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Daily Devotion – Daily Time with God

“He shall burn it every morning … When Aaron sets up the lamps at twilight, he shall burn incense. There shall be perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations.” – Exodus 30:7-9 NASB

One of Aaron’s primary responsibilities as a priest was to take care of the lamps set before God. He was assigned to trim them not occasionally or often, but twice each day – every morning and evening. God wanted these lamps to burn constantly and as brightly as possible. Aaron had other duties that would keep him busy. He easily could have been distracted. But he never could forget the lamps.

While central to his ministry, this assignment also an important part of his personal life. This was a daily reminder to focus on God, to think about His Word, to evaluate his own heart and priorities, and to make sure He was serving Him faithfully.

These principles still apply to each believer. Every day, we each have many options about how we spend our time and what we do with our resources. How easily we can focus on our jobs or hobbies, our interests or families, world events or the news, even religious activities instead of on spiritual matters.

But the assignment given to Aaron reminds us why it is important to begin and end every day with God, to read His Word, to pray and spend time with Him, and to seek to be attuned to His Spirit.

Don’t ignore your “lamp,” but seek to make your testimony burn brightly. Spend quality time with God. Dedicate your life to Him. Seek to please Him and faithfully serve Him.

Prayer

Father, I seek to serve You. Purge anything that displeases You. Forgive my sins. Help me burn brightly for You. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Extended Reading

Exodus 30

//Inspiration Ministries//

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Minute Meditation – The Demonization of the Other

Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us, he sets himself against our doings…. To us he is the censure of our thoughts. Merely to see him is a hardship.”—Wisdom 2:12, 14

“[Jesus] had decided not to travel in Judea because some of the Jews were looking for a chance to kill him…. Some of the people of Jerusalem remarked ‘Is this not the one they want to kill?’”—John 7:1, 25 

We have perhaps read the studies which show that once a group has decided to differentiate itself from another group, the rules of conversation change toward that group. We are inclined to believe the worst of them, paranoia and conspiracy theories soon abound, they are fair game for the commentators, and our chosen mistrust looks for any justification whatsoever to fear, hate, or even kill. Soon any defensive or even offensive attacks toward that person or group are fully rationalized and justified. It is a rare person who can stand uninfluenced by this field of gossip and innuendo. This is the sad pattern of human history. It is just such an atmosphere that is presented in both readings today, as we near the climactic events of Holy Week. The taunting verses from the book of Wisdom sound familiar to most Christians because they are the backdrop of the Crucifixion scene: “If he is the son of God, then God will defend him.” In the full text we read a kind of bravado and defiance, daring the “just person” to prove himself. It feels like the school bully mocking the classmate who might be smarter, more popular, or even more mature. For some strange reason, fearful humans are threatened by anyone outside of their frame of reference. They are always a threat and must be brought down. The same pattern is then found in the Gospel. So strange that even religious authorities can speak openly of wanting to kill Jesus, and the crowds even openly know about this. What has religion come to? Vengeance is often an open, but denied secret when fear and gossip reign in a society. Every attempt is being made to discredit Jesus, and even his family of origin, which is a very common pattern. (The whole of John 7 might give you even more of the feeling of malice and intrigue than the selected passage here in the Lectionary.) Jesus is slowly being isolated for the attack, he moves around “secretly.” You can feel his loneliness and anguish, and all he can do is claim his true origins—to deaf ears. In these days, we are being invited to share in the passion of Jesus, and in the aloneness and fear of all who have been hated and hunted down since the beginning of time.

“God of loving truth, keep me from the world of gossip and accusation. Do not let me ‘kill’ others, even in my mind or heart.”

— from the book Wondrous Encounters: Scriptures for Lent

by Richard Rohr, OFM

//Franciscan Media//

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Saint of the Day – March 19th

Saint Joseph’s Story

The Bible pays Joseph the highest compliment: he was a “just” man. The quality meant a lot more than faithfulness in paying debts.

When the Bible speaks of God “justifying” someone, it means that God, the all-holy or “righteous” one, so transforms a person that the individual shares somehow in God’s own holiness, and hence it is really “right” for God to love him or her. In other words, God is not playing games, acting as if we were lovable when we are not.

By saying Joseph was “just,” the Bible means that he was one who was completely open to all that God wanted to do for him. He became holy by opening himself totally to God.

The rest we can easily surmise. Think of the kind of love with which he wooed and won Mary, and the depth of the love they shared during their marriage.

It is no contradiction of Joseph’s manly holiness that he decided to divorce Mary when she was found to be with child. The important words of the Bible are that he planned to do this “quietly” because he was “a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame” (Matthew 1:19).

The just man was simply, joyfully, wholeheartedly obedient to God—in marrying Mary, in naming Jesus, in shepherding the precious pair to Egypt, in bringing them to Nazareth, in the undetermined number of years of quiet faith and courage.

Reflection

The Bible tells us nothing of Joseph in the years after the return to Nazareth except the incident of finding Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:41–51). Perhaps this can be taken to mean that God wants us to realize that the holiest family was like every other family, that the circumstances of life for the holiest family were like those of every family, so that when Jesus’ mysterious nature began to appear, people couldn’t believe that he came from such humble beginnings: “Is he not the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother named Mary…?” (Matthew 13:55a). It was almost as indignant as “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (John 1:46b).

Saint Joseph is the Patron Saint of:

Belgium
Canada
Carpenters
China
Fathers
Happy death
Peru
Russia
Social Justice
Travelers
Universal Church
Vietnam
Workers

//Franciscan Media//

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Meditation of the Day – The Saints Flinch Like Others Do

“The saints flinch as instinctively as others when the cross comes along, but they do not allow their flinching to upset their perspectives. As soon as it becomes clear to them that this particular suffering is what God evidently wants suffered, they stop flinching. Their habitual state of surrender to God’s will has a steadying effect: they do not get stampeded into panic or despair or rebellion or defeat.”—Dom Hubert van Zeller, The Mystery of Suffering

//The Catholic Company//

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Morning Offering – Saint Joseph

“We have close to us as much as Joseph had at Nazareth; we have our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, but our poor eyes fail to see Him. Let us once become interior souls and we shall immediately see. In no better way can we enter into the Heart of our Lord than through Saint Joseph. Jesus and Mary are eager to pay the debts which they owe him for his devoted care of them, and their greatest pleasure is to fulfill his least desire. Let him, then, lead you by hand into the interior sanctuary of Jesus Eucharistic.”— St. Peter Julian Eymard

//The Catholic Company//