“BLESSED THE MAN WHO FEARS THE LORD” (Ps 112:1)

⏰Monday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time 1 (01 June 2021 – Memorial of St. Justin)

📖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)

Beloved in Christ, I welcome you to this first day of the new work month. 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).

Like Tobit, St Justin, whose memorial we celebrate today, was also not afraid to practice his faith. He spent his life, after conversion, in defence of Christian faith in the 2nd Century. After his arrest, he chose to lay down his life rather make sacrifices to gods as he was instructed.

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.

Have a stress free and blessed new month. Peace be with you.