“HOW LOVELY IS YOUR DWELLING PLACE, O LORD OF HOSTS!” (Ps 84:1)

⏰Thursday of the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time 1 (01 August 2019)

📖Exod 40:16-21, 34-38; Ps 84:3, 4, 5-6a and 8a, 11 (R.v.2); Matt 13:47-53

🎤”HOW LOVELY IS YOUR DWELLING PLACE, O LORD OF HOSTS!” (Ps 84:1)

It is a beautiful new day in a promising new month. I pray that it may be for you a month of blessing, transformation and testimonies. May peace reign in your home and may you be favoured in all things around you today and beyond. Amen.

It is good to be in in the presence of the Lord and to behold his glory. This encounter transformed Moses (cf. Exod 34:29-35) in such a way that the people were afraid to behold his face. In the same way, my dear, if you can abide in the presence of God, the enemy would always be afraid of looking at you anytime you approach.

All you need to do is to do all that the Lord commands us to do. In doing so, we ensure that the glory of God remains with us, to lead us and to protect us (see Exod 40:16-38).

Why not join that train of righteousness and remain in his presence? Remaining outside that presence means doom in the end. That is why he is not ever tired of waiting patiently on us to change. The parable in Matt 13:47-53 tells us that much. God allows both the good and the bad to coexist in his house, hoping that the bad would change. Non-appreciation of that opportunity leads to destruction in the end.

By the way, that equally tells us that being in the presence of God means more than being in the Church. It is possible for one to go to Church everyday but without knowing God.

St. Alphonsus de’Ligouri was more interested in winning eternal life in the end, and he used all in his possession to achieve that. Being blessed with extraordinary intelligence, he obtained his doctorate in civil and canon law at an early age of 16. But he gave them up and became a priest. To help his desire of desire of spreading the Gospel, he founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (the Redemptorists) and was a great Marian devotee.

We pray for the grace of interior transformation as we journey on in faith, so that God may really dwell in us as we dwell in him, and so shield us from every attack of the enemy and grant us salvation in the end. Amen.

Have a happy day and blessed new month ahead in the presence of the Lord. Peace be with you.