“And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

OPENING PRAYER

Prayer for our Nation (U.S.A)

God our Father,

Giver of life,

we entrust the United States of America to Your loving care.

You are the rock on which this nation was founded.

You alone are the true source of our cherished rights to life,

liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Reclaim this land for Your glory and dwell among Your people.

Send Your Spirit to touch the hearts of our nation´s leaders.

Open their minds to the great worth of human life and the responsibilities

that accompany human freedom.

Remind Your people that true happiness is rooted in

Seeking and doing Your will.

Through the intercession of Mary Immaculate,

Patroness of our land, grant us the courage to reject the “culture of death.”

Lead us into a new millennium of life.

We ask this through Christ Our Lord.

Amen.

http://www.catholic.org/prayers/prayer.php?p=800

 

COLLECT

O God, protector of those who hope in you,

without whom nothing has firm foundation

nothing is holy,

bestow in abundance your mercy upon us

and grant that, with you as our ruler and guide,

we may use the good things that pass

in such a way as to hold fast even now

to those that ever endure.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity

of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

 

READING I

Reading 1 Gn 18:20-32

In those days, the LORD said: “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great,

and their sin so grave,

that I must go down and see whether or not their actions

fully correspond to the cry against them that comes to me.

I mean to find out.”

While Abraham’s visitors walked on farther toward Sodom,

the LORD remained standing before Abraham.

Then Abraham drew nearer and said:

“Will you sweep away the innocent with the guilty?

Suppose there were fifty innocent people in the city;

would you wipe out the place, rather than spare it

for the sake of the fifty innocent people within it?

Far be it from you to do such a thing,

to make the innocent die with the guilty

so that the innocent and the guilty would be treated alike!

Should not the judge of all the world act with justice?”

The LORD replied,

“If I find fifty innocent people in the city of Sodom,

I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

Abraham spoke up again:

“See how I am presuming to speak to my Lord,

though I am but dust and ashes!

What if there are five less than fifty innocent people?

Will you destroy the whole city because of those five?”

He answered, “I will not destroy it, if I find forty-five there.”

But Abraham persisted, saying “What if only forty are found there?”

He replied, “I will forbear doing it for the sake of the forty.”

Then Abraham said, “Let not my Lord grow impatient if I go on.

What if only thirty are found there?”

He replied, “I will forbear doing it if I can find but thirty there.”

Still Abraham went on,

“Since I have thus dared to speak to my Lord,

what if there are no more than twenty?”

The LORD answered, “I will not destroy it, for the sake of the twenty.”

But he still persisted:

“Please, let not my Lord grow angry if I speak up this last time.

What if there are at least ten there?”

He replied, “For the sake of those ten, I will not destroy it.”

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 343 Man is the summit of the Creator’s work, as the inspired account expresses by clearly distinguishing the creation of man from that of the other creatures.1

CCC 1867 The catechetical tradition also recalls that there are “sins that cry to heaven”: the blood of Abel,2 the sin of the Sodomites,3 the cry of the people oppressed in Egypt,4 the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan,5 injustice to the wage earner.6

CCC 2571 Because Abraham believed in God and walked in his presence and in covenant with him,7 the patriarch is ready to welcome a mysterious Guest into his tent. Abraham’s remarkable hospitality at Mamre foreshadows the annunciation of the true Son of the promise.8 After that, once God had confided his plan, Abraham’s heart is attuned to his Lord’s compassion for men and he dares to intercede for them with bold confidence.9

1 Cf. Gen 1-26.

2 Cf. Gen 4:10.

3 Cf. Gen 18:20; 19:13.

4 Cf. Ex 3:7-10.

5 Cf. Ex 20:20-22.

6 Cf. Deut 24:14-15; Jas 5:4.

7 Cf. Gen 15:6; 17:1 f.

8 Cf. Gen 18:1-15; Lk 1:26-38.

9 Cf. Gen 18:16-33.

APPLICATION

The first lesson we can learn from this episode is the power of intercessory prayer. We can pray for others and God will hear and answer our prayers. Abraham has left us a wonderful example of love of neighbor. He did not wish to see the people of those cities suddenly sent to their death. He pleaded for them and he used God’s own justice as a lever to move him from his resolve. How could the just God condemn the innocent with the wicked? If only ten just men had been found in them, the cities and their inhabitants would have been saved, saved by Abraham’s intercession.

