Daily Devotional

When the seventy returned, Jesus offered a prayer of thanksgiving to teach us the importance of appreciating God. Do not develop an entitlement mentality. Refusal to give thanks leads to pride. You start to feel that, after a successful mission, you are now greater than others. Do you know what becomes of proud people? Mary said: “He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted the lowly.” (Luke 1:51-52)

Guardian angels are spiritual beings that may sometimes appear to us in human form. The Book of Tobit records an example of this (Tobit 3:25, 5:1-4). Angel Raphael, disguised as a human named Azariah, presents himself as a family relative and offers to accompany Tobias to Media. Along the way, Raphael helps Tobias catch a fish that cures his father’s blindness, and later, he allows Tobias to marry Sarah and free her from a demon’s grasp.

In today’s second reading, St. Paul describes Christ as a man of peace, one who broke down the dividing wall of hostility that existed among people. I have seen many on social media condemn Christianity, even blaming it as the source of our problems, but I have never seen anyone condemn Christ himself. This is because a wide gap exists between Christians and Christ. If we who claim to be Christians tried, even a little, to make our lives closer to Christ’s, our country would be better. This can start by breaking down the wall of division and hostility in our hearts.