Lent finishes tonight. When we wake tomorrow the celebration of the risen Jesus will permeate our lives for weeks to come.
Over these past 46 days since the first day of Lent on Ash Wednesday or just through this last 7 days of Holy Week we have been mindful of our need for God. We know that apart from God our life is so much less and that we need God to draw us to Him through the action of His death and Resurrection.
Our lives have been different these 46 days through what we have given up or what we have taken on or the extra prayer or just being mindful of our need for God our lives in some way.
The reason we give up or take on something extra for Lent is that it acts as a constant reminder that we are in need of God more than our personal urges and desires. We demonstrate that God is first and everything else is second.
We should live with this state of constant awareness all of the time and not just in this season.
As Christians we know that the resurrection is coming Holy Saturday and therefore this can be a day of considering just what our future will be like.
ACTION: Tomorrow will you go back to the person you were or will try and live as the new person you have become? Do you have to take back on what you gave up or stop doing what you have taken on? I once gave up sugar for Lent and never went back to it because the habit was broken.
You don’t have to finish Lent and be the same as before.
GOSPEL READING: Mark 16: 1-7
Don’t forget to comment below.
First of all, thank you for providing me a start to my day during lent. Secondly, I am convinced that your calling from God is to pursue our Church into allowing our priests to have the option of marriage as well. You are a perfect example of that. Thank You! Blessed Easter to you and your family.
Amen
Thank You for the walk Bruce and Thank your team. It’s truely wonderful to be part of the Body of Christ.
It’s true,if you are mindful and heart-full of Christ, life around you seems much more precious and beautiful. All the different people, race, colour, personality that come together to pay respect and honour God is something special.
One thing I try to do is look at people ( adults ) and imagine them as children, you know what I mean, when you see a child laugh, smile , cry , frown and you see their innocence. I see adults in the same way, for I feel that we are all still children just in older bodies and like children we still have t learnt how to deal with everything in the correct manner.
These talks you have given along with your personal experiences that you have shared, has high lighted the need for us to be with God and ask him how to deal with certain situations, to guide us, to give us pardon and as you kept repeating it , Prayer is the only way.
I’m So Glad To Be Catholic.
Thank You
Thank you Bruce for taking me on this inspirational journey through Lent. Your emphasis has been on prayer. I do hope that I can continue to be in the presence of God and pray constantly as I move on from Lent. May God bless you and Rosemary in this powerful ministry as well as all those who assist you. I hope and pray too that your mother is recovering well. A very Happy and Blessed Easter to you and your family. Warm regards, Colleen
This has probably been the worst Lent I have experienced in my almost 80years as my husband of 89 years is losing his memory and your daily talk has assisted me immensely as he goes about doing things(which he would have been able to do previously) which in his mind are normal but for me I am pulling my hair out. His GP as requested that he drink at least 4 glasses of water daily and so one day I was reading when he got up from his chair carried his glass in the direction of the fridge (I didn’t watch the whole proceeding) and returned to his chair and took a sip. He requested that I try this water as it was dreadful – well when I did I noticed he had filled the glass with white wine instead of water. This has happened twice and the last time I said to him ‘you know the last time this was done was 2000 . years ago’ he stopped and then realized what he had done and laughed.
Thank you for keeping me sane and keeping on track. God bless
Thank you, Bruce.
It was fantastic to journey through Lent with you and the team and also all those listening. May the power of the risen Christ bless the work of the Catholic Guy ministries and the lives and hearts of us all.
Peace
What an amazing Lenten and Holy Week journey we have all taken. Thanks to the Catholic Guy team for this opportunity to reflect and pray each day knowing the time is being shared by so many. Maria
Wh
at a powerful meaning of Holy Saterday! I have never heard it expressed like this………the Triduum as A CALLING FROM GOD. …….our commitment
OUR WAITING FOR SUPPLY…..our awareness of our inability, our needs in view of having already stepped into the boat
PROVISION COMES……… Resurrection, God has done it for us! Holy Saterday was always a “gap day” …a blank day of waiting. This is much better. Thank you!
How true, if we believe God will provide.
Yesterday I went to Good Friday Mass and I have never seen a crowd so big in the Church. I felt so blessed.
Let us all pray that these people continue to go to Mass and instill in their children what they believed yesterday.
Listening to your talk this morning, and hearing the underlying fears that are part and parcel of looking ahead to what we believe God is asking of us, brings to mind Mary’s fears as she was being asked to be the Mother of our Lord……the “Angel tells her not to fear….that God is doing it”. And all through the Gospels we hear Jesus telling us not to fear. It is so hard for each one of us to totally depend on the Lord, in our littleness we all want to know how and why and even…when. The OUR FATHER prayer is such a wonderful prayer……………Give us this day all that we will need (not want), and to trust that God will do just that. I personally know of two people who being asked to build a house of prayer that was to be a Chapel…. This has never been done in Australia….a little house….with a Chapel that houses THE Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar……and this was being asked…..when there was no monies in the bank….two pensioners. The money came…..as did permission from the Bishop in the Hunter valley……and the Chapel was built with the hands of my sister’s husband (we nick-name him Joseph)……God’s will was done through ordinary people in an ordinary way…..with a lot of trust that can only come from prayer. Praise God.
