{"id":1029,"date":"2013-03-20T17:13:15","date_gmt":"2013-03-20T21:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1029"},"modified":"2013-03-20T17:13:15","modified_gmt":"2013-03-20T21:13:15","slug":"shadrach-meshach-and-abednego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/shadrach-meshach-and-abednego\/","title":{"rendered":"Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shadrach, Meshach,\u00a0Abednego, and King Nebuchadnezzar\u00a0– I think I will remember these names forever.\u00a0 They appear in today’s first reading<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I think back to 1999, shortly after I returned to church after many years of not going.\u00a0 I had the opportunity to attend Mass on Wednesdays during Lent.\u00a0 I was going to be the Altar Server.\u00a0 Literally, about a minute before Mass we realized the Lector had not shown up.\u00a0 I quickly glanced at the readings and realized I was in trouble.\u00a0 The names Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and King Nebuchadnezzar were throughout the\u00a0first reading (which is today’s first reading<\/a>) and I had no idea<\/em> how to pronounce them.<\/p>\n

I quickly asked the pastor how to pronounce the names but it was too late to have a chance to learn them.\u00a0 I think I pronounced the names different each time.\u00a0\u00a0This reading remains in my mind to this day.<\/p>\n

It is a good reading to remember because we hear in it how absolute Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s faith was to them.\u00a0 In the reading we hear,<\/p>\n

If our God, whom we serve, can save us from the white-hot furnace and from your hands, O king, may he save us! But even if he will not, know, O king, that we will not serve your god or worship the golden statue that you set up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There was no way they were going to abandon their faith, even at the cost of their earthly life.<\/p>\n

It leads us to ask ourselves ‘do we hold to our faith?’\u00a0 In today’s gospel<\/a>, Jesus calls all to “remain in his word”.\u00a0 Do we?\u00a0 Or do we hide his word?\u00a0 Do we follow his word?\u00a0 Do we even know his Word?\u00a0 When challenged do we live and speak our faith or do we claim up to avoid confrontation or to save our lives?\u00a0 Let us pray that we follow the example of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and have the courage to always follow God’s way, remaining in Jesus’ Word.<\/p>\n

Peace,<\/p>\n

Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shadrach, Meshach,\u00a0Abednego, and King Nebuchadnezzar\u00a0– I think I will remember these names forever.\u00a0 They appear in today’s first reading. I think back to 1999, shortly after I returned to church after many years of not going.\u00a0 I had the opportunity to attend Mass on Wednesdays during Lent.\u00a0 I was going to be the Altar Server.\u00a0 …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-gB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1030,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029\/revisions\/1030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}