Unhappiness: juggling Words of God with worldly desires. Stop juggling!
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Question 1: “Why is the story of Jacob, sometimes called ‘Israel’, and his family important?”
Answer: “The name ‘Israel’ means ‘struggles with God’. Every person on earth is in that ‘struggle’! Catholic priests and religious ‘struggle’ with vows of Poverty, Obedience, and Chastity. Others ‘struggle’ to take care of families. We all ‘struggle’ with temptations. Every person’s ‘struggles’ show our relationship with God. Today’s Reading from Genesis 37:3-4, 12-13, 17-28 shows every level of people ‘struggling’ with God’.”
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Question 2: “How did Joseph’s brothers ‘struggle’ with God?”
Answer: “‘When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father loved him best of all his sons, they hated him so much that they would not even greet him.’ They ‘struggled’ with ways to deal with their jealousy, and sold him into slavery for twenty pieces of silver.”
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Question 3: “What was the result of their sins against Joseph?”
Answer: “It let us see the incredible truth in Today’s Psalm 105:16-21, ‘Remember the marvels The Lord has done.’ It was God’s ‘marvel’ that let Joseph rise from slave to administering Egypt for the Pharaoh. Another ‘marvel’ was when the brother they hated save them and their families from death by famine and established them as The Twelve Tribes from whom Jesus would be born, 2,000 years later.”
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Question 4: “Is there a connection between what Jacob (Israel) did for his son, Joseph, and what God, The Father Himself, did 2,000 years later?”
Answer: “Jacob sent his son to the brothers who hated him and whom Joseph saved from death by famine. God sent His Son to let all the children of God who hated Him be saved from self-loving vanity.”
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Question 5: “How did God do that?”
Answer: “In the 2,000 years between Abraham and Jesus, God sent Prophets who ‘struggled’ to bring the sons of Jacob closer to God. Over 300 of their Prophecies referred directly to the birth of God’s Son to a virgin of The House of David in Bethlehem. While Living in Fulfillment of those Prophecies, Jesus Spoke One Church Into Being with His Church-Creating Word to His First Catholic Pope:
‘And I say unto you thou art Peter and on this rock I build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I give you the keys to The Kingdom of Heaven.’
Those as filled with jealousy as Joseph’s brothers hate us for being in His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church as much as they hated Joseph for receiving so much love from his Father. In many places, they kill as many Catholics as they can.“
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Question 6: “Is every person on earth an ‘Israelite who struggles’ with That Word of God’?”
Answer: “All the ‘struggles’ on earth are related to the closeness to God that gives us, or keeps us from having, the ‘keys to The Kingdom of Heaven’ that Jesus died to leave to His Chosen people on earth.”
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Today’s Simple Rhyme: “We are blessed to stop struggling / When we stop juggling / The Words of God’s Only Son.”
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