How often do we pray for our neighbors when they are in temporal or spiritual danger or difficulties? Most of us can answer truthfully and admit that we do not do so half as often as we should. We entreat God when we ourselves are in need, but God will be much more ready to answer us in our need if we have proved true brothers to our fellowman by pleading for them when they need the divine assistance.

We can learn another valuable lesson, also, from this story. The presence of a group of pious people in our midst, people who are close to God, is a guarantee that we shall be protected from the divine vengeance which we may have thoroughly deserved. There are Catholics who question the purpose of enclosed communities of women or men who devote all their time to prayer and the liturgy. Why don’t they teach or nurse, or earn their bread in some way? Why should the people have to support them? These were the very sentiments expressed by the Reformers when they knocked down the convents in England and banished the sisters. Some Catholics are still of this opinion today.

They forget, however, that the prayers of these devout lovers of God have often saved them from the temporal punishments that they deserve. The contemplatives are the spiritual lightning-conductors in our parishes and towns. They sacrifice their personal freedom and enclose themselves for life behind their convent walls in order to intercede for all sinners, for all of us.

Instead of criticizing them and questioning their sanity, we should thank God for them and pray that they will never be short of vocations–new members in their communities who will continue their good work. The parish or the town that has a community of enclosed religious has a divine blessing in its midst. It has a power-house of prayer which will spread the light of God’s grace amongst the citizens of that town and parish, and will turn away the just wrath of God from those who, by their sins, deserve it. “For the sake of those ten innocent people,” said the Lord to Abraham, “I will not destroy the cities.”

Imitate Abraham’s true, unselfish love of neighbor by always remembering your needy neighbor in your prayers. Help to protect your city and your fellow citizens, by a special prayer today for an increase in the number of just men living in it.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Ps 138:1-2, 2-3, 6-7, 7-8

Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.

I will give thanks to you, O LORD, with all my heart,

for you have heard the words of my mouth;

in the presence of the angels I will sing your praise;

I will worship at your holy temple

and give thanks to your name.

Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.

Because of your kindness and your truth;

for you have made great above all things

your name and your promise.

When I called you answered me;

you built up strength within me.

Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.

The LORD is exalted, yet the lowly he sees,

and the proud he knows from afar.

Though I walk amid distress, you preserve me;

against the anger of my enemies you raise your hand.

Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.

Your right hand saves me.

The LORD will complete what he has done for me;

your kindness, O LORD, endures forever;

forsake not the work of your hands.

Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.

READING II

Col 2:12-14

Brothers and sisters:

You were buried with him in baptism,

in which you were also raised with him

through faith in the power of God,

who raised him from the dead.

And even when you were dead

in transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh,

he brought you to life along with him,

having forgiven us all our transgressions;

obliterating the bond against us, with its legal claims,

which was opposed to us,

he also removed it from our midst, nailing it to the cross.

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 527 Jesus’ circumcision, on the eighth day after his birth,1 is the sign of his incorporation into Abraham’s descendants, into the people of the covenant. It is the sign of his submission to the Law2 and his deputation to Israel’s worship, in which he will participate throughout his life. This sign prefigures that “circumcision of Christ” which is Baptism.3

CCC 628 Baptism, the original and full sign of which is immersion, efficaciously signifies the descent into the tomb by the Christian who dies to sin with Christ in order to live a new life. “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”4

CCC 1002 Christ will raise us up “on the last day”; but it is also true that, in a certain way, we have already risen with Christ. For, by virtue of the Holy Spirit, Christian life is already now on earth a participation in the death and Resurrection of Christ:

And you were buried with him in Baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. .. If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.5

CCC 1214 This sacrament is called Baptism, after the central rite by which it is carried out: to baptize (Greek baptizein) means to “plunge” or “immerse”; the “plunge” into the water symbolizes the catechumen’s burial into Christ’s death, from which he rises up by resurrection with him, as “a new creature.”6

CCC 1227 According to the Apostle Paul, the believer enters through Baptism into communion with Christ’s death, is buried with him, and rises with him:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.7

