⏰Monday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time 1 (05 June 2023 - Memorial of St. Boniface)
📖Tob 1:3, 2:1-8; Ps 112:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6 (R.v.1b); Mark 12:1-12
🎤"BLESSED THE MAN WHO FEARS THE LORD" (Ps 112:1)
My dear friend in Christ, I welcome you to this new day in a new work week. Listen to the prayers of the psalmist for you today:
👉🏼Your descendants would be powerful on earth and your generation blest (Ps 112:2), Amen!
👉🏼Again, riches and wealth shall be in your house and a light would rise to enlighten the darkness before you (Ps 112:3-4), amen.
👉🏼And it shall be well with you; nothing can ever move you (Ps 112:5-6), amen.
To be a beneficiary of those blessings, you must live uprightly before God because they are only for those who fear the Lord and keep his commandments (Ps 112:1).
Faith and upright life are great concerns for the Book of Tobit, which we shall be reflecting on in the next few days. It is one of the seven books which were added to the original contents of the Hebrew Bible after the translation of the Bible into Greek.
The major character in that Book, Tobit, presents himself as an upright man (Tob 1:3-4) unlike the wicked tenants of Mark 12:1-12. That was the reason he was not afraid to do what he thinks to be right even in the face of great persecution (see Ps 112:6).
St. Boniface, a learned man and an eloquent preacher, whose memorial we celebrate today was equally an upright man. He had to endure failures in his quest to bring the good news to idolaters. After the initial failure, he returned to his monastery where he was elected the Abbot. But that is not what he wanted, and so he resigned within a short time. Eventually, with the permission of the Pope, he went to evangelize in Germany where he opened many dioceses and made many converts. In the process, he also won the crown of martyrdom.
You too can bear witness to Christ through your upright life.
May God grant us the fortitude to withstand all temptations and endure all persecutions that try to push us down, so that remaining steadfast in righteousness, we may gain the blessings which God has promised us. Amen.
May you have a stress free work week. Peace be with you.
http://www.fadajbcezeonwumelu.com/blessed-the-man-who-fears-the-lord-ps-1121/
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