“No. He will be called John.” (Luke 1: 60). And John the Baptist was called John as Elizabeth his mother insisted.

Monday of the 12th week in Ordinary Time is the Solemnity of the Birth of St John the Baptist. Only three birthdays are celebrated in the liturgical calendar of the Church: Jesus, Mary and John the Baptist. Who is John the Baptist?

"John the Baptist is "more than a prophet." In him, the Holy Spirit concludes his speaking through the prophets. John completes the cycle of prophets begun by Elijah. He proclaims the imminence of the consolation of Israel; he is the "voice" of the Consoler who is coming. As the Spirit of truth will also do, John "came to bear witness to the light." In John's sight, the Spirit thus brings to completion the careful search of the prophets and fulfills the longing of the angels. "He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God. . . . Behold, the Lamb of God." (CCC 719).

The core ministry of St John the Baptist is Reconciliation: "Come back to Me." (Joel 2: 17; Jeremiah 3: 14, 3: 22, 4: 1; Hosea 11: 2).

"He came as a witness, as a witness to speak for the light,
preparing for the Lord a people fit for him." (John 1:7; Luke 1: 17).

Jesus gives John His greatest recognition of any human being:
"Amen, I say to you, among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." (Matthew 11: 11).

St John the Baptist pray for us.

Daily Bible Verse @ SeekFirstcommunity.com

"Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him, says the Lord." (John 6: 57).

Sunday of the 12th week in Ordinary Time is the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

The Eucharist is the source and summit of Christian life. (CCC 1324). The Eucharist is also the new Covenant ratified with the Blood of Jesus.  (Mark 14: 24).

"While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is my body.”  Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it.  He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many."  (Mark 14: 22 - 24).

"Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him, says the Lord."  (John 6: 57).

Daily Bible Verse @ SeekFirstcommunity.com

“No one can serve two masters." (Matthew 6: 24).

Saturday of the 11th week in Ordinary. We celebrate today the feast of St Thomas More, Martyr. This principled man refused to serve two masters at the same time. Here is a short summary of his life.
"St Thomas More (1477 - 1535) was born in London and was Chancellor of King Henry VIII. As a family man, a public servant, and a writer, he displayed a rare combination of human warmth, Christian wisdom, and sense of humor." (Roman Missal).

From the CCC:
"We know that in everything God works for good for those who love him." The constant witness of the saints confirms this truth:

"St. Thomas More, shortly before his martyrdom, consoled his daughter: "Nothing can come but that that God wills. And I make me very sure that whatsoever that be, seem it never so bad in sight, it shall indeed be the best." (CCC 313).

The pagans are always tortured by these anxieties: "What are we to eat? What are we to drink? What are we to wear?" (Matthew 6: 31 - 32). Turn to God and trust in Him completely and let Him take care of everything you need.
"Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil." (Matthew 6: 33 - 34).

SeekFirstcommunity.com

"For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be." (Matthew 6: 21).

Friday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time. Lord, why do you link our hearts with treasure? This is too close for comfort.

The teaching of Jesus today on treasure and the heart is good news. It is truth that can give you victory and freedom in your life:
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal.  But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal." (Matthew 6: 19 - 20).

During the great Depression, some people who stored up their treasures in the stock market committed suicide when the stock market crashed. These guys are surely losers in this world. May God have mercy on them in the Kingdom of God.

"I sought the Lord, and he answered me, delivered me from all my fears." (Psalm 34: 5).

Daily Bible Verse @ SeekFirstcommunity.com

"Your Father knows what you need before you ask him." (Matthew 6: 8).

Thursday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time. Today, the Lord teaches the disciples the Great Our Father or the Lord's Prayer. Our key Scripture is from what Jesus said before He taught the Lord's Prayer: "Your Father knows what you need before you ask him."

“You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead?" (Luke 11: 11). Even in our deep selfishness, we know the difference between a fish and a snake.
"You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free." Do you know one truth that will make you free? "Your Father knows what you need before you ask him." It is the truth you understand and appropriate that will give you the victory and freedom you desire so desperately.

