This Week’s Mass Warm-Up!
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A Thousand Generations
Does God give us a clue here when the end of time will happen?
Is this when Jesus’ Second Coming will occur, when He will come to “judge the living and the dead”?
Beth and Kristofer explain what This Week’s Free Thing is all about.
This Great Gift
This weekend you may hear a lot about Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, and how Jesus represents the fulfillment of the Prophets and the Law as represented in Elijah and Moses, respectively.
So, in This Week’s Mass Warm-Up, we are going to talk about Peter, and how he just steps in it and misses the whole point.
Appeal to God for a Clear Conscience
When someone asks “What have you given up for Lent?”, the right answer, in whatever way you might put it, is:
“None of your business.”
The prudent and conscientious Catholic won’t ask the question in the first place.
When we consider what we are “giving up” for Lent, let’s be more focused on asking God what He wants us to give up. What does he want us to repent of? To repent means to change, to turn away from. What do we need to change?
Ripple Effects
Ripples in the water…
This week’s Gospel reading is supposedly about Jesus healing the leper.
Look again:
It is really about disobedience and how disobeying God is far from being a personal, “I’m not hurting anybody else” thing.
Take five minutes to enjoy This Week’s Mass Warm-up, and you will permanently change your children’s behavior, and yours, with the fun – and wet! – activity!
Rising Very Early
The purpose of prayer is to get us in line with God’s will;
to have an open and hope-filled heart that God knows what He is doing and that He loves us, so even though He permits “punishment and scourges, accept them, because He acts for our welfare in whatever He allows to befall us.”
This week we learn how to be in God’s will in just five minutes..
A Prophet Like You
All Baptized Christians share in Christ’s prophetic office.
What does that mean?
How are we to carry out that mission?
This week’s readings tell us the origins of this teaching of the Church, and we explore how to live it out in our discussion and activity this week.
Repent, and Believe in the Gospel
Why do we find it so difficult to repent?
What is repentance anyway?
And why is it a prerequisite for believing in the Gospel?
This week we hear about Jonah and the repentance of the Ninevites.
What would it be like if our whole city repented of its evil-doing?
How about if it’s just within our own family?
What healing and hope would that engender?
Here I Am
Here I am, Lord…Can you hear the Lord speaking to you?
Do you seek Him?
Do you answer Him when He calls?
Sometimes we are ready to hear God, other times, we need someone to point out God to us…who in your life is that someone?
The Feast of the Epiphany of The Lord
The Feast of the Epiphany of The Lord is the celebration of the revelation of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles (non-Jews).
Learn more about what this means to us Catholics and other Christians, and what we should do to evangelize the Good News to our neighbors – hint, it doesn’t require words!
It’s as simple as leaving the lights on for them…
Have an epiphany, and be an epiphany! And watch a really cool video with ALL of the verses of “We Three Kings.” We provide the lyrics, too!
The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph
The Family is so important that the Church made the first Sunday after Christmas the Feast of the Holy Family. This week we have a fun video and an easy activity you can do anytime. Learn some things about the people around you, and maybe start a new tradition or two! Bet you can’t get the song we start off with out of your head…
Christmas Day
Jesus came on Christmas Day as the fulfillment of the promises of God, to show His glory to all people, to be the light in the darkness, to redeem us from sin and death.
Do we realize the connections Christmas Day has with the prophesies of the Old Testament?
Or with our own personal journey of faith today?
It is the connection point between both!
Fourth Week of Advent – Promises Fulfilled!
Christ Jesus fulfills the promises the Lord made to our forebears in the Old Covenants. He is the New Covenant who brings us the greatest gift of all – Eternal Life!
Third Week of Advent – Rejoice!
“My soul rejoices in God my Savior!” – This week learn about Joy – what it is and how to have it.
Second Week of Advent – Prepare!
St. John the Baptist preaches to the people – Prepare the way of the Lord! How can we prepare our homes and hearts for Jesus this Advent? Read on to find out some practical ways to do so!
Transfiguration of Christ
The Feast of the Transfiguration of Christ our Lord is an annual feast in its own right.
We also hear this Gospel account on the Second Sunday of every Lent.
So twice a year we are given an opportunity to reflect on Jesus’ Divine nature that He invites us to share in.
How can we respond to this invitation?
What does that mean to us?
Holy Owned and Operated has several reflections to help answer these questions and more!
Understanding
King Solomon asked the Lord for an understanding heart, that he might govern his people wisely.
When we pray, are we asking the Lord for understanding?
Most of us want to understand the Lord, we certainly ask for Him to tell us what we want to know…but do we seek to UNDERSTAND?
Can we answer as the Apostles do to Christ’s question, “Do you understand all these things?”
Kind Justice
Kind Justice can be summed up pretty easily in the Golden Rule.
How well do we practice it?
What can we do better?
How is Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross connected to the Golden Rule?
When God forgives us out of love, He shows the ultimate kind justice.
Can we do similarly?
Good Soil
Jesus loves to teach in parables.
When we hear this week’s parable, we also get to hear Jesus explain it to the Apostles.
Let’s all learn how to become the good soil that allows the Word of God to grow and produce fruit!
Jesus’ Yoke Is Easy
If Jesus’ yoke is easy, why is life so hard?
This week, we explore that with a little help from Father Richard Simon – The reverend Know-It-All – and dig into the details of this passage that we hear three times this month (this is the second time).
So, it must be important!
We take a walk through the readings for this week’s Mass, focusing not on ourselves, but on Jesus’ yoke that others are carrying.
And we discover why ours is harder than it needs to be in the process.
Receive
This week we hear that in order to receive our reward, we must receive His apostles, Himself and His Father, His prophets, and righteous people. What does that look like today?
Invite someone in ministry over for dinner or lunch or just to hang out for a while. Thank them for their answer to God’s call to be an Apostle. Invite them to tell their vocation story.
God’s Answer is Jesus
This week’s readings are mostly prayers and answers.
“Lord, in your great love, answer me” (Psalm 69:14).
Think of how we pray and ask for God’s power to take away our fears and hardships.
Do we pray with confidence and praise?
Or pitiful pleading and anxiousness?
Let’s take a page from Scripture and pray with trust and confidence in God’s goodness and answers.
Priesthood
Have you ever contemplated your baptismal priesthood?
What is it, from where does it come?
How does it make a difference in our lives?
And how is it different from the Ministerial Priesthood – those men who are ordained to the priesthood in the Sacrament of Holy Orders?
This week let’s dive into these questions as God calls each of us to the priesthood.
Celebrating The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist
Jesus Christ is real.
And He gave us the Eucharist so that we could be with Him physically, because He knows we, as human beings, need to feel His presence.
There is no better or real presence of Jesus Christ in our lives than receiving His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity at Mass.
This week, we celebrate an entire Solemnity – the highest form of celebration in the Catholic faith – at Mass to give glory to God for this miracle of the real presence of Our Lord at every Mass.
Read and learn about it, and the special celebration that you just might see walking down Main Street this weekend!
Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
Each Liturgical Year on the Sunday after Pentecost, we celebrate the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, also known as “Trinity Sunday”.
This lesson teaches why we celebrate this feast and the significance of it.
Pentecost Sunday – Receive the Holy Spirit
On Pentecost Sunday two thousand years ago, the Apostles received an amazing gift – the Holy Spirit.
Jesus kept His promise and sent the Advocate and amazing works have been done ever since through Him.
How He works in our lives is just as important as how He worked in the lives of the Apostles.
And the gift and work is all connected to the Sacraments.
Divine Mercy Sunday
The Second Sunday of Easter is also called Divine Mercy Sunday. We reflect on and ask for Jesus’ Divine Mercy which poured forth from Him as He died on the Cross, symbolized in the blood and water that came out of His side when it was pierced with a spear. His sacrifice made the mercy of God complete. We are able, through the saving work of Jesus Christ, to receive the ultimate in mercy – God’s Divine Life in us.
Palm Sunday of the LORD’s Passion – Year A
Palm leaves, red vestments, processions, and the story of Christ’s Passion and death.
This is what awaits us this Sunday at Mass.
How can we take it all in and be present for all the messages that God has for us in the liturgy?
Many of us that have heard this story every year can tune out and forget what the whole point is.
We allow ourselves to be distracted or bored, missing the essential beauty and love that Jesus offers us in His Passion.
Let us all be mindful of what’s going on this week at Mass, allowing ourselves to be transformed by Jesus’ suffering and the salvation He brings about through it.
The Glory of God: If You Believe You Will See It
The glory of God is real, and all around us every day, and is manifest in our own resurrection as promised by Him and shown in the resurrection of Jesus.
All of that is shared with us this week in each reading during Mass.
So why do we still fail to fully believe?
The Israelites did, and so did the early Christians.
Even the Apostles failed in their belief.
So, we are in good company.
And God knows that…
He Sees Us
How close to being “perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5:48) would we be if we saw ourselves and others the way He sees us?
This week God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit get in on the lessons from the readings, showing us how He, God, sees us and how He desperately wants us to see others the same way.
Living Water
The Living Water that Jesus offers is so much more than just a drink to quench our thirst.
Our encounter with Jesus Christ, son of the Living God, who takes away the sins of the world is at the heart of this week’s message.
How do we respond to His invitation to drink the Living Water He provides?
What is it that we must do to live the life He desires for us?
As we continue through Lent, let us reflect on the merciful love and salvation that Christ brings to each of us.
God’s Own Design
Have you ever contemplated what God’s design is for your life?
This week we are invited to reflect on His Divine Plan, and how we can accept and become part of it.
It’s more than just believing, though that is a start.
Let us take time to dive in and find out what it means to live “according to his own design”.
Tempted
Lent is a time of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
It is also a time to reflect on our spiritual health and journey.
The readings for the first Sunday tell us the stories of the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and the temptation of Jesus in the desert.
Adam and Eve were tempted in their abundance. Jesus was tempted in his need.
They responded very differently,
Read on to learn why and how we can be like Jesus and resist temptation.
Perfection
Perfection is a tall order for us – or is it?
This week, Jesus is wrapping up the Sermon on the Mount, and He sums it up, well, perfectly.
He is not calling us to an impossible task, and in this week’s TWMWU, we discuss that and offer some tips on how to discuss it with your family.
Keep the Commandments
The Ten Commandments we may not know by heart, but they are on our heart.
They are naturally known to us; instinctive.
Yet we can legalize them to the point of thinking they do not apply to us.
After all, very few of us will murder somebody.
And looking at inappropriate pictures is not adultery, right; or using a computer at work to check our social media account or read the news is not really stealing…is it?
Well, Jesus tells us differently.
He tells us what we already know.
This week it is hard lessons learned in a loving way as Our Lord continues His Sermon on the Mount, preparing us for Lent by helping us bare our innermost sinful nature so that we may be true Christians.
Light Shines in the Darkness
Have you ever been in the dark and turned on a small light?
Light shines in the darkness.
And it’s not a candle or flashlight – it is us, the believers and faithful of God:
Christians following our call to holiness.
Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Jesus is quite clear about who will go to heaven, so we explore what it means to be poor in spirit, and it has nothing to do with our bank accounts!
God provides through Scripture the exact meaning of what it is to be poor in spirit, and the encouragement we all need to have that attitude as we grow closer to Jesus and learn, from Him, who the Father is.
United
This week we think about how our families, parishes, communities, and world would be different if we all lived up to our baptismal vocation.
If all of us lived the Gospel and witnessed to Christ crucified, what would change?
Would the divisions among us be healed?
Would we be more understanding of one another?
Would we be able to live a life of virtue more easily?
Not Just a Servant
When we think of servants, we typically picture people who are oppressed or in positions that powerful people take advantage of.
God has a different idea of what a servant is, and He calls us to this way of life and shows us through His only Son, how being a servant is actually one of the most honorable positions one can take.
He uses His servants to bring His light and message of Salvation to all the nations.
Dive deeper into this idea of sharing God’s light and salvation as His servant…
Mother of God
Mary had a little lamb…
Though this rhyme refers to St. Mary, this does not mean she is a sheep.
Mary gave birth to the Lamb. This means she is the Mother of God.
As confusing as that is to our non-Catholic brethren, we as Catholics understand it and accept it.
Just as Mary and Joseph accepted this great honor and responsibility.
How do we share in Mary’s motherhood?
This week, we explore her example and how it blesses and encourages us to be Brothers and Sisters of and in Christ.
Fourth Sunday of Advent – God is With Us
How often do we ignore or take for granted the signs that God places in our paths that show God is with us?
In this time of waiting for Christ to come at Christmas, there are signs everywhere! T
he sign of the coming of Christ was foretold hundreds of years before He came, in order for the Chosen People to know how to identify Him.
Are we looking? What do we see?
Third Sunday of Advent – He Comes to Save Us
How often do we truly think about how we are saved through the blood of Jesus Christ?
And how does the promise of the kingdom of heaven bear on our current lives and choices?
The Church calls us to contemplate how He comes to save us this week as we continue our Advent journey up the mountain and along the Way of Christ Jesus.
TWFT Archives
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Get Connected
Community is an essential, basic part of the Catholic faith. Click here to get to our community area of the web site, which we are building and set to fully launch on April 10. Or you can get on our general contact list with the form on the right and we will personally let you know when it is ready. This will be perfect for parents, catechists, and religious educators to engage, learn from each other, ask questions, and realize the wonderful universal nature of our Church!