The Word for today: For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. Romans 5 1:4 NIV
To finish the Bible in one year, Read Psalms 85 to 89 and John 2
Old Testament Reading for today – Listen or read it for yourself:
Reflection for Today.
Also read the verses, if you like.
Psalm 85
1 [For the choirmaster Of the sons of Korah Psalm] Yahweh, you are gracious to your land, you bring back the captives of Jacob,
2 you take away the guilt of your people, you blot out all their sin.
3 You retract all your anger, you renounce the heat of your fury.
4 Bring us back, God our Saviour, appease your indignation against us!
5 Will you be angry with us for ever? Will you prolong your wrath age after age?
6 Will you not give us life again, for your people to rejoice in you?
7 Show us, Lord, your faithful love, grant us your saving help.
8 I am listening. What is God’s message? Yahweh’s message is peace for his people, for his faithful, if only they renounce their folly.
9 His saving help is near for those who fear him, his glory will dwell in our land.
10 Faithful Love and Loyalty join together, Saving Justice and Peace embrace.
11 Loyalty will spring up from the earth, and Justice will lean down from heaven.
12 Yahweh will himself give prosperity, and our soil will yield its harvest.
13 Justice will walk before him, treading out a path.
Psalm 86
1 [Prayer Of David] Listen to me, Yahweh, answer me, for I am poor and needy.
2 Guard me, for I am faithful, save your servant who relies on you. You are my God,
3 take pity on me, Lord, for to you I cry all the day.
4 Fill your servant’s heart with joy, Lord, for to you I raise up my heart.
5 Lord, you are kind and forgiving, rich in faithful love for all who call upon you.
6 Yahweh, hear my prayer, listen to the sound of my pleading.
7 In my day of distress I call upon you, because you answer me, Lord;
8 among the gods there is none to compare with you, no great deeds to compare with yours.
9 All nations will come and adore you, Lord, and give glory to your name.
10 For you are great and do marvellous deeds, you, God, and none other.
11 Teach me, Yahweh, your ways, that I may not stray from your loyalty; let my heart’s one aim be to fear your name.
12 I thank you with all my heart, Lord my God, I will glorify your name for ever,
13 for your faithful love for me is so great that you have rescued me from the depths of Sheol.
14 Arrogant men, God, are rising up against me, a brutal gang is after my life, in their scheme of things you have no place.
15 But you, Lord, God of tenderness and mercy, slow to anger, rich in faithful love and loyalty,
16 turn to me and pity me. Give to your servant your strength, to the child of your servant your saving help,
17 give me a sign of your kindness.
18 My enemies will see to their shame that you, Yahweh, help and console me.
Psalm 87
1 [Of the sons of Korah Psalm Song] With its foundations on the holy mountains,
2 Yahweh loves his city, he prefers the gates of Zion to any dwelling-place in Jacob.
3 He speaks of glory for you, city of God,
4 ‘I number Rahab and Babylon among those that acknowledge me; look at Tyre, Philistia, Ethiopia, so and so was born there.’
5 But of Zion it will be said, ‘Every one was born there,’ her guarantee is the Most High.
6 Yahweh in his register of peoples will note against each, ‘Born there’,
7 princes no less than native-born; all make their home in you.
Psalm 88
[Song Psalm Of the sons of Korah In sickness In suffering Poem For Heman the native-born] Yahweh, God of my salvation, when I cry out to you in the night,
2 may my prayer reach your presence, hear my cry for help.
3 For I am filled with misery, my life is on the brink of Sheol;
4 already numbered among those who sink into oblivion, I am as one bereft of strength,
5 left alone among the dead, like the slaughtered lying in the grave, whom you remember no more, cut off as they are from your protection.
6 You have plunged me to the bottom of the grave, in the darkness, in the depths;
7 weighted down by your anger, kept low by your waves.
8 You have deprived me of my friends, made me repulsive to them, imprisoned, with no escape;
9 my eyes are worn out with suffering. I call to you, Yahweh, all day, I stretch out my hands to you.
10 Do you work wonders for the dead, can shadows rise up to praise you?
11 Do they speak in the grave of your faithful love, of your constancy in the place of perdition?
12 Are your wonders known in the darkness, your saving justice in the land of oblivion?
13 But, for my part, I cry to you, Yahweh, every morning my prayer comes before you;
14 why, Yahweh, do you rebuff me, turn your face away from me?
15 Wretched and close to death since childhood, I have borne your terrors — I am finished!
16 Your anger has overwhelmed me, your terrors annihilated me.
17 They flood around me all day long, close in on me all at once.
18 You have deprived me of friends and companions, and all that I know is the dark.
Psalm 89
1 [Poem For Ethan the native-born] I shall sing the faithful love of Yahweh for ever, from age to age my lips shall declare your constancy,
2 for you have said: love is built to last for ever, you have fixed your constancy firm in the heavens.
3 ‘I have made a covenant with my Chosen One, sworn an oath to my servant David:
4 I have made your dynasty firm for ever, built your throne stable age after age.
5 The heavens praise your wonders, Yahweh, your constancy in the gathering of your faithful.
6 Who in the skies can compare with Yahweh? Who among the sons of god can rival him?
7 God, awesome in the assembly of holy ones, great and dreaded among all who surround him,
8 Yahweh, God Sabaoth, who is like you? Mighty Yahweh, your constancy is all round you!
9 You control the pride of the ocean, when its waves ride high you calm them.
10 You split Rahab in two like a corpse, scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.
11 Yours are the heavens and yours the earth, the world and all it holds, you founded them;
12 you created the north and the south, Tabor and Hermon hail your name with joy.
13 Yours is a strong arm, mighty your hand, your right hand raised high;
14 Saving Justice and Fair Judgement the foundations of your throne, Faithful Love and Constancy march before you.
15 How blessed the nation that learns to acclaim you! They will live, Yahweh, in the light of your presence.
16 In your name they rejoice all day long, by your saving justice they are raised up.
17 You are the flower of their strength, by your favour our strength is triumphant;
18 for to Yahweh belongs our shield, to the Holy One of Israel our king.
19 Once you spoke in a vision, to your faithful you said: ‘I have given strength to a warrior, I have raised up a man chosen from my people.
20 ‘I have found David my servant, and anointed him with my holy oil.
21 My hand will always be with him, my arm will make him strong.
22 ‘No enemy will be able to outwit him, no wicked man overcome him;
23 I shall crush his enemies before him, strike his opponents dead.
24 ‘My constancy and faithful love will be with him, in my name his strength will be triumphant.
25 I shall establish his power over the sea, his dominion over the rivers.
26 ‘He will cry to me, “You are my father, my God, the rock of my salvation!”
27 So I shall make him my first-born, the highest of earthly kings.
28 ‘I shall maintain my faithful love for him always, my covenant with him will stay firm.
29 I have established his dynasty for ever, his throne to be as lasting as the heavens.
30 ‘Should his descendants desert my law, and not keep to my rulings,
31 should they violate my statutes, and not observe my commandments,
32 ‘then I shall punish their offences with the rod, their guilt with the whip,
33 but I shall never withdraw from him my faithful love, I shall not belie my constancy.
34 ‘I shall not violate my covenant, I shall not withdraw the word once spoken.
35 I have sworn by my holiness, once and for all, never will I break faith with David.
36 ‘His dynasty shall endure for ever, his throne like the sun before me,
37 as the moon is established for ever, a faithful witness in the skies.
38 Yet you yourself — you have spurned and rejected, and have vented your wrath on your anointed,
39 you have repudiated the covenant with your servant, dishonoured his crown in the dust.
40 You have pierced all his defences, and laid his strongholds in ruins,
41 everyone passing by plunders him, he has become the butt of his neighbours.
42 You have raised high the right hand of his opponents, have made all his enemies happy;
43 you have snapped off his sword on a rock, and failed to support him in battle.
44 You have stripped him of his splendid sceptre, and toppled his throne to the ground.
45 You have aged him before his time, enveloped him in shame.
46 How long, Yahweh, will you remain hidden? For ever? Is your anger to go on smouldering like a fire?
47 Remember me; how long have I left? For what pointless end did you create all the children of Adam?
48 Who can live and never see death? Who can save himself from the clutches of Sheol?
49 Lord, what of those pledges of your faithful love? You made an oath to David by your constancy.
50 Do not forget the insults to your servant; I take to heart the taunts of the nations,
51 which your enemies have levelled, Yahweh, have levelled at the footsteps of your anointed!
52 Blessed be Yahweh for ever. Amen, Amen.
John 2
1 On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee. The mother of Jesus was there,
2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited.
3 And they ran out of wine, since the wine provided for the feast had all been used, and the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’
4 Jesus said, ‘Woman, what do you want from me? My hour has not come yet.’
5 His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’
6 There were six stone water jars standing there, meant for the ablutions that are customary among the Jews: each could hold twenty or thirty gallons.
7 Jesus said to the servants, ‘Fill the jars with water,’ and they filled them to the brim.
8 Then he said to them, ‘Draw some out now and take it to the president of the feast.’
9 They did this; the president tasted the water, and it had turned into wine. Having no idea where it came from — though the servants who had drawn the water knew — the president of the feast called the bridegroom
10 and said, ‘Everyone serves good wine first and the worse wine when the guests are well wined; but you have kept the best wine till now.’
11 This was the first of Jesus’ signs: it was at Cana in Galilee. He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
12 After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, but they stayed there only a few days.
13 When the time of the Jewish Passover was near Jesus went up to Jerusalem,
14 and in the Temple he found people selling cattle and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting there.
15 Making a whip out of cord, he drove them all out of the Temple, sheep and cattle as well, scattered the money changers’ coins, knocked their tables over
16 and said to the dove sellers, ‘Take all this out of here and stop using my Father’s house as a market.’
17 Then his disciples remembered the words of scripture: I am eaten up with zeal for your house.
18 The Jews intervened and said, ‘What sign can you show us that you should act like this?’
19 Jesus answered, ‘Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’
20 The Jews replied, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple: are you going to raise it up again in three days?’
21 But he was speaking of the Temple that was his body,
22 and when Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and what he had said.
23 During his stay in Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he did,
24 but Jesus knew all people and did not trust himself to them;
25 he never needed evidence about anyone; he could tell what someone had within.
Catholic Daily Readings and Reflections
Reading 1, Micah 6:1-4, 6-8
1 Now listen to what Yahweh says: ‘Stand up, state your case to the mountains and let the hills hear what you have to say!’
2 Listen, mountains, to the case as Yahweh puts it, give ear, you foundations of the earth, for Yahweh has a case against his people and he will argue it with Israel.
3 ‘My people, what have I done to you, how have I made you tired of me? Answer me!
4 For I brought you up from Egypt, I ransomed you from the place of slave-labour and sent Moses, Aaron and Miriam to lead you.
6 ‘With what shall I enter Yahweh’s presence and bow down before God All-high? Shall I enter with burnt offerings, with calves one year old?
7 Will he be pleased with rams by the thousand, with ten thousand streams of oil? Shall I offer my eldest son for my wrong-doing, the child of my own body for my sin?
8 ‘You have already been told what is right and what Yahweh wants of you. Only this, to do what is right, to love loyalty and to walk humbly with your God.’
Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 50:5-6, 8-9, 16-17, 21, 23
5 ‘Gather to me my faithful, who sealed my covenant by sacrifice.’
6 The heavens proclaim his saving justice, ‘God himself is judge.
8 ‘It is not with your sacrifices that I find fault, those burnt offerings constantly before me;
9 I will not accept any bull from your homes, nor a single goat from your folds.
16 But to the wicked, God says: ‘What right have you to recite my statutes, to take my covenant on your lips,
17 when you detest my teaching, and thrust my words behind you?
21 You do this, and am I to say nothing? Do you think that I am really like you? I charge you, indict you to your face.
23 Honour to me is a sacrifice of thanksgiving; to the upright I will show God’s salvation.’
Gospel, Matthew 12:38-42
38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees spoke up. ‘Master,’ they said, ‘we should like to see a sign from you.’
39 He replied, ‘It is an evil and unfaithful generation that asks for a sign! The only sign it will be given is the sign of the prophet Jonah.
40 For as Jonah remained in the belly of the sea-monster for three days and three nights, so will the Son of man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.
41 On Judgement Day the men of Nineveh will appear against this generation and they will be its condemnation, because when Jonah preached they repented; and look, there is something greater than Jonah here.
42 On Judgement Day the Queen of the South will appear against this generation and be its condemnation, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and look, there is something greater than Solomon here.
Previous Daily Bible Study Blogs
Book of Psalms, Outline Summary, Outline Book of John (we are studying these books presently)
Audio Drama: Old Testament New Testament Each book is read in its entirety. You can listen to the bible, one book at a time in contemporary English.
Dr. Myles Munroe
I am including a video by Dr. Myles Munroe, I’ve listened to him back in the nineties, and rediscovered him recently. Now his perspective seems to be a good way to also look at scripture. In Pursuit of Purpose – Book Highlights
Sermons Rosary Prayers Catholic Answers
Did Mary have other children? No, Listen here
Called to Communion
Pray the Rosary
Rosary Mysteries
The following 4 videos are the 4 Mysteries that we pray on certain days of the week. I like these videos, because I can pray it alone, with only the images, or go along with the sound. The images help me to focus on the particular mystery that I am contemplating as I say the Hail Mary on each bead.
Joyful Mysteries
Luminous Mysteries
Sorrowful Mysteries
Glorious Mysteries
Prayers of the Rosary
Links to “How to pray the rosary” Popular Catholic Prayers
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord;
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried,
He descended into hell; the third day He arose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.
Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
(this prayer is optional and may be said after all Glory Be to the Fathers…..)
O my Jesus, forgive us our sins. Save us from the fires of hell.
Lead all souls to heaven, especially those who are in most need of thy mercy.
Console the souls in Purgatory, particularly those most abandoned. Amen
Hail Mary,
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
The Hail, Holy Queen
Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life our sweetness and our hope.
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve;
To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us and after this our exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary!
That we maybe made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Closing Prayer
O God, whose only begotten Son, by His life, death, and resurrection, has purchased for us the rewards of eternal salvation.
Grant, we beseech Thee, that while meditating on these mysteries of the most holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
that we may imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
(The Fatima Prayer:)
Most Holy Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – I adore thee profoundly. I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference’s whereby He is offended. And through the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.
Prayer to St. Michael
Saint Michael, the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do you, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who wander through the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.
Thurzo Gizella Bible Study 
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