The baptized have “put on Christ.”8 Through the Holy Spirit, Baptism is a bath that purifies, justifies, and sanctifies.9

CCC 1694 Incorporated into Christ by Baptism, Christians are “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” and so participate in the life of the Risen Lord.10 Following Christ and united with him,11 Christians can strive to be “imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love”12 by conforming their thoughts, words and actions to the “mind. .. which is yours in Christ Jesus,”13 and by following his example.14

1 Cf. Lk 2:21.

2 Cf. Gal 4:4.

3 Cf. Col 2:11-13.

4 Rom 6:4; cf. Col 2:12; Eph 5:26.

5 Col 2:12; 3:1.

6 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15; Cf. Rom 6:34; Col 2:12.

7 Rom 6:3-4; cf. Col 2:12.

8 Gal 3:27.

9 CE 1 Cor 6:11; 12:13.

10 Rom 6:11 and cf. 6:5; cf. Col 2:12.

11 Cf. Jn 15:5.

12 Eph 5:1-2.

13 Phil 2:5.

14 Cf. Jn 13:12-16.

APPLICATION

How can we ever thank God for all he has done for us! Eternity itself will not be long enough for us to sing him our full hymn of gratitude. He created us and gave us wonderful gifts. We abused his gifts, and went so far as to use the very gifts he gave us to insult him. He had planned to make us heirs to heaven, but we were more interested in this fleeting world. We lost interest in his plans for our good. Nevertheless, he did not lose interest in us. He sent his divine Son on earth to take our human nature and thus gather the whole human race into himself, thereby making us sons of his heavenly Father.

If the Incarnation had not taken place we could never reach heaven. Mere man could never of himself become a citizen of that kingdom to which his nature gave him no claim. An alien, coming to live in a country not his by birth, needs a special act, a gratuitous act on the part of that country, to become its citizen. Similarly man, a native of earth, needed a special gratuitous act on the part of God to make him a citizen of heaven.

This is what the Incarnation did for us. The Son of God deigned to share our humanity with us. We are thus enabled to share his divinity with him. We have been given the citizenship of heaven. The conferring of that citizenship on us takes place in baptism as arranged by Christ. In baptism we die with Christ. That means that we cast off the man of flesh, the mere mortal man of this earth, and rise from the baptismal waters, clothed with divinity, because Christ has made us one with him, who is God and Man.

Of course, we are not yet in heaven. But we have a heavenly passport: we have the right to get there, and what is more we have been given in abundance the means of getting there. Christ saw to that. He knew our weaknesses. He provided us with his Church to which he gave and gives, his sacraments. He also gives, through the Holy Spirit, the divine assistance which will ensure for us a safe journey.

How truly fortunate we followers of Christ are! We have a passport, a ticket from him. We have sufficient means to pay for all our needs on the journey homewards. Let us thank God from our hearts this morning, for his infinite kindness to us. Let us turn our thoughts for a moment to our unfortunate fellowman, who are also brothers of Christ and heirs to heaven. They are also brothers of ours. They either do not know God and all that he has done for them, or, worse still, they know him but despise him and his gifts. Thus, they are seriously risking their own future happiness. God wants them all in heaven. Christ died for all. The heavenly citizenship is there for all, though it cannot be forced on any man.

We can do much to help these brothers of ours. To do so will be the best way we can show our appreciation of God’s goodness to us, the best way to prove our gratitude. Prayer is a way of helping that is open to all, young and old, rich and poor. Every day of our lives, we should beg God to put a knowledge of his infinite love into the hearts of those who do not have it. When we need some temporal favor for ourselves, the best way we can pray for it is to forget our little needs and to pray instead for this most essential need of the neighbor who does not know God, and is jeopardizing his future–his eternal future. God will, in his own way and his own time, answer that prayer of true charity. Our temporal needs will not be forgotten either.

Most of us can help by cooperating financially and otherwise with those who are giving their lives to spreading the knowledge of God and his goodness among the pagans, old and new. We have many of the latter right in our midst. Each one of us can find a way to get this knowledge to those nearest him. For those living in their own pagan countries, we can, besides praying, help to support the generous men and women who have gone to these lands and are doing God’s work, and our work there for us.

Finally, if each one of us would give the good example of a Christian life, Christ would soon have more followers. We would show that our Christian life is lived by one who appreciates it; by one who realizes that he is on the way to heaven and that he will not allow earthly attractions or earthly trials to impede his journey.

All I can do is one man’s part. However, I am ready to do that much. I hope that many others will follow suit. God grant that it may be so.

GOSPEL

Lk 11:1-13

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished,

one of his disciples said to him,

“Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.”

He said to them, “When you pray, say:

Father, hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come.

Give us each day our daily bread

and forgive us our sins

for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,

and do not subject us to the final test.”

And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend

to whom he goes at midnight and says,

‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread,

for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey

and I have nothing to offer him,’

and he says in reply from within,

‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked

and my children and I are already in bed.

I cannot get up to give you anything.’

I tell you,

if he does not get up to give the visitor the loaves

because of their friendship,

he will get up to give him whatever he needs

because of his persistence.

“And I tell you, ask and you will receive;

seek and you will find;

knock and the door will be opened to you.

For everyone who asks, receives;

and the one who seeks, finds;

and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

What father among you would hand his son a snake

when he asks for a fish?

Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg?

If you then, who are wicked,

know how to give good gifts to your children,

how much more will the Father in heaven

give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/072416.cfm

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 385 God is infinitely good and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils in nature which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures: and above all to the question of moral evil. Where does evil come from? “I sought whence evil comes and there was no solution”, said St. Augustine,1 and his own painful quest would only be resolved by his conversion to the living God. For “the mystery of lawlessness” is clarified only in the light of the “mystery of our religion”.2 The revelation of divine love in Christ manifested at the same time the extent of evil and the superabundance of grace.3 We must therefore approach the question of the origin of evil by fixing the eyes of our faith on him who alone is its conqueror.4

CCC 443 Peter could recognize the transcendent character of the Messiah’s divine sonship because Jesus had clearly allowed it to be so understood. To his accusers’ question before the Sanhedrin, “Are you the Son of God, then?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am.”5 Well before this, Jesus referred to himself as “the Son” who knows the Father, as distinct from the “servants” God had earlier sent to his people; he is superior even to the angels.6 He distinguished his sonship from that of his disciples by never saying “our Father”, except to command them: “You, then, pray like this: ‘Our Father’”, and he emphasized this distinction, saying “my Father and your Father”.7

CCC 520 In all of his life Jesus presents himself as our model. He is “the perfect man”,8 who invites us to become his disciples and follow him. In humbling himself, he has given us an example to imitate, through his prayer he draws us to pray, and by his poverty he calls us to accept freely the privation and persecutions that may come our way.9

CCC 700 The finger. “It is by the finger of God that [Jesus] cast out demons.”10 If God’s law was written on tablets of stone “by the finger of God,” then the “letter from Christ” entrusted to the care of the apostles, is written “with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts.”11 The hymn Veni Creator Spiritus invokes the Holy Spirit as the “finger of the Father’s right hand.”12

CCC 728 Jesus does not reveal the Holy Spirit fully, until he himself has been glorified through his Death and Resurrection. Nevertheless, little by little he alludes to him even in his teaching of the multitudes, as when he reveals that his own flesh will be food for the life of the world.13 He also alludes to the Spirit in speaking to Nicodemus,14 to the Samaritan woman,15 and to those who take part in the feast of Tabernacles.16 To his disciples he speaks openly of the Spirit in connection with prayer17 and with the witness they will have to bear.18

CCC 1425 “You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”19 One must appreciate the magnitude of the gift God has given us in the sacraments of Christian initiation in order to grasp the degree to which sin is excluded for him who has “put on Christ.”20 But the apostle John also says: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”21 And the Lord himself taught us to pray: “Forgive us our trespasses,”22 linking our forgiveness of one another’s offenses to the forgiveness of our sins that God will grant us.

CCC 1969 The New Law practices the acts of religion: almsgiving, prayer and fasting, directing them to the “Father who sees in secret,” in contrast with the desire to “be seen by men.”23 Its prayer is the Our Father.24

CCC 2601 “He was praying in a certain place and when he had ceased, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray.”’25 In seeing the Master at prayer the disciple of Christ also wants to pray. By contemplating and hearing the Son, the master of prayer, the children learn to pray to the Father.