Thank you Bruce for the opportunity to walk with you through Lent. Thank you for the challenges you have put before me – to be a more faithful, faith-filled person who has a listening heart, dependent always on God for the strength to rise to whatever God asks of me. I pray that as we celebrate the Resurrection tomorow, and beyond, I willstrong in God’s strength to live as God calls me.
This year I thank God that he has Made be a New Person. I believe in Him because he has changed me and taken me closer. Alleiluia.
We have been so blessed by your Lenten presentations.
Thank you for the journey through Lent. I feel encouraged to reconcile with the Church after many years.
Thank you Bruce for your wonderful reflections over the past 40 days. This has been my best Lenten period yet and I am 76 years young. May God bless you and guide you in your calling, following and leading people in the footsteps of Christ our Lord. Amen. Praise the Lord.
Thanks Bruce for pointing out the importance of Holy Saturday. I never really thought about this day, but will from now on.
I wish you and your wonderful team a very happy and blessed Easter!
Walburga
Your Reflections Bruce are part of my Prayer time and I thank you. May God Bless you, your family, your team and the wonderful work that you do. Wishing you and yours a Blessed and Joyous Easter. Rejoice, The Lord is Risen Alleluia.
Thank you Bruce and the Catholic Guy team for conducting these 47 days of Lent and Holy week reflections and videos. They have helped me focus more deeply on my relationship with the Lord and this special time leading up to Easter. It has been an inspiring, insightful journey. I’m so glad I made it. I’ll certainly will do this again when the opportunity arises. Thank you once again and God Bless
Valerie
Thank you Bruce and the team, you have been fantastic!
I dreaded this Lent without my hubby after 59 years together. I have come through Lent a better person and will continue to be better each day. I am going forward, not going back – not looking back but enjoying the fond loving memories in a different way.
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU.
Thank you for making the scripture available online.
It has given me a different way of reflection on the gospel message
and examples of life situations of the old testament.
Through this experience I am more aware of the areas in my life that I need to work on.
God bless the work you and your team are doing.
Thank you Bruce for glorifying God the creator and teaching me how to pray to Him .
Dear Bruce…with all my heart and soul and might….I pray that you and yours experience the presence of the Risen Christ ../in all you do.say and think.
God Bless you in your ministry ……keep on doing what God has asked of you…to love without count…..His will is being done in you……Thank Him for all the strays……you have brought back to the fold.
Thank you for your time given out to each one of us…. we all say THANK YOU dear BRUCE….amen. This has been for each one of us a time of great blessings.
Thank you Bruce and Team it has been a real treasured time it certainly has helped me put extra time into prayer and study i have watched you on sunday nights for a long time and so appreciate what you do. I wish you and your family a Happy Easter do hope your Mother is doing o k.
Thank you Bruce for walking through lent with me and the Holy Week as well What have you got after this. We just came back after celebrating the easter vigil mass . I consider myself very bless by God
And I want in return to wish you and your family and your team a blessed easter May God continue to bless all his people.. Our church has been packed for the three days preparing for easter I can,t remember when it was the last time we had such a crowd thank you God for easter
Thank you Bruce, for this wonderful ministry, which has brought me so much closer to God. This Lenten message that I will carry forward with me is how important Daily Prayer is, to make time Every Day to be with God, to praise Him, thank Him, and “be with Him”. Wishing you, your family, and your team a Joyful Blessed Easter!
Thank you Bruce and to your team for this amazing Lenten and Holy Week journey. My faith has been so enriched and my life forever changed. You are truly a gift from God. Again thank you.
Bruce, I am so happy to be what I have become and there is no turning back to what I was.
I am looking foward to celebrating the risen Christ tomorrow and to start living the new me from now.
I
Today’s message has deeply, resonated, and ‘spoke’ to me! –
In particular, (twice), when circumstances, changed the direction of my life.
In the first instance, I questioned, why things happened as they did. I was later to realise, this was not by chance, only where I was being lead, by our loving Father.
It became more ‘real’ when I did my Pastoral Care internship. –
It was here I ‘felt’ God’s presence. He lead me to where he needed me most. There were times , I wondered, why I was with a patient, or family member, why /
how they found me? As I questioned & searched, for answers., …. Yes, it was in that moment, God answered me, –
God clarified, and ‘provided ‘ the answer.
Today’s message from Bruce, talked about ‘The calling, …
The waiting and… The resurrection’
I answered his call,
I completed the study, gave up family time, and my income, with faith, that this was ‘my calling’ …. Where I had to go.
It is in doing so, I believed in what I had to do – what I had to give up.
I am now complete, in study.
I attained the 2 units, blessed, that this has enhanced the skills, of my ‘first calling’
I await now, openning my heart, and my faith, that a paid position awaits me. …..
That I have not walked away from ( fill in), positions, ( letting my supportive husband down, financially), at a time, when his own work is insecure.
Yes, Bruce, I understand, the call, the fear, the uncertainty, and the
stress, of waiting……
in Holy Saturday, I await the resurrection. –
Lord, I have answered your call,
I have been faithful,
I will remain faithful to your call,
I await…. In the darkness,
not seeing what lies ahead,
In my trust, and belief, in your will.
I come to you, in prayer, Lord,
asking for your help,
for your presence …
To be my saviour and resurrection
I KNOW YOU ARE NEVER FAR
AWAY FROM ME!