"Do you not yet understand? Do you not remember?" Jesus queried the disciples. Understand what Jesus is teaching us about the Father. The Father acknowledges everything He created but loves us tenderly as sons and daughters. He provides all living things with food. His plan for our life is peace and prosperity. The shortcut is: "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything else will be given you besides." (Matthew 6: 33).

We are truly sons and daughters of God who deserves the best from God. (Romans 8: 15).

Daily Bible Verse @ SeekFirstcommunity.com

"God loves a cheerful giver." (2 Corinthians 9: 7).

Wednesday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time. Our daily bible verse is from 2 Corinthians 9: 7).
"God loves a cheerful giver." Why on earth would anyone not be joyful and cheerful in giving to God and His works? Only one reason occurs to me. Not meanness. Not stinginess. But crass IGNORANCE!

Ignorance of elementary facts are dangerous. God is the source of every blessing, every gift, everything. He is the source of the food on the table from the seed, the sowing, harvesting, cooking and serving the food. God is the first cause of everything. He is the cause of the inspiration and the power to act.

Today's word continues to teach:
"Moreover, God is able to make every grace abundant for you, so that in all things, always having all you need, you may have an abundance for every good work." (2 Corinthians 9: 8). Do you believe this? Faith is nothing more than hearing this word or reading this word of God now and believing it. I believe it with my whole heart. This is why the most joyful thing I do on every eve of the Lord's Day is writing that check for offering.

Giving to God and His Church does not only bring peace and joy to the heart but guarantees security. Taste and see that the Lord is faithful and merciful.

"Remember, the man who plants only a few seeds will not have much grain to gather. The man who plants many seeds will have much grain to gather." (2 Corinthians 9: 6 NLV).

Daily Bible Verse @ SeekFirstcommunity.com

"My soul, give praise to the Lord.
I will praise the Lord all my days,
make music to my God while I live." (Cf Psalm 146: 2).

Tuesday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time. What do you do when life throws you a knock out punch? David the man after God's heart is one who receives far more punches from life than anyone in the Bible. The trials did wonders to his character as the Bible predicts.

"Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." (James 1: 2 - 4).

And this one too:

"We even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance,  and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope,  and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us." (Romans 5: 3 - 5).

David left us a winning formula for dealing with hard times. In one word, it is praise and thanksgiving. This is why we choose the Responsorial Psalm (Psalm 146)for our reflection today.

"He is happy who is helped by Jacob’s God, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who alone made heaven and earth, the seas and all they contain.

"It is he who keeps faith for ever, who is just to those who are oppressed.
It is he who gives bread to the hungry, the Lord, who sets prisoners free.

"It is the Lord who gives sight to the blind, who raises up those who are bowed down, the Lord, who protects the stranger and upholds the widow and orphan." (Psalm 146: 2, 5 - 9).

8 different mercies of God are listed in Psalm 146: 5 - 9. Relishing them is the way your faith grows.

Daily Bible Verse @ SeekFirstcommunity.com

"The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of all I have told you." (John 14: 26).

Tuesday of the 7th week of Easter. There are 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit. There are 12 fruits of the same awesome Spirit. When I became acquainted with the Holy Spirit and began to appreciate Him more and more, what I appreciated most is the subject of our Scripture reflection: The Holy Spirit helps me to understand the Scriptures that I have appropriated and secondly, the Holy Spirit reminds me of the good things God is doing for me. It is impossible to offer praises and thanks if you do not know what God is doing for you. I thank the Holy Spirit every morning for this wonderful gifts.

Consider for a moment what God is doing for you:

"The child of God can fear no ill,
His chosen, dread no foe;
We leave our fate with thee, and wait Thy bidding when to go.
‘Tis not from chance our comfort springs, Thou art our trust, O King of kings." (Liturgy of the Hours).

What does this mean? Not even a single comfort you enjoy in life comes from chance, luck or accident. Every good thing that comes to you is from God's gracious ordaining. We find exactly the same idea in 2 Corinthians 1: 3 where God is called "Father of mercies and God of ALL comforts."
Did you notice the word ALL. It means TODO, no exception. It is impossible for you to know all these without the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

On Sunday the 9th of June, as we celebrate the feast of Pentecost, each of us has the opportunity to be renewed with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

SeekFirstcommunity.com

“Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” (Acts 19: 2).

Monday of the 7th week of Easter. Why did Paul ask the Christians of Ephesus this blunt and embarrassing question? Probably Paul noticed something from their questions, words and behavior that were dissonant with the experience of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Is this really the Blood of Christ? Asked a Eucharistic minister, a new convert to the Church.

How would you answer the question? “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” Not this way: “We have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit,” said the new Ephesian Christians. What difference does the Holy Spirit make in your life? Which of His gifts can you claim?

1. Wisdom
2.Understanding
3. Counsel
4. Fortitude
5. Knowledge
6. Piety
7. Fear of the Lord

Without the active indwelling of the Holy Spirit, it will be impossible to avoid serious sin and to live an effective Christian life. Was this what Paul observed in Ephesus?

Pope St John XXIII must have the Holy Spirit in mind when he advised: "Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but what is still possible for you to do." (Pope St John XXIII)

Today is the feast of St Charles Lwanga and 14 companions who were martyred in 1886 and 1887 by King Mwanga of Uganda for resolutely refusing to participate in homosexual practices.

SeekFirstcommunity.com

“Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.” (Acts 1: 11).

Sunday of the 7th week of Easter, the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord Jesus. Forty days after His Resurrection and at the end of His instructions on the Kingdom of God, it was time to depart for Heaven. His disciples were filled with joy as they returned to Jerusalem to await "the Promise of the Father", the Holy Spirit of whom Jesus talked a lot in His last discourse before His passion.

We do not have time to stand here or there looking at the sky. Now is the time to busy ourselves through prayer and study preparing for the the feast of the Holy Spirit which is next Sunday.

"Grant, we pray, almighty God,
that we, who believe that your Only Begotten Son, our Redeemer,
ascended this day to the heavens,
may in spirit dwell already in heavenly realms.
Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever." Collect of the feast of Ascension).

SeekFirstcommunity.com

"Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.  Until now you have not asked anything in my name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete." (John 16: 23 - 24).

Saturday of the 6th week of Easter. Jesus tells us to approach the throne of grace and mercy of Abba Father and ask for whatever we need with boldness and expectant faith. If you never ask in prayer, you may never experience the pure joy of answered prayer.

"Ask and keep on asking and it will be given to you; seek and keep on seeking and you will find; knock and keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you." (Matthew 7: 7 AMP).

Jesus teaches that Prayer is a vital necessity because Prayer is the only thing that gives us the direct and irrefutable experience of God.
But to pray with the guarantee of receiving, you must pray like Jesus. You must pray as the Church has learned to pray. "According to Your will and not mine for I do not know what is the best for me."

When you pray and receive answer to your prayer, do you think it is a coincidence? Perhaps the first time. Or the first few times. The cause and effect of prayer is no accident. No prayer. No answer.

The Father wants you to experience the pure joy of answered prayer so that your joy will be complete.

SeekFirstcommunity.com

"Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” (Luke 1: 45).

Friday of the 6th week of Easter is the feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. "The Visitation is the meeting between Mary and her cousin Elizabeth, the mother of St John the Baptist. Mary's "Magnificat" is another testimony of her humility before God. Her readiness to serve Elizabeth is a good lesson on charity." (Roman Missal).

Mary said YES to an incomprehensible mystery. Like Abraham, she believed and hoped against hope. Like Abraham, Mary was richly rewarded for her faith...  “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb," cried out Elizabeth under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit....."Behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed," Mary cried out with exuberance. (Luke 1: 48). Yes indeed. Billions of people call Mary blessed amongst women.

"Blessed is the Virgin Mary, who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled." (Luke 1: 45).

SeekFirstcommunity.com