CCC 2613 Three principal parables on prayer are transmitted to us by St. Luke:

– The first, “the importunate friend,”26 invites us to urgent prayer: “Knock, and it will be opened to you.” To the one who prays like this, the heavenly Father will “give whatever he needs,” and above all the Holy Spirit who contains all gifts.

– The second, “the importunate widow,”27 is centered on one of the qualities of prayer: it is necessary to pray always without ceasing and with the patience of faith. “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

– The third parable, “the Pharisee and the tax collector,”28 concerns the humility of the heart that prays. “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” The Church continues to make this prayer its own: Kyrie eleison!

CCC 2632 Christian petition is centered on the desire and search for the Kingdom to come, in keeping with the teaching of Christ.29 There is a hierarchy in these petitions: we pray first for the Kingdom, then for what is necessary to welcome it and cooperate with its coming. This collaboration with the mission of Christ and the Holy Spirit, which is now that of the Church, is the object of the prayer of the apostolic community.30 It is the prayer of Paul, the apostle par excellence, which reveals to us how the divine solicitude for all the churches ought to inspire Christian prayer.31 By prayer every baptized person works for the coming of the Kingdom.

CCC 2671 The traditional form of petition to the Holy Spirit is to invoke the Father through Christ our Lord to give us the Consoler Spirit.32 Jesus insists on this petition to be made in his name at the very moment when he promises the gift of the Spirit of Truth.33 But the simplest and most direct prayer is also traditional, “Come, Holy Spirit,” and every liturgical tradition has developed it in antiphons and hymns.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love.34

Heavenly King, Consoler Spirit, Spirit of Truth, present everywhere and filling all things, treasure of all good and source of all life, come dwell in us, cleanse and save us, you who are All Good.35

CCC 2759 Jesus “was praying at a certain place, and when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’”36 In response to this request the Lord entrusts to his disciples and to his Church the fundamental Christian prayer. St. Luke presents a brief text of five petitions,37 while St. Matthew gives a more developed version of seven petitions.38 The liturgical tradition of the Church has retained St. Matthew’s text:

Our Father who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,

and lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

1 St. Augustine, Conf. 7,7,11: PL 32,739.

2 2 Thess 2:7; 1 Tim 3:16.

3 Cf. Rom 5:20.

4 Cf. Lk 11:21-22; Jn 16:11; 1 Jn 3:8.

5 Lk 22:70; cf. Mt 26:64; Mk 14:61-62.

6 Cf. Mt 11:27; 21:34-38; 24:36.

7 Mt 5:48; 6:8-9; 7:21; Lk 11:13; Jn 20:17.

8 GS 38; cf. Rom 1 5:5; Phil 2:5.

9 Cf. Jn 13:15; Lk 11:1; Mt 5:11-12.

10 Lk 11:20.

11 Ex 31:18; 2 Cor 3:3.

12 LH, Easter Season after Ascension, Hymn at Vespers: digitus paternae dexterae.

13 Cf. Jn 6:27, 51, 62-63.

14 Cf. Jn 3:5-8.

15 Cf. Jn 4:10, 14, 23-24.

16 Cf. Jn 7:37-39.

17 Cf. Lk 11:13.

18 Cf. Mt 10:19-20.

19 1 Cor 6:11.

20 Gal 3:27.

21 1 Jn 1:8.

22 Cf. Lk 11:4; Mt 6:12.

23 Cf. Mt 6:1-6; 16-18.

24 Cf. Mt 6:9-13; Lk 11:2-4.

25 Lk 11:1.

26 Cf. Lk 11:5-13.

27 Cf. Lk 18:1-8.

28 Cf. Lk 18:9-14.

29 Cf. Mt 6:10, 33; Lk 11:2,13.

30 Cf. Acts 6:6; 13:3.

31 Cf. Rom 10:1; Eph 1:16-23; Phil 1911; Col 1:3-6; 4:3-4, 12.

32 Cf. Lk 11:13.

33 Cf. Jn 14:17; 15:26; 16:13.

34 Roman Missal, Pentecost Sequence.

35 Byzantine Liturgy, Pentecost Vespers, Troparion.

36 Lk 11:1.

37 Cf. Lk 11:2-4.

38 Cf. Mt 6:9-13.

APPLICATION

The disciples asked to be taught how to pray to God. Jesus told them how. He gave them a formula which contains the essence of all prayer. God is addressed as our Father. He really is, since he made his Son our brother. We praise and honor him and wish that all will honor him. Then we ask for our daily, temporal needs, and especially for our spiritual needs. We ask forgiveness of all our offenses, while we likewise promise to forgive our brothers if they offend us.

Jesus then went on to stress the necessity of perseverance in our prayers. We must honor God daily and pray that all will honor him. We must also keep on asking for our temporal and spiritual needs. This is the meaning of the parable. The Father may delay the granting of our request because he wants us to continue to trust in him. This very perseverance in our prayer is bringing us closer and making us dearer to God. This is a greater blessing for us than the favor for which we were asking.

As regards requests for help in our spiritual life, we can rest assured that, if God delays his answer, the reason is that he has some more important spiritual gift for us. Our perseverance in prayer will bring it to us. Many great saints often wondered why God did not answer their fervent prayers and remove some temptation, or some lack of virtue which they felt was impeding their progress. They found out later that it was because God was slow in granting their requests that they actually progressed in sanctity.

As far as temporal favors are concerned, we do not always know what is best for us. God does. Of this we can be sure: if our requests for temporal favors are sincere and persevering, we are sure to get an answer. Christ himself says so. The answer, however, may not always be what we asked. If not, it will be something better, something we do not even know we need. God knows it and gives it to us, instead of the less essential gift we were asking for.

Looking back over our lives, many of us can see now how fortunate we were that some of the favors we sought so fervently from God in our youth were not given us. He gave us instead some gift which we had not even thought of, but which changed the course of our lives and saved us from the tribulations, spiritual and temporal, which the gift we were so anxiously seeking would have caused us, if God had granted it. There are thousands of men and women in heaven today who would not be there had God granted them the temporal favors they thought they needed so badly. One of our joys in heaven, among the lesser ones perhaps, will be in discovering how cleverly our heavenly Father helped us to get there by refusing certain of our requests, and by giving us others for which we had not asked.

Not only, therefore, may we, but we must, ask our heavenly Father for our spiritual and temporal needs. This we are told to do by Christ. We must continue to ask. He has put us in this world in order to earn heaven. Our life here is of its very nature a journey. All journeys entail some, and often many, hardships. For one on his way home, the journey’s hardships are bearable. For some they may at times border on the unbearable, but such people can turn to their heavenly Father. He has a personal knowledge of, and interest in, each individual’s progress. Ask him to remove the cross, for the time being at least. Loving Father that he is, he will do just that, or he will strengthen the shoulder that has to bear it.

Remember our Lord’s advice to us: “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you will find, knock and it shall be opened to you.

Applications written by Fr. Kevin O’Sullivan O.F.M. and used with permission from Franciscan Press

BENEDICTUS

Our Father

In teaching his disciples to pray, Jesus told them to say “Our Father.” (Mt. 6: 9). No one but he can say “my Father.” Everyone else is only entitled , as a member of the community, to use that “we” which Jesus made possible for them; i.e., they have the right to address God as Father because they are all created by God and for one another. To recognize and accept God’s Fatherhood always means accepting that we are set in relation to one another: man is entitled to call God “Father” to the extent that he participates in that “we” – which is the form under which God’s love seeks for him… No one can build a bridge to the Infinite by his won strength. No one’s voice is loud enough to summon the Infinite. No intelligence can adequately and securely conceive who God is, whether he hears us and how we should act toward him… Even the awareness that religion must rest on a higher authority than that of one’s own reason, and that it needs a community as a “carrier,” is part of mankind’s basic knowledge, though found in manifold forms and even distortions… Jesus’ task was to renew the People of God by deepening its relationship to God and by opening it up for all mankind… He achieved this by transforming his death into an act of prayer, an act of love, and thus by making himself communicable. Jesus has made it possible for people to participate in his most intimate and personal act of being, i.e., his dialogue with the Father. That is the deepest layer of meaning of that process in which he taught his disciples to say “Our Father.”

