Humbly submit your will to God (Thy Will be done) and consecrate yourself to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through Mary.
Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute,
and when the demon had gone out,
the mute man spoke and the crowds were amazed.
Some of them said, “By the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons,
he drives out demons.”
Others, to test him, asked him for a sign from heaven.
But he knew their thoughts and said to them,
“Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste
and house will fall against house.
And if Satan is divided against himself,
how will his kingdom stand?
For you say that it is by Beelzebul that I drive out demons.
If I, then, drive out demons by Beelzebul,
by whom do your own people drive them out?
Therefore they will be your judges.
But if it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons,
then the Kingdom of God has come upon you.
When a strong man fully armed guards his palace,
his possessions are safe.
But when one stronger than he attacks and overcomes him,
he takes away the armor on which he relied
and distributes the spoils.
Whoever is not with me is against me,
and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” LK 11:14-23
The crowd assumes many things about Jesus’s powers and even asked for “a sign from heaven”. Jesus responds with a very clear answer, “If it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you”. Jesus is God casting out demons. It is by the same finger of God through the power of the Holy Spirit that priests cast out demons today. What point does Jesus make today? Love always wins. God is love and mercy. He is the most powerful through love, Christ the King of the Universe. This love and mercy bring peace and joy. God’s grace is bigger than any sin or any number of sins. He conquered Satan and sin on the cross. How? He took on humanities sin and literally sweat blood in the Agony in the Garden. He took on close to 120 lashes by two Roman soldiers with flagrums that had lead balls and sheep bones losing a considerable amount of blood at the Scourging at the Pillar. He had thorns crushed into His skull, carried a heavy cross and fell many times due to the severe nature of the scourging, and had nails driven through His wrists and feet. He hung on the cross for 3 hours then gave up His Spirit. His love and mercy for us are unmatched by anyone. Jesus always wins because He was unselfish. Most importantly, He did the Father’s will. He stayed obedient even unto death on a cross. We must fight every day to become other centered instead of self-centered. Jesus is the perfect model of total self-sacrifice. In very clear language, Jesus sets Himself apart from everyone including other religious leaders, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters”. There is no fence in Christianity to straddle. It is hard to be a follower of Christ. We have to be unselfish, suffer, and forgive. Most of all we need to rely on God and His grace instead of trying to always be right and believe we can do everything ourselves. Stop trying to tough it out. Let Jesus into your boat, swallow your pride and get rid of your ego. The grace won through Jesus Christ’s love and willingness to die gives us new life. Jesus doesn’t leave us other options, we are either with Him or against Him. He forces us to make a choice. Choose wisely, your souls future depends on it. You can’t take any of your material possessions, trophies or money with you to heaven. Now is a great time to change.
Today’s challenge: Make a decision to ask God for His help realizing you need Him to help you change. Change is hard but possible with God’s grace. If you want peace, joy, a fulfilled heart, and eternal life filled with love, Jesus is the Way!
Be a servant, become a saint!
#Christian YOLO
Jesus is trying to tell us that he is the road to happiness and joy. Material things might make us happy temporarily, but Jesus will make us happy forever and fill us with joy.
Jesus has drove out a demon but the people don’t believe that it was through his own power.
To me this is saying that God and Jesus wants to stand by them and not flee from them.
Jesus is telling me today that I need to be fully with him. I am either with him or not; there is no in between.
Jesus is telling me that I need to gather with Him everyday so that we become closer in our relationship rather than growing apart.
God is the most powerful and loving and it is by the power of his love that we live and follow the Catholic faith.
I think God is trying to tell me that we, humans, can’t do anything without the help of God.
Today is telling me that I need to give all my trust to God that i should not doubt Him because He knows what is best for me and that He knows all.
I learned that you have to pick a side because you cannot straddle the fence. Also that love always wins.
We cannot have two masters, it is either all Jesus or all earthly things. We have to make the right decision, we can’t be lukewarm Catholics We have to be a full 212 degrees
#Praise Him
this scripture helps me today because it tells me to follow the scripture
In today’s gospel jesus helps a mute man by driving out the demon that was in him. Even though that was not the main message of this gospel passage that part stuck out a lot to me. We hear many stories of Jesus driving out demons in the Bible and people still tend to doubt him. They always try to test Jesus somehow in the gospels. I think that stuck out to me because I should be more trusting in people.
God is telling us that there is no halfway Christian. We are either all in, or all out. Jesus suffered and died for us. he did nothing halfway, and neither should we.
In today’s reading we find Jesus drove out demons. We get so glued to things we don’t need like phones, TV, and computes. That sometimes when we get so glued if almost feel like we have a demon inside and it becomes really hard to let go of those things. Yesterday I did a media fast and i truly think I am getting closer to God. We need to have self control and step away and pray to him.
In the scripture today I have learned that people questioned Jesus about Him casting out the demons out of people. We need to believe in Him and trust Him. We need to let go of our pride and swallow our ego in this world and offer up our suffering towards Him and follow Him. We have a free will to choose to follow Him or be against Him.
“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” This quote hit me hard and is what I will remember most about this Gospel passage. It also says that people would try to test him which we see time and time again in the Gospels.
God loves us so much, but we are still selfish. We need to love him back.
Jesus is trying to tell me that I need t realize that I need t make a change in some part of me. I might not know now, but Jesus will know what i need to change in my life. Maybe its growing closer to him, I know I need to grow closer to him. I know that Jesus will help me in many hard parts in my life, and he will help me make good decisions.
As you, Mr. Goertz, said you can not stay on the fence it is for or against. I never thought this to be a big deal, but I always remembered it and agreed with it. While we were in Israel Fr. Joe Gile talked about it again. It was a Godsidence, I remember how you always talked about it and then how it was the center of one of his homilies. It was my second favorite homily on the trip, the first being about shalom(peace). I thought it was awesome and it goes to show that God does want the best for us, if you don´t realize or think about it to much he will reiterate it into your life somehow. Fr. Joe helped make the trip unforgettable with all the homilies he said each day. Plus the group I was with made the experience all the more enjoyable. I will always remember now to stay off the fence and be on the side with God and Jesus.
So today God has told me to be strong and do the best in my lent promises and if I fall he will bring me back up.
Jesus is telling me about how he can take ower demons and set us free also we must gather in him or scatter meaning we must trust him and know that are God is very real.
We must be fully committed to following God. We are with God or not with Him. We shouldn’t need to ask God for signs when He has already performed many miracles.
To me this means that we are all united in one God.
You are either with God or against God so show God that you are worthy to go to Heaven.
We shall not doubt Jesus’ powers. He is God on Earth.
The people ask Jesus for a sign, but him healing the mute, and driving out demons is the sign.
God always wins. No one can do anything without God’s help
God still loves us even if we have a demeon. He won’t give up on us.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is telling me that there is no fence to be on when it comes to being His follower. I must fully choose to be with Him and always do His will to do so.
I think what God is telling me is that love always wins, no matter what. He is the most powerful through love and mercy.
This Scripture passage is telling us how to be unselfish and put others before ourselves.
That to be a good Catholic we need to get rid of our ego and our pride. That is what is keeping us from getting to Heaven and meeting God.
we need to stay with Jesus and always follow in his path
This gospel shows that we have to be fully with God or completely separated from him and alone. It will be hard to make it to Heaven, but I feel the more dedicated we are to him the happier we will be, and it will become much easier.
WE NEED GOD, GOD DOESN’T NEED US!!!!!!
Jesus is love. Hes unshelfish. WE all need to try to be like him.
God is telling us that we need to be united with God as one and not let the devil break our connection with one another. If we let that happen the Kingdom of God will fall.
this is saying to me that Jesus can drive out demons in my body with just a snap of his finger but that I have to want them out as well
Today’s reading was shocking because God told us not to hang on the fence, but to choose a side. Him or the thing of this world.
I believe in today’s Scripture, God shows us directly, that there is no alternative to being one with Christ. it is either your fully believe in Christ the fully Divine fully human. He tells us that we either are with him or against him, and for us to turn away from Christ is a crazy thing. We must be followers of God, and Jesus tells us now that there is not, “being lazy.” You are a follower of God, and must act according to that.
I think that this means we should know that in the catholic faith no one judges you. And we should also know to not be afraid.
If you do not stay with God than you are against God, and if you do not gather with God you will run away from God.
Jesus says we are with him or against him. That seems to be the whole point.
This passage says to not be afraid and to not question about him being fake.
Good is telling me to be grateful for everything that I have. I learned to always believe in God and be ready to hear his words.
This tells me that we have to be completely dedicated and with God. We have to be with Him and know Him in order to be with Him and get to Heaven. Instead of not knowing Him and being against him.
Jesus is saying that we shouldn’t doubt him and that we need to trust in him and in God. We need to love God and put God above everything else. We need to love God and pray and worship him every single day. We need to read the scripture and grow closer to God,
Jesus wants us with him and to follow him and love him. If we do not follow the way of Christ then we with stray away from the right path. We need to stay focused on the long hard journey in following Jesus
Alright, so Jesus is specifically telling us that you can´t just be a regular person who is sometimes nice and noble and sometimes rude, and sinful. You are either with him in all that he teaches or against him.
to me, this means that God is not traping us but is letting us choose whether we want to follow him saying there are no fences.
The point he makes out today is that you should follow him and follow the commandments and beatitudes so that you can make it to heaven, so you can be happy with others up in heaven.
It is telling us that Jesus did everything for us and can never lie or sin.We took all of his love and still didn’t believe him.
This is telling me that in order to get to Heaven I should not care about material possessions and instead I should worry about being a good person.
We can either be fully with God or not with him at all. He strives to get us all to heaven but it is our job to make the right choices to get there. We can either choose Heaven or hell, no in between
Jesus is powerful, so powerful that he can drive out demons. It is through the power of God not through the power of Beelzebul.
We cannot be lukewarm in our faith; we must totally submit our wills to God or not at all. There is no in between, no middle ground.
This is one of my favorite Gospels because it has one of my favorite quotes, it talks about how if Lucifer divided his house and if Jesus drove demons out by the power of the Devil then his kingdom would not stand. However, Jesus drives out demons by the power of God and so the Kingdom of God is upon us. We need to realize this and be ready for the second coming, but we should not say that it is not coming for we do not know the day nor the hour that the Lord will be upon us. We always say, “I will go to confession tomorrow.” Don’t. Do it now, do it today. Do it as soon as you can for you have no idea when God is coming back for us and you may be banished to Gehenna for all eternity for waiting so long to go to confession.
If we humbly submit ourselves to God we can truly know God and grow in holiness. We also shouldn’t need a sign from God to believe what Jesus said is true.
If we try to test God then we can´t truly be with him, then in that case we would be against him. So we just have to have hope and believe in him.
Jesus is trying to tell us that we need to be all for him. If we aren´t then we won´t make it to heaven.
The meaning of this is that we must trust Jesus no matter what signs we think we need. If God himself tells us something, we obviously listen. If Jesus does the same, this principle should extend in the same way!
God is telling me that when you come to something unbeatable if you ask God for guidance he will guide you to succeed. But if you are against God there is nothing he can do to help. You must believe God for guidance for our human thoughts and actions are flawed, so God is the only true source of guidance
Love wins. God is love so God always wins. The devil may trick you but in the midst of everything God will be there. By the power of God and his grace, He can defeat any sin. If we have God with us then we can defeat our temptations from the devil. We must look to Christ as an example to be others centered not self centered. We are either with God or against God.
Today, God is trying to tell us that He is the most powerful. He is the one who came to Earth to help show us how to get to Heaven. If we don’t follow what he taught us to follow, we have no chance of being with Him in Heaven. If we don’t follow Him then we follow someone/something else. If we don’t gather with Him, then we are gathering with someone/something else.
God is telling me that I can´t go to Heaven if I am on the fence about following Jesus.
We need to ask Jesus for help to change. It is very important that we ask him to help us change for the better.
What i get out of these few verses is that our sins are the demon that Jesus is trying to cast out of the man. Which we then need to go to confession so God can cast out the demons.
We are either with God or against him, there is no in between. What we do here on Earth will affect us later. We can have everything on Earth but still nothing in heaven if we do not give ourselves to God.
This is telling us that we either have to be fully with God or against him and that if we are going to believe we need to go all the way.
We need to ask God for the strength to follow Him, and be the best we can be. Once we do that we can help others follow Him. Then we will be rewarded.
Jesus is saying that a family that has trust issues or doesn’t love each other will not be a happy family. And how us humans need signs to believe in things we can not see with our naked eye
God and his love for us is more powerful than anything. We learn today that he is more powerful than any sin and any demon. We should get rid of our sins and our demons to get closer to God.
If we think that Jesus is like the devil but he cast out demons, how could he be bad. No one should think or ever think that Jesus is bad.
Jesus is trying to say that we need him and that we need to realize that he is here we just need to look for him.
Jesus is our light and we need him and he has shown up to us we just need to look for him
God is trying to tell us that we all need to love because love always wins. Loving each other brings happiness to each of us.
To be a good Catholic, you cannot be on the fence.
That Jesus is God not Satan.
Jesus is telling me that i need to believe in him. What he says is saying is all truth. He doesn’t lie.
Only God has the power to drive out demons and if you follow his teachings you will be rewarded.
We need to trust in God that he will come again.
I think God is telling us that we need to love everyone no matter what they look like and that love always wins.
We have to be with God and not our material possessions. We have to pray to God for forgiveness and help to be close to him.
We need God’s help in life and we need to help others.
God is telling me that I need to be fully for Him. I can’t just follow Him sometimes. I have to follow Him all day every day.
We need to fully trust God. We need to recognize that we are nothing without God. The first person that we need to ask help from in difficult situations is God. He will always help us if we ask.
Jesus is telling me i have to be a full follower of Jesus and not a half a follower of Him.
I learned not to test God. He does things by his own power and is the only God.
I think Jesus is telling us that we shouldn’t fight with each other or we will fall.
Jesus is saying that he would do anything for us. Also that we can’t split between each other pr nothing will work.
There is no in between when it comes to being with God. If we are not showing ourselves that we are with God, then we are against God. If we are not against God and the teachings then we are faithful to God and His will.
God is telling me to always be grateful for the small things in life and never take them for granted.
We need to be obedient to our parents, pray every day and try to follow God’s plan for us.
Jesus’ love is so amazing! Christ did everything he could to save us from our sins. His love is so powerful for us, he died on the cross for us. No one has a love like God. It’s nothing like anything else. God’s love is so amazing!
Today’s scripture is saying to not let the devil get the best of you. You need to always remember that Jesus is alive and will always be their for you . We also need to consecrate ourselves to Jesus and Mary.
We must always believe that God is the most powerful man. When we believe that he is then we won’t have to deal with the demons and stuff.
Jesus wants us to be united with him and we need to trust in him.
We need to stick with our faith all throughout are lives. Not just until college. Not just till the end of middle school. We need it forever. We need to stick with Jesus all throughout our lives.
Jesus is telling us today that we need to change the bad parts of ourselves. The bad habits we have can easily be changed by simply stopping. We may not have the touch of Jesus to heal us but we can be freed from our demons through the Mass and Confession.
God is telling us not to follow people and stick with him and we will be happy.
Jesus is saying that everyone needs to be united with God so they can go to Heaven.
God wants us to know that we can’t fall under our demons even if it seems like they give us heaven. They don’t God is the only one who can give us the real heaven.
We need to let jesus into our life and we need to start being humble/thankful for everything we have like clothes food and a house. If we don’t get rid of our ego then we shall not have a good connection with anyone or God
Jesus is trying to tell us that ‘love always wins.’ NOTHING beats love, it is the most powerful of the virtues and the most powerful thing in our life next to prayer. Without love there is no salvation, and in our loving we need to be sincere and true. Without sincerity and truth in our love, we cannot make it to Heaven.
Jesus is trying to tell us that your either with him or against him. He is also saying that it is not going to be easy to follow him but if you do follow him and endure the suffering you will be rewarded in heaven.
God is telling us that love will always win. If the Prince of Demons didn´t love God then he wouldn ´t be a priest so he couldn´t of gotten the demon out of the person. Always love people.
We need to follow Jesus. If we don follow Jesus then we will not get to have eternal happiness. Jesus is the only way to get to Heaven, and we need to be just like Him in order to get to Heaven.
Jesus is saying that we need to trust him with no doubt. If we can’t do that we will be lost and won’t get to heaven. He can help us get closer to him and trust him with our life by praying.
God wants us to know that there is only one God that can do the wonders he has done. He wants us to love each other and always believe in him. He wants us to trust him and to know that God loves us .
This passage is telling us that love always wins. Jesus dies for our sins on the cross. WE must give up everything and follow him. We also must believe in Jesus in what he calls us to do. Jesus’ love is so strong and powerful that it is more than anyone else’s. We must not be self-centered.
What Jesus is teaching us today is that we either say yes to God or we say no. During our life time God will ask us will you take my hand and follow me. You will either will take his hand and follow Him or you won´t. God will never force you to do anything good or bad. The only thing we can do is say what Jesus said during the Agony in the Garden, ¨Not my will Lord, but your be done.¨ We must take Jesus´s hand this lent and follow him.
I think Jesus is teaching us that the devil is nothing without sinners so if everyone was with God the world would be better.
We must stand with God and not against him because if we believe in him then we are welcome to his kingdom, but if we don’t believe in him we will not be saved. It’s like Jesus says “You are either with me or against me”. We must be with God and believe with our whole heart because if we do he will help us.
There is no in between. You are with Jesus or against Him. He made that clear. If you think for one second that you can be with both God, and Satan, you are lying to yourself. Every choice you make sends you closer to God or Satan, there is no in between.
Today this is saying that if we want to be with Him than we cannot just go to church on Christmas and Easter and call it good, we need to go to mass all the time and we need to pray all the time we cannot straddle over the fence with our religion we need to be on one side of the fence or the other.
I feel Jesus was telling us that we need to be with him or we will always be sad because we need to be with him fully so that we can be fully alive