is about popularity or status, wealth, strength, high positions, awards, and achievement.
It is not bad to achieve when we use the gifts God has blessed us with to the best of our ability to share with others. St. Teresa of Calcutta said, “It does not matter how much we accomplish, but how much we love.” The problem is when we obsess over it, work too many hours and leave our families behind, miss Mass for weekend sports tournaments, and have to go into extreme debt to keep up a fake life of wealth to keep up our status. Mother Teresa said, “In the end, it is always between you and God.”
Jesus has done an amazing job of revealing Himself to us in the last 3 weeks. He comes to us as a baby, completely innocent and poor. He is revealed at the Epiphany and worshiped by earthly kings recognizing Him as the one who has all of the POWER and is the one True King. God, with this power, does not hold it over our heads and use it against us, He gave it to us and gave Himself to us, so we may share in this power which is LOVE.
He is adored by the shepherds who were told by angels that God is on earth to bring peace to His people. Zechariah and Anna reveal at the Presentation in the temple, “This child will be responsible for the rise and fall of many in Israel”. Mary’s heart is pierced which begins a sorrowful and suffering heart that recognizes the most POWERFUL will have to suffer and die to REDEEM all sinners.
Then, John the Baptist speaks prophetic words, “Behold, the Lamb of God”. God speaks from the heavens and says, “This is my beloved Son of whom I am well pleased”. Now, we enter into Jesus’s healing ministry in the Gospel of Mark. This is to fulfill prophecies from the Old Testament about a Messiah who will come to save His people.
It is to draw people to Him. But, most importantly it is to teach us how to use POWER correctly, by SERVING and HUMILITY. Jesus uses the greatest power to serve. He uses it to love. He uses it to have compassion on others.
Most importantly, we struggle with POWER every day of our lives. If we truly desire God in our hearts, we must let go of all of our power and submit to the ONE POWER that can make us the most joyful in this life and the next. Our identity is in the GREATEST POWER through His death and resurrection, we are made in His image and likeness, we are baptized into His family and become His child, through the blood of Christ we become His brother or sister, the GREATEST POWER lives in us in the Holy Spirit and is given to us in the SACRAMENTS.
God’s grace is His life in us. This is why the saints went to Mass daily sometimes more and to confession sometimes daily or weekly. They recognized how POWERLESS they were and how much POWER God had to help them be holy and fight Satan. God desires nothing more than to give you His love and grace. Our greatest POWER is living to be the person God made us to be and sharing that with others.
God’s love is the most POWERFUL thing in the world. It conquered sin and death. It overcomes evil and darkness in our world. It forgives and is for giving. It heals. It changes lives and creates lives. Most importantly, God’s POWER is LOVE. There is no greater POWER than God’s LOVE in all the world.
NOTHING has ever beat God’s LOVE!!! Our POWER is pale in comparison to God’s POWER. We will be held accountable by this POWER on judgment day. At some point we are going to have to submit to the POWER that created us, it would be smart not to let that be our death bed.
It would also be wise to humbly submit to Him, give Him everything, visit Him daily in prayer, invite Him into our daily activities and especially our temptations, visit His mother daily and ask for her help since He told us to from the Cross, receive Him at Mass, and share Him with others by modeling Him in our lives being who we were created to be.
Why do people desire Jesus and want to get so close to Him and crush Him? Holiness is attractive. He is the Way to our heavenly home, our hearts greatest desire. He gives us the POWER to get there and the joy is overwhelming.
Today’s challenge: Make a habit of getting up early in the morning to spend time with Jesus to make Him the center of your life, not just a part of your life. Give up yourself totally and completely to Him through Mary and everything you own. Allow Him to have power over you, so that you have power over the Devil and your desires.
Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children, Jan. 22nd
Please pray for all pre-born babies, their parents, and for those who have had an abortion. Please pray for doctors and nurses and all who work at abortion facilities. Please pray for all lawmakers to make laws to protect life and over turn laws that don’t.
Be a servant, become a saint!
#Christian YODO (You Only Die Once; we will live again!)
This is telling me that all that we need to succeed is Jesus and faith. If we do not have both of these, then there is no way we will be able to make it into heaven.
What stood out to me was: St. Teresa of Calcutta said, “It does not matter how much we accomplish, but how much we love.” This stood out to me because I really highlights the fact that some people think that the only thing that matters are how much money you make, how successful you are etc., but the only thing that matters remotely is how much you can Love.
“He had cured many and, as a result, those who had diseases
were pressing upon him to touch him.
And whenever unclean spirits saw him they would fall down before him
and shout, “You are the Son of God.”
He warned them sternly not to make him known.”
This stuck out to me due to it saying that even the unclean spirits knew that Jesus is the Son Of God, but yet some people in this world dont believe despite everything he has done for us. Despite the fact he cured thousands, despite all the miracles. I believe that people should strive to spread the word of God, try to go to mass, at least make an effort. Make an effort to learn about God, make an effort to go to mass, just try.
I love today’s Gospel because it says people from many countries went to Jesus and they were all asking for healing. I am very inspired by all of their faith because if you think about it: if you heard there was some dude all the way in like, Mongolia or something, healing people left and right, would you take a risk and make the trip to with a loved one to have them healed? These people truly believed that Jesus could heal, so they went and their incredible faith paid off because Jesus is never not worth it.
In today’s gospel Jesus is out and about preaching and healing but the problem is He is about to be crushed by the crowd. He then gets into a boat and preaches and heals from there.
“HE TOLD HIS DISCIPLES TO HAVE A BOAT READY FOR HIM BECAUSE OF THE CROWD, SO THAT THEY WOULD NOT CRUSH HIM.” MK 3:7-12. This stood out to me because Jesus is saying that he needs a boat because of the crowd that came to him for help. Another reason why this stood out to me is because there were lots of people in the crowd Jesus could have gotten stressed from the amount of people that needed to be healed.
Jesus didn’t want everyone to know that He is healing because then some people who are mean would use Him just to get healed. If we use God then He won’t want to help us sometimes. We can’t use God to get what we want, it just doesn’t work that way. We have to always be believing in God and never give up on Him!
what i think this means is that Jesus doesn’t crave fame he doesn’t want to be liked because of the miracles he wants to be loved through prayer and not just because he can do all these great things like a celebrity he wants to be loved like God and not like a celebrity because their is a huge difference. The people desire him because he is our God and he heals them through prayer
What I got from that is ¨ In the end, it is always between you and God.¨ and to use the power I was given correctly.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus healed and cleansed people from all over. We are the people being healed and cleansed over and over, we allow sin to get to us. We go back to Him every time, because we can’t help ourselves but Jesus can.
I really like the qoute ¨In the end, it is always between you and God.¨ By Mother Teresa because it tells us that no matter what we do. Everything will lead back too God. And this is what the scripure tells us, about how no matter how much wealth we have or how popular we are. None of that will pay out in the end when we come face to face with God.
Even the demons believe in God. They know that God is real. Believing in God is much different from following him. We are called to be disciples of him not believers.
In the Gospel today, all of these sick and unclean people came before Jesus, asking to be cured. Jesus didn’t want all of the praise just for His miracles. He wants the praise through true and loving actions that resemble Jesus. He wants us to realize the true reason why He came to save us. We need to be open to God’s teaching. We need to be humble, like Jesus was when everyone was praising Him. We need to include everyone, just like Jesus did. We need to love our enemies, just like Jesus did. We need to do all things for God, just like Jesus did.
In today’s Scripture it is talking about how we desire Jesus, but that does not mean we should take advantage of him. God is love and he has empowered us in the Holy Spirit. It stuck out to me that we should always find a time where we can meditate, pray, or just sit in silence and thank God for all that he has done and given us. God is the most powerful person on this earth and there is nothing greater than God’s love. Jesus is enough for us and we should thank him because if he never died, we would be sinners and we would not be saved by the mighty power of God. God has given us so much that sometimes we are ungrateful and don’t realize how much we are loved by the Father. Even if you are so caught up in your life and you are so busy, we should always find a time in peace and quiet to thank us for waking up another day. Some don’t wake up to see another day that is why we should thank God for giving us another day of life. We should never go to sleep angry at someone because that is not what Jesus would do. Have a good rest of your day! God Bless You!!! God loves you so much with his whole heart!!!
“God’s love is the most POWERFUL thing in the world”. If we truly desire God, we should let go of all of our power and give it to the one power. He is the only one who can make us most joyful in this life and the next.
“He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him.”
In the Gospel today there are tons of people! Jesus literally asks his disciples to prepare a boat so the people would not crush him. That’s faith and that’s what we need to see everywhere and that’s what our faith needs to be. They believed in Jesus and so they followed him. We need to follow Jesus. There should be so many people that it should almost crush him, but there isn’t and that needs to change.
What surprised me today in the gospel was this ¨He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd,
so that they would not crush him.¨
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is getting mobbed for healing people. He tells them not to spread what he has done, but that does nothing to stop the crowd from flocking him. Jesus helps form his ministry by telling people what he wants them not to do, to most effectively spread the word. He does it differently. To follow Jesus we must do it differently too.
“He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him.” To me this means that so many people that he didn’t want him to be crushed.
Jesus is the most powerful person that was in the whole world. He loves us and he wants to follow him and worship him.
Jesus loves us and is powerful cause he healed people
Todays gospel says “And whenever unclean spirits saw him they would fall down before him and shout, “You are the Son of God.” When he could comand the unclean spirits the Jews should have realized he was the Son of God. Instead they took it as proof that he was from the devil not God. I hate to say this but we would probably think the same thing. We need to see that God is all powerful and can even command his enemies.
We always want to listen to God and what he preaches about. His Word is one of the most important books you could read. People are always aware of his greatness. This reminds me of Fear of the Lord. People are not actually scared of him, but act with great reverence.
In today’s gospel Jesus is out and about preaching and healing but the problem is He is about to be crushed by the crowd. He then gets into a boat and preaches and heals from there.
I loved today’s gospel because it showed how much people really trusted Jesus. They came to Him from all over the place trusting that He could heal them or someone they knew and loved. This really shows that we need to trust in Jesus and He will heal and help us.
He gave it to us and gave Himself to us, so we may share in this power which is LOVE.By the Eucharist he gave him self up for us.And he gave us his blood and he opened the gates of heaven.NOTHING has ever beat God’s LOVE!!! Our POWER is pale in comparison to God’s POWER. We will be held accountable by this POWER on judgment day.
i think the gospel was telling me that if you have faith and if you believe he can heal you.
I think the gospel was telling me that if you have faith and if you believe he can heal you. I was also hearing the gospel say its not about the large amount of people it was the love he had for them the love was to death.He wasn’t there for fame he was there for our sins. I think he could sit there while we hate him or don’t believe him. he will take it if he wants it, our hate,our disbelief, our sin. he wants it all.
In the Gospel Jesus even though Jesus is being crowded around, he still is respectful. As unclean spirits see him, they fall to their knees and say “You are the son of God.” This proves that God is all-powerful and has power over Satan. We should be thankful because Jesus died for our sins and if he had not we would not know him and we would not be able to go to Heaven.
The gospel today is about the protection and healing of the unborn, he tells his disciples that he needs a boat so that he can get away from the crowd. People came from many places and Jesus was worried about being “crushed” or trampled by the crowd. People knew that Jesus could heal just by touching him or his cloak. Have an amazing day and God bless.
In the Gospel it says that people came from all over some came to be healed and some came just to listen to Jesus teach. No matter the reason Jesus did both helped and healed. Jesus also asks his disciples to get a boat for him because so the crowd wouldn’t crush him they had so much faith in him they were fighting just to touch him. That’s the kind of faith we should all have when we are ever in need.
It surprised me because it shows how much people love him and believe in his power to heal all.
I think today’s gospel teaches us that power can blind us. Like satan constantly seeks for power over Christ. But even when we seek and strive for control we cant keep ourselves together, we are completely blind-sided from sin. We aren’t perfect like Jesus, we have all of the saints as examples, through all of them it wasn’t their power that made them great. It was Jesus calling them to be great, a leader, an example, and mostly a servant of Christ. We can be just like them if we let Christ take control.
This is a well-thought out reflection and the wisdom you have gained and written about are timeless!
Great job, Thomas!
The people didn’t want other people to know who he was. He asked for Infront of him because he didn’t want to get crushed.
The Gospel is telling me how powerful, important, and amazing Jesus is. He was loved by everyone that the town was crowded just for Jesus.
I learned that Jesus is the most powerful person. He has healed and cleansed a lot of people. He doesn’t want to be known to many because he doesn’t want to be used by people who don’t even know him or dislike him.
Jesus is saing that God/Jesus is above the sabethand you should do good on the sabith
“He warned them sternly not to make him known.” I think this is saying that he could not be known for his safety and others because he didn’t want them to get hurt.
This shows us how much God truly loved us. It shows that Jesus’ followers truly believed in Him. He was brave to do these things I know that if people were chasing me I would be scared but God was not.
Spiritually, he has mercy on them as a sinner and frees them from sin. This stuck out to me because God Doesn’t own us anything but he loves us so much that he died for us and forgives us when we sin.
I think Jesus was very smart to have a boat ready so that he would not be crushed by the crowds.
I think it is really cool that so many people wanted to meet and see or listen to Jesus. He had to be on a boat so they didn’t crush Him, there was that many people that they could have crushed Him.
what spoke out to me in this Gospel is that Jesus tells his disciples to go and get him a boat to get away from the crowd so that they can not crush him. cus they all wanted to touch him to get healthy. jesus does not want fame cus he heals he wants to have people to follow him for his father in heaven.
“God, with this power, does not hold it over our heads and use it against us, He gave it to us and gave Himself to us, so we may share in this power which is LOVE.” This stuck out to me because a lot of people confuse God’s power and think that it is only for the ones that are perfect in all ways. No one is perfect, no one is chosen over others by God, He loves everyone equally.
Mother Teresa said, “In the end, it is always between you and God.”
this line really speaks to me because we are always trying to impress or get approval from others and its true in the end it really is just between you and God only.
In the Gospel today Jesus is afraid of being crushed or trampled by the crowd this is an example that we need God’s loving and kind forgiveness. God is all knowing all powerful and loves us so deeply He wants to protect our lives because we are so precious to Him. Every life is and should be valued and this Gospel is a great example of that.
It’s okay to want to try and achieve things especially if you use the gifts God has given you but you shouldn’t abuse those gifts and use them wrongfully. You shouldn’t let the desire for status, popularity, or what others think of you take a hold of your life and interfere with your family and God.
what stuck out to me was that the crowds were so amazed and ready to see Jesus that they would have crushed him just to touch his foot.
If I asked you “do you want to be famous or super smart” which would you choose? What if I asked like this “do you want to be famous or do you want to be in heaven forever with God”? Now I’m not saying being popular is a bad thing but it could be, do you being others down to get what you want, do you mack fun of others, or do you bring people up. I just incorrectly put a word. Did you think it was funny or did you think it was an opportunity to bring me down. If we do that we crush Jesus so stop crushing Him and bring Him up.