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

CLOSING PRAYER

The Lord’s Prayer

by Sr. Rosemary

Our Father

Has there ever been a more powerful or more important prayer than the Our Father? The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the Our Father “is truly the summary of the whole Gospel”. (#2761) Jesus isn’t just suggesting a prayer for us to say; what he said is: “This is how you are to pray.”

Since the time he taught us the Our Father himself, it has been recited by every Christian church, in every service from baptism to burial. It’s also at the heart of our private devotions. People who might otherwise differ on points of doctrine are united by their common use of this beautiful prayer. How easy, though, it can be for us to say it routinely and without much thought.

With that in mind, let’s reflect together in a prayerful way on each powerful phrase of the Our Father.

I cannot say “our” if I live only for myself.

I cannot say “Father” if I do not approach God like a child.

I cannot say “who art in heaven” if I am not laying up some treasure there right now.

I cannot say “hallowed be thy name” if I am careless with that name.

I cannot say “Thy kingdom come” if I am not working to bring it about in the here and now.

I cannot say “thy will be done” if I am resentful of that will for me at this moment.

I cannot say “on earth as it is in heaven” if I don’t look on heaven as my future home.

I cannot say “give us our daily our daily bread” if I am overanxious about tomorrow.

I cannot say “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” if I am waiting to settle a score with someone.

I cannot say ‘lead us not into temptation’ if I deliberately put myself in a place to be tempted.

I cannot say ‘deliver us from evil’ if I am not prepared to pray as though everything depends on God and work as though everything depends on me.

And finally, I cannot say “amen’ with my lips if my heart does not believe the words Our Lord himself has given us to pray.

© St Margaret Mary Church 2016.

 

“Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

OPENING PRAYER

For Healing

Lord, You invite all who are burdened to come to You. Allow your healing hand to heal me. Touch my soul with Your compassion for others. Touch my heart with Your courage and infinite love for all. Touch my mind with Your wisdom, that my mouth may always proclaim Your praise. Teach me to reach out to You in my need, and help me to lead others to You by my example. Most loving Heart of Jesus, bring me health in body and spirit that I may serve You with all my strength. Touch gently this life which You have created, now and forever. Amen.

http://www.catholic.org/prayers/prayer.php?p=75

COLLECT

O God, who show the light of your truth

to those who go astray,

so that they may return to the right path,

give all who for the faith they profess

are accounted Christians

the grace to reject whatever is contrary to the name

of Christ

and to strive after all that does it honor.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity

of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

READING I

Dt 30:10-14

Moses said to the people:

“If only you would heed the voice of the LORD, your God,

and keep his commandments and statutes

that are written in this book of the law,

when you return to the LORD, your God,

with all your heart and all your soul.

“For this command that I enjoin on you today

is not too mysterious and remote for you.

It is not up in the sky, that you should say,

‘Who will go up in the sky to get it for us

and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?’

Nor is it across the sea, that you should say,

‘Who will cross the sea to get it for us

and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?’

No, it is something very near to you,

already in your mouths and in your hearts;

you have only to carry it out.”

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 708 This divine pedagogy appears especially in the gift of the Law.1 God gave the Law as a “pedagogue” to lead his people toward Christ.2 But the Law’s powerlessness to save man deprived of the divine “likeness,” along with the growing awareness of sin that it imparts,3 enkindles a desire for the Holy Spirit. The lamentations of the Psalms bear witness to this.

1 Cf. Ex 19-20; Deut 1-11; 29-30.

2 Gal 3:24.

3 Cf. Rom 3:20.

APPLICATION

The history of Israel has a lot in common with the life-history of many, if not most, individual Christians. The Israelites served God while in need of his material help. Their first three centuries in the Promised Land, which he had given them and which he was helping them to occupy, were years of fairly loyal service. When, under David and Solomon, they acquired a political and economic standing among the nations, they gradually began to lose interest in their divine Protector. Under Solomon’s successor a schism came, a political and religious separation of the northern Tribes from Judah and Jerusalