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Thursday, February 3, 2000

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St. Blase
St. Ansgar


1 Kings 2:1-4, 10-12
1 Chronicles 29:10-12
Mark 6:7-13

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real men

"Be a man." —1 Kings 2:2

Throughout the world, in this year of the Great Jubilee, the Holy Spirit is transforming men through repentance and conversion. Many women have been praying for many years that the men they know be converted, for only godly men will truly love, cherish, and respect women.

Men have always told themselves and other men to "be a man." This often meant to be a macho-man, Marlboro man, ladies' man, or man's man. However, any man who has refused to be remade into the image of Jesus, the God-Man, is a wimp or worse. To be a man means to "keep the mandate of the Lord, your God, following His ways and observing His statutes, commands, ordinances, and decrees" (1 Kgs 2:3). To be a man means to obey God. That's what David said on his deathbed to his son, Solomon, in a man-to-man talk (1 Kgs 2:1-2). To be a man means to obey God as Jesus did — even to death on the cross (Phil 2:8). "Just as through one man's disobedience all became sinners, so through one Man's obedience all shall become just" (Rm 5:19).

"Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, and be a man" (1 Cor 16:13, our transl).

Prayer:  Father, turn the Rambos of the world into real men.

Promise:  "They went off, preaching the need of repentance. They expelled many demons, anointed the sick with oil, and worked many cures." —Mk 6:12-13

Praise:  St. Ansgar kept the faith though his diocese was destroyed and reverted to paganism.

Nihil Obstat:  Reverend Ralph J. Lawrence, July 28, 1999


Imprimatur:  †Most Reverend Carl K. Moeddel, Vicar General and Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, August 3, 1999