S. Ephrem, Deacon and Doctor. "If the Lord is God, follow Him"

Answer me, LORD! Answer me, that this people may know that you, LORD, are God and that you have brought them back to their senses.”

-- 1 Kgs 18:20-39

Idolatry not only refers to false pagan worship. It remains a constant temptation to faith. Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example, satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc. Jesus says, "You cannot serve God and mammon." Many martyrs died for not adoring "the Beast" refusing even to simulate such worship. Idolatry rejects the unique Lordship of God; it is therefore incompatible with communion with God.

-- CCC 2113

June 9

• St. Ephrem
• Bl. Diana
• St. Columba
• Bl. Anne Mary Taigi
• St. Baithin
• St. Vincent of Agen
• St. Cummian
• St. Julian
• St. Richard of Andria
• St. Maximian of Syracuse
• St. Pelagia of Antioch

"Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees"

... you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.

-- Mt 5: 20-26

Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become the instrument of atonement for the sins of all men. Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy. Its purpose is the glory of God and of Christ, and the gift of eternal life:

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus.

-- CCC 1992