And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. - Romans 8:23

For most of us, the gift of the Spirit living within us is a calming reassurance of God’s love and of our future glory. Even in our times of difficulty, the wonderful blessing of the Spirit’s presence breaks through and gives us a sense of God’s love, real strength for our ongoing difficulties, and a deep and abiding joy at being God’s child.

The breakthroughs of the Holy Spirit’s grace is a foretaste, a small sample, of the great blessings that are in store for us when we go home to God. Let’s revel in these moments of glory and grace, but let’s also recognize that these are just a glimpse, a tiny taste, of our great glorious future with Jesus!

Prayer : Father in heaven, I long to see you face-to-face, to behold your glory, to have you brush every tear from my eyes, and to feel your embrace as you welcome me home. Until that day, please make me aware of your Spirit’s presence in my life and to savor the small tastes of your glory and grace until I arrive at home with you. In the name of the Lord Jesus I ask this. Amen.

Are you passionate about Jesus? Anyone calling you a Jesus Freak?

How long can you walk with Neil Armstrong without talking about the moon? I am sure he will be passionate about the moon. He was the first man to step foot on the moon.

There are passionate people in this world. Some are passionate about Jesus. Some call them “Jesus freaks”. Some call them “fundamentalists”. Some call them “religious conservatives”. I do not agree with any of them.

They are just people passionately loving their Father in heaven. I loved my father. He was and is still my all time hero. I remember as a child, nobody will ever say a mean word about my father in my presence. They knew that I loved my father passionately. Am I fanatic for loving my father?

Passionate Christians love Christ like a child loving his father.

They talk about Him all the time. They think about Him. They commune with Him. When the father is hurt, you are hurt. When the father is happy you are happy. You will move mountains for your father. You will tell raging sees to calm down. You will face shipwrecks for your father.

You will walk in the valley of the shadow of death for your father. You will take humiliation for your father. You will take beatings for your father. It is just a family affair, the love of a father and a son! It is as simple as that.

Tie your belt and run like Elijah. Can you hear the sound of abundant rain? It is coming. It is coming. The torrential downpour of the Holy Spirit is falling on the hills and the valleys. Parched lands will be flooded with his Spirit. The prophets of doom will die. The God of Elijah will triumph.

So are you not yet passionate about Jesus? Its time……

- – - written by Dr. Jacob C Tony, USA

Today is September 8th and we celebrate Blessed Virgin Mary’s birth.

Thy birth, O Virgin Mother of God,
heralded joy to all the world.
For from thou hast risen the Sun of justice,
Christ our God.

Destroying the curse, He gave blessing;
and damning death, He bestowed on us
life everlasting.

Blessed art thou among women
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
For from thou hast risen of Sun of justice,
Christ our God.

­ - – - from The Divine Office – Matins (Morning Prayer)

The birth of Mary was also miraculous. She was conceived without sin as a special grace because God had selected her to become the mother of His Son (the feast of her Immaculate Conception is celebrated on December 8). The dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, though generally believed throughout the Church for many centuries, was formally declared by Pope Pius IX in 1854.

Download Nativity of the Virgin Mary document

There is nothing contained in Scripture about the birth of Mary or her parentage, though Joseph’s lineage is given in the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. The names of Mary’s parents, Joachim and Anna, appear in the apocryphal “Gospel of James”, a book dating from the 2nd Century AD, not part of the authentic canon of Scripture. According to this account, Joachim and Anna were also beyond the years of child-bearing, but prayed and fasted that God would grant their desire for a child.

St. Augustine connects Mary’s birth with Jesus’ saving work. He tells the earth to rejoice and shine forth in the light of her birth. “She is the flower of the field from whom bloomed the precious lily of the valley. Through her birth the nature inherited from our first parents is changed.”

If Jesus is the perfect expression of God’s love, Mary is the foreshadowing of that love. If Jesus has brought the fullness of salvation, Mary is its dawning.

Birthday celebrations bring happiness to the celebrant as well as to family and friends. Next to the birth of Jesus, Mary’s birth offers the greatest possible happiness to the world. Each time we celebrate her birth we can confidently hope for an increase of peace in our hearts and in the world at large.

Prayer:
Father of mercy,
give your people help and strength from heaven.
The birth of the Virgin Mary’s Son
was the dawn of our salvation.
May this celebration of her birthday
bring us closer to lasting peace.
Grant this though our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Also read Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary