What is your favorite Bible verse and why?
FR. JONATHAN FRENCH
Micah 6:8 because I believe it encompasses the whole Gospel. Everything we are to do, be, pray and believe.
“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
DEACON MARY DELANCEY
John 14:27. Meditating on this verse brings comfort to my life and helps me even out the highs and lows. When things are going well, I am reminded that God's peace is better than all the things I have and can imagine. Even if they are lost, God's peace remains. Jesus assures me that He has given me a peace that I can never lose.
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”
FR. DANIEL PINELL
Psalm 96:9 is my favorite antiphon in the Office. Also, it tells us that holiness is beautiful, part of rightly worshiping God, and worthy of our pursuit.
“Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness! Tremble before Him, all the earth.”
REV. CAROLINE OSBORNE
Lamentations 3:19-24 is one of my favorites, especially during hard times. It reminds me that God doesn’t overlook our hardships – he acknowledges them in his word – and that God is faithful, which always gives us reason to hope. The Lord himself is our portion and he is worth waiting for.
“I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall.
I well remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.’"
DEACON SUSAN MOOREHEAD
Ephesians 3:20 can be reduced to a simple but powerful reminder; GOD IS ABLE. And if that isn't amazing enough, GOD is exceedingly able. And that doesn't do it, GOD is abundantly able and above ALL that I can ask or think. This helps me to allow my faith, my thinking, my asks, to be bigger than my fears for GOD IS ABLE.
"Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine,"
FR. FRANS VAN SANTEN
Psalm 88:18 is my favorite. This is an odd verse to choose as “favorite.” Here is why; the Psalmist can’t resolve his suffering. In the midst of his misery, he says that darkness is his closest friend. God isn’t’. Darkness is. In his conversation with God, he is so honest that he dares to say something of which we would easily say: “You can’t say that!” Yet he does it, and it is in the Bible. If the Psalmist can say this, then I can do that too. It gives me confidence that God can take my darkest thoughts as well. Not just my praise, not just my thoughts when I’m at my best. But also my darkness. That, in turn, shows me how great God really is.
"Darkness is my closest friend"
