Daily Gospel Reflection for May 8, 2021

Join us as we reflect, ponder, and pray together inspired by today's Gospel.

Today's Gospel: John 15:18-21

Persecution of Christians is not so far-fetched than perhaps we once thought. Over the last decades our faith seems to be under attack in many ways within the popular secular culture. Sometimes we may feel that there is a spiritual warfare going on and the Evil One incites some media creators and policy makers to insult people of faith, while seemingly looking like all faiths are accepted. All except Christianity whose values upon which this country is based.

We may not be martyrs shedding our blood for the faith, but we sure feel like we are drained of our supports to live the faith within society today. And this may be a good thing. We cannot rely on the culture to help us live our life of Christ, instead we must now choose it more distinctly and adamantly. It is the call to be definitive followers of Christ, even and especially if that means going against the flow of the cultural currents.

Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in the 1960s a prediction about faith and the future. He said that the Church is entering a time of great upheaval that will leave it a much smaller Church, but one that will be more spiritual, not subject to political or social privileges. It will be a time, he says, that will test the soul of every Christian, but those who persevere will be a renewed flock of believers. Those who fell subject to secularism will find that their loss of belief in God will only exacerbate their utter loneliness and poverty. But, he continues, the Church will remain, not to the extent that she was in the past as a dominant social power or political influence, but with a fresh emergence as the Mother where all find life and hope beyond the grave.

Ponder:

How essential is faith to my life and my family’s? What is one thing I can do to strengthen our relationship with God as a family?

Pray:

Jesus, Word of the Father, I place all my trust in you. Help me to be your faithful disciple and to teach my children to love you above all things knowing that our life is a foretaste of eternity. Give me the strength to bear witness to you in the secular media culture and so proclaim that in you is our hope!

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We cannot rely on the culture to help us live our life of Christ, instead we must now choose it more distinctly and adamantly. #dailygospel

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