On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. 1 Corinthians 12:22 NIV
A Christian’s goal should be to create the Kingdom of God here on earth, as it is in Heaven. Not only, to get to Heaven.
To finish the Bible in one year, Read Song of Solomon 5-8 and John 14:1-21
Verses for today – Listen here: For explanations
Reflection for Today.
My other websites:
Also read the verses, if you like.
Song of Solomon 5
1 LOVER: I come into my garden, my sister, my promised bride, I pick my myrrh and balsam, I eat my honey and my honeycomb, I drink my wine and my milk. POET: Eat, friends, and drink, drink deep, my dearest friends.
2 BELOVED: I sleep, but my heart is awake. I hear my love knocking. ‘Open to me, my sister, my beloved, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is wet with dew, my hair with the drops of night.’
3 -‘I have taken off my tunic, am I to put it on again? I have washed my feet, am I to dirty them again?’
4 My love thrust his hand through the hole in the door; I trembled to the core of my being.
5 Then I got up to open to my love, myrrh ran off my hands, pure myrrh off my fingers, on to the handle of the bolt.
6 I opened to my love, but he had turned and gone. My soul failed at his flight, I sought but could not find him, I called, but he did not answer.
7 The watchmen met me, those who go on their rounds in the city. They beat me, they wounded me, they took my cloak away from me: those guardians of the ramparts!
8 I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem, if you should find my love, what are you to tell him? -That I am sick with love!
9 CHORUS: What makes your lover better than other lovers, O loveliest of women? What makes your lover better than other lovers, to put us under such an oath?
10 BELOVED: My love is fresh and ruddy, to be known among ten thousand.
11 His head is golden, purest gold, his locks are palm fronds and black as the raven.
12 His eyes are like doves beside the water-courses, bathing themselves in milk, perching on a fountain-rim.
13 His cheeks are beds of spices, banks sweetly scented. His lips are lilies, distilling pure myrrh.
14 His hands are golden, rounded, set with jewels of Tarshish. His belly a block of ivory covered with sapphires.
15 His legs are alabaster columns set in sockets of pure gold. His appearance is that of Lebanon, unrivalled as the cedars.
16 His conversation is sweetness itself, he is altogether lovable. Such is my love, such is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.
Song of Solomon 6
1 CHORUS: Where did your lover go, O loveliest of women? Which way did your lover turn so that we can help you seek him?
2 BELOVED: My love went down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to pasture his flock on the grass and gather lilies.
3 I belong to my love, and my love to me. He pastures his flock among the lilies.
4 LOVER: You are fair as Tirzah, my beloved, enchanting as Jerusalem, formidable as an army!
5 Turn your eyes away from me, they take me by assault! Your hair is like a flock of goats surging down the slopes of Gilead.
6 Your teeth are like a flock of ewes as they come up from being washed. Each one has its twin, not one unpaired with another.
7 Your cheeks, behind your veil, are halves of pomegranate.
8 There are sixty queens and eighty concubines (and countless girls).
9 My dove is my only one, perfect and mine. She is the darling of her mother, the favourite of the one who bore her. Girls have seen her and proclaimed her blessed, queens and concubines have sung her praises,
10 ‘Who is this arising like the dawn, fair as the moon, resplendent as the sun, formidable as an army?’
11 I went down to the nut orchard to see the fresh shoots in the valley, to see if the vines were budding and the pomegranate trees in flower.
12 Before I knew . . . my desire had hurled me onto the chariots of Amminadib!
Song of Solomon 7
1 CHORUS: Come back, come back, girl from Shulam, come back, come back, where we can look at you! Why are you looking at the girl from Shulam, dancing between two lines of dancers?
2 LOVER: How beautiful are your feet in their sandals, O prince’s daughter! The curve of your thighs is like the curve of a necklace, work of a master hand.
3 Your navel is a bowl well rounded with no lack of wine, your belly a heap of wheat surrounded with lilies.
4 Your two breasts are two fawns, twins of a gazelle.
5 Your neck is an ivory tower. Your eyes, the pools of Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-Rabbim. Your nose, the Tower of Lebanon, sentinel facing Damascus.
6 Your head is held high like Carmel, and its hair is as dark as purple; a king is held captive in your tresses.
7 How beautiful you are, how charming, my love, my delight!
8 In stature like the palm tree, its fruit-clusters your breasts.
9 I have decided, ‘I shall climb the palm tree, I shall seize its clusters of dates!’ May your breasts be clusters of grapes, your breath sweet-scented as apples,
10 and your palate like sweet wine. BELOVED: Flowing down the throat of my love, as it runs on the lips of those who sleep.
11 I belong to my love, and his desire is for me.
12 Come, my love, let us go to the fields. We will spend the night in the villages,
13 and in the early morning we will go to the vineyards. We will see if the vines are budding, if their blossoms are opening, if the pomegranate trees are in flower. Then I shall give you the gift of my love.
14 The mandrakes yield their fragrance, the most exquisite fruits are at our doors; the new as well as the old, I have stored them for you, my love
Song of Solomon 8
1 Ah, why are you not my brother, nursed at my mother’s breast! Then if I met you out of doors, I could kiss you without people thinking ill of me.
2 I should lead you, I should take you into my mother’s house, and you would teach me! I should give you spiced wine to drink, juice of my pomegranates.
3 His left arm is under my head and his right embraces me.
4 LOVER: I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem, do not rouse, do not wake my beloved, before she pleases!
5 Who is this coming up from the desert leaning on her lover? I awakened you under the apple tree, where your mother conceived you, where she who bore you conceived you.
6 BELOVED: Set me like a seal on your heart, like a seal on your arm. For love is strong as Death, passion as relentless as Sheol. The flash of it is a flash of fire, a flame of Yahweh himself.
7 Love no flood can quench, no torrents drown. Were a man to offer all his family wealth to buy love, contempt is all that he would gain.
8 Our sister is little: her breasts are not yet formed. What shall we do for our sister on the day she is spoken for?
9 If she is a rampart, on the crest we shall build a battlement of silver; if she is a door, we shall board her up with planks of cedar.
10 I am a wall, and my breasts represent its towers. And under their eyes I have found true peace.
11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-Hamon. He entrusted it to overseers, and each one was to pay him the value of its produce, a thousand shekels of silver.
12 But I tend my own vineyard myself. You, Solomon, may have your thousand shekels, and those who oversee its produce their two hundred.
13 You who dwell in the gardens, my companions listen for your voice; let me hear it.
14 Haste away, my love, be like a gazelle, a young stag, on the spice-laden mountains.
John 14:1-21
1 Do not let your hearts be troubled. You trust in God, trust also in me.
2 In my Father’s house there are many places to live in; otherwise I would have told you. I am going now to prepare a place for you,
3 and after I have gone and prepared you a place, I shall return to take you to myself, so that you may be with me where I am.
4 You know the way to the place where I am going.
5 Thomas said, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’
6 Jesus said: I am the Way; I am Truth and Life. No one can come to the Father except through me.
7 If you know me, you will know my Father too. From this moment you know him and have seen him.
8 Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the Father and then we shall be satisfied.’ Jesus said to him,
9 ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? ‘Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father, so how can you say, “Show us the Father”?
10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? What I say to you I do not speak of my own accord: it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his works.
11 You must believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe it on the evidence of these works.
12 In all truth I tell you, whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself, and will perform even greater works, because I am going to the Father.
13 Whatever you ask in my name I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
15 If you love me you will keep my commandments.
16 I shall ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete to be with you for ever,
17 the Spirit of truth whom the world can never accept since it neither sees nor knows him; but you know him, because he is with you, he is in you.
18 I shall not leave you orphans; I shall come to you.
19 In a short time the world will no longer see me; but you will see that I live and you also will live.
20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you.
21 Whoever holds to my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me; and whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I shall love him and reveal myself to him.’
Sermons by various teachers about these verses.
Catholic Daily Readings and Reflections
Reading 1, Ezekiel 16:1-15, 60, 63
1 The word of Yahweh was addressed to me as follows,
2 ‘Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her loathsome practices!
3 Say, “The Lord Yahweh says this: By origin and birth you belong to the land of Canaan. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.
4 At birth, the very day you were born, there was no one to cut your navel-string, or wash you in water to clean you, or rub you with salt, or wrap you in swaddling clothes.
5 No one looked at you with pity enough to do any of these things out of sympathy for you. You were exposed in the open fields in your own dirt on the day you were born.
6 “I saw you kicking on the ground in your blood as I was passing, and I said to you as you lay in your blood: Live!
7 and I made you grow like the grass of the fields. You developed, you grew, you reached marriageable age. Your breasts became firm and your hair grew richly, but you were stark naked.
8 Then I saw you as I was passing. Your time had come, the time for love. I spread my cloak over you and covered your nakedness; I gave you my oath, I made a covenant with you — declares the Lord Yahweh — and you became mine.
9 I bathed you in water, I washed the blood off you, I anointed you with oil.
10 I gave you embroidered dresses, fine leather shoes, a linen headband and a cloak of silk.
11 I loaded you with jewels, gave you bracelets for your wrists and a necklace for your throat.
12 I gave you nose-ring and earrings; I put a beautiful diadem on your head.
13 You were loaded with gold and silver and dressed in linen and silk and brocade. Your food was the finest flour, honey and oil. You grew more and more beautiful; and you rose to be queen.
14 The fame of your beauty spread through the nations, since it was perfect, because I had clothed you with my own splendour — declares the Lord Yahweh.
15 “But you became infatuated with your own beauty and used your fame to play the whore, lavishing your debauchery on all comers.
60 but I shall remember my covenant with you when you were a girl and shall conclude a covenant with you that will last for ever.
63 and so remember and feel ashamed and in your confusion be reduced to silence, when I forgive you for everything you have done — declares the Lord Yahweh.” ‘
Responsorial Psalm, Isaiah 12:2-3, 4, 5-6
2 Look, he is the God of my salvation: I shall have faith and not be afraid, for Yahweh is my strength and my song, he has been my salvation.’
3 Joyfully you will draw water from the springs of salvation
4 and, that day, you will say, ‘Praise Yahweh, invoke his name. Proclaim his deeds to the people, declare his name sublime.
Gospel, Matthew 19:3-12
3 Some Pharisees approached him, and to put him to the test they said, ‘Is it against the Law for a man to divorce his wife on any pretext whatever?’
4 He answered, ‘Have you not read that the Creator from the beginning made them male and female
5 and that he said: This is why a man leaves his father and mother and becomes attached to his wife, and the two become one flesh?
6 They are no longer two, therefore, but one flesh. So then, what God has united, human beings must not divide.’
7 They said to him, ‘Then why did Moses command that a writ of dismissal should be given in cases of divorce?’
8 He said to them, ‘It was because you were so hard-hearted, that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but it was not like this from the beginning.
9 Now I say this to you: anyone who divorces his wife — I am not speaking of an illicit marriage — and marries another, is guilty of adultery.’
10 The disciples said to him, ‘If that is how things are between husband and wife, it is advisable not to marry.’
11 But he replied, ‘It is not everyone who can accept what I have said, but only those to whom it is granted.
12 There are eunuchs born so from their mother’s womb, there are eunuchs made so by human agency and there are eunuchs who have made themselves so for the sake of the kingdom of Heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.’
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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