Hello Father Richard and Romeo:
First of all, thank you Father Richard for sharing with us Psalm 1. It's the first time I've read it and I'm happy I did, because here, we can see that the main requirement for us to succeed in this earthly journey is to follow God.
Verse 3 says: we can succeed in everything we do. So this is the key: we must follow God. As Romeo said: "we must be obedient to God 24/7"
By studying God's words day and night, we can be sure we are on the right track on life. As I have made my personal motto, the words of Saint Therese: "Life is a Journey, not a destination".
By heeding the words of God, we reject the example of sinners. This world is full of traps and temptations. We see it all around us, and is greatly magnified by mass media. Even when we close our eyes, temptation still plays on in our mind like a record.
So I think, I should keep my mind busy with God. I learned from my Opus Dei friends that I can be in constant "presence of God" by keeping small norms of prayers (called norms of piety) all through the day. I can open my day with the "morning prayer". Or when I take my breakfast, I can keep presence of God by keeping small "ejaculations" (little verbal prayers). And I can make my work as a prayer in itself by offering it to God. Just like the juggler, who, in front of the Virgin Mary, juggled and made it an offering to her, for that's the only thing he can do best. And so I can make my work a prayer by trying hard to make it perfect, so that it becomes worthy as an offering to God. To keep away from temptation, I have to keep my mind busy with God by trying to maintain my small prayers.
My personal struggle and challenge right now is my temperament. I easily get irritated by people whose mouths are full of worthless and scandalous stories. It is very difficult for me to be humble when I am faced with a seatmate at work who always keep on talking about how she fornicated with her American boyfriend. I get so irritated that the devil takes a hold of me and makes me imagine that the best way to stop this person from spreading her vile further is to give her mouth a big blow of my "pacman" punch. And that would surely give me a free stay in jail, but at the same time freeing this world with scandalous people, one punch at a time. Good thing on my right side is my good friend Romeo.
I think the natural fruit of prayers would be charity. If a person is close to God, then naturally that person becomes mindful of the things around him. If he sees a hungry man or a person in need, the natural response of a prayerful person is to help. So, for myself, though I am also in great need. I should strive to share whatever little I have. There was a time when I thought, for me to be able to help significantly, I must first strive to better my self financially. But then I thought, I may never become financially better and that's not a good excuse for me not to help now. So even if sometimes my wife may object, I have to help those in need, starting with my very needy extended family. So I had made the decision to share whatever little I have with the needy and the sickly.
My daily prayer to God is to ask Him to provide me always with something that I can share. Because I find it difficult to swallow a lump of rice thinking that someone out there, could be my parents, have nothing on their table.
Psalm 1 concludes with the hard fact that in the end: He will be separating the fruitful from the fruitless. And those that bear no fruit are cast to the never ending fire.
So to make sure I become fruitful to God, I must always heed his words and keep my self busy with it, otherwise the temtations of this world will swallow me. But my prayers should always be suppplemented with real and evident action of helping his people. And the people that are prioritized by God are the poor and the helpless, as mentioned too many times in the Bible. We cannot just pray all the time without doing some action. Someone said "prayer without works is dead". And I agree.
And I also came across of a verse in the Bible which I cannot recall. But I remember it said that: "we should not waste our time with worthless projects" So we must always make sure that whatever project we undertake has some value to God. Otherwise we are just wasting our precious time. And time is precious, because time is the countdown of our Life. So I think, my time is my life.
So I must spend every minute of my life in prayer and in brainstorming about ways on how to increase my economic worth so I can help more people in due time.
Sincerely,
Cirilo
From Father Richard Kirby:
This is my Asian world sermon for today June 25 and your June 26 Romeo and Cirilo. We're going to keep it short today. I want to ask the two of you to discuss with each other the meaning of the words in Psalm 1. “How blessed is the man who walks in the way of the Lord”, who meditates on his commandment day and night. I want the two of you for the first time to write a joint essay for me and explain. What does that mean? What should you do? What do you need? Good luck and God bless....
PSALM 1 (Roman Catholic Good News Bible)
1:1 Happy are those who reject the advice of evil people, who do not follow the example of sinners or join those who have no use for God.
1:2 Instead, they find joy in obeying the Law of the LORD, and they study it day and night.
1:3 They are like trees that grow beside a stream, that bear fruit at the right time, and whose leaves do not dry up. They succeed in everything they do.
1:4 But evil people are not like this at all; they are like straw that the wind blows away.
1:5 Sinners will be condemned by God and kept apart from God's own people.
1:6 The righteous are guided and protected by the LORD, but the evil are on the way to their doom.
From Romeo:
First of all, thank you Father Richard for sharing with us Psalm 1. It's the first time I've read it and I'm happy I did, because here, we can see that the main requirement for us to succeed in this earthly journey is to follow God.
Verse 3 says: we can succeed in everything we do. So this is the key: we must follow God. As Romeo said: "we must be obedient to God 24/7"
By studying God's words day and night, we can be sure we are on the right track on life. As I have made my personal motto, the words of Saint Therese: "Life is a Journey, not a destination".
By heeding the words of God, we reject the example of sinners. This world is full of traps and temptations. We see it all around us, and is greatly magnified by mass media. Even when we close our eyes, temptation still plays on in our mind like a record.
So I think, I should keep my mind busy with God. I learned from my Opus Dei friends that I can be in constant "presence of God" by keeping small norms of prayers (called norms of piety) all through the day. I can open my day with the "morning prayer". Or when I take my breakfast, I can keep presence of God by keeping small "ejaculations" (little verbal prayers). And I can make my work as a prayer in itself by offering it to God. Just like the juggler, who, in front of the Virgin Mary, juggled and made it an offering to her, for that's the only thing he can do best. And so I can make my work a prayer by trying hard to make it perfect, so that it becomes worthy as an offering to God. To keep away from temptation, I have to keep my mind busy with God by trying to maintain my small prayers.
My personal struggle and challenge right now is my temperament. I easily get irritated by people whose mouths are full of worthless and scandalous stories. It is very difficult for me to be humble when I am faced with a seatmate at work who always keep on talking about how she fornicated with her American boyfriend. I get so irritated that the devil takes a hold of me and makes me imagine that the best way to stop this person from spreading her vile further is to give her mouth a big blow of my "pacman" punch. And that would surely give me a free stay in jail, but at the same time freeing this world with scandalous people, one punch at a time. Good thing on my right side is my good friend Romeo.
I think the natural fruit of prayers would be charity. If a person is close to God, then naturally that person becomes mindful of the things around him. If he sees a hungry man or a person in need, the natural response of a prayerful person is to help. So, for myself, though I am also in great need. I should strive to share whatever little I have. There was a time when I thought, for me to be able to help significantly, I must first strive to better my self financially. But then I thought, I may never become financially better and that's not a good excuse for me not to help now. So even if sometimes my wife may object, I have to help those in need, starting with my very needy extended family. So I had made the decision to share whatever little I have with the needy and the sickly.
My daily prayer to God is to ask Him to provide me always with something that I can share. Because I find it difficult to swallow a lump of rice thinking that someone out there, could be my parents, have nothing on their table.
Psalm 1 concludes with the hard fact that in the end: He will be separating the fruitful from the fruitless. And those that bear no fruit are cast to the never ending fire.
So to make sure I become fruitful to God, I must always heed his words and keep my self busy with it, otherwise the temtations of this world will swallow me. But my prayers should always be suppplemented with real and evident action of helping his people. And the people that are prioritized by God are the poor and the helpless, as mentioned too many times in the Bible. We cannot just pray all the time without doing some action. Someone said "prayer without works is dead". And I agree.
And I also came across of a verse in the Bible which I cannot recall. But I remember it said that: "we should not waste our time with worthless projects" So we must always make sure that whatever project we undertake has some value to God. Otherwise we are just wasting our precious time. And time is precious, because time is the countdown of our Life. So I think, my time is my life.
So I must spend every minute of my life in prayer and in brainstorming about ways on how to increase my economic worth so I can help more people in due time.
Sincerely,
Cirilo
From Father Richard Kirby:
This is my Asian world sermon for today June 25 and your June 26 Romeo and Cirilo. We're going to keep it short today. I want to ask the two of you to discuss with each other the meaning of the words in Psalm 1. “How blessed is the man who walks in the way of the Lord”, who meditates on his commandment day and night. I want the two of you for the first time to write a joint essay for me and explain. What does that mean? What should you do? What do you need? Good luck and God bless....
PSALM 1 (Roman Catholic Good News Bible)
1:1 Happy are those who reject the advice of evil people, who do not follow the example of sinners or join those who have no use for God.
1:2 Instead, they find joy in obeying the Law of the LORD, and they study it day and night.
1:3 They are like trees that grow beside a stream, that bear fruit at the right time, and whose leaves do not dry up. They succeed in everything they do.
1:4 But evil people are not like this at all; they are like straw that the wind blows away.
1:5 Sinners will be condemned by God and kept apart from God's own people.
1:6 The righteous are guided and protected by the LORD, but the evil are on the way to their doom.
From Romeo:
CEE, Can you help me on how we can accomplish this. Father Richard wants us to share ideas regarding Psalm 1.
What does it mean?
In my own idea i think the message of the scripture tells us to be mindful and reflective of God's message to our lives regarding his 10 commandments. It tells us to be obedient in his commandments 24/7 meaning all of our actions in life always be guided by the commandments of God.. Also a man who is obedient by the commandments of God is said to living in blessedness like the saints.
What did you do?
In my life ys a christian i think there are lots of times that i fall out of the meaning of Psalm 1 because sometimes i disobeyed the commandments of God. In my life i always wanted to be good but there are times that I failed. How i regret for such things for i know that it is bad and still i did it. But because by the grace of the lord we are save all i need to do is to trust Him that on the judgement day He will be my merciful Savior.
What do you need?
In this journey in life I need a constant reminder from God regarding his commandments. The best things is to place God in every activities that I do. Whether simple or complicated I offer this to the Lord as gift of giving me the chance to be born in this earth because never in my life I could repay HIM. i need to be more proactive on the Lords teaching and should set my self as and example of His greatness for others to follow especially in helping the hungry, the thirsty, the homeless, the sick and the imprison.
This is how i understand Psalm 1 please add your idea also and and finalize the essay. I really ran out of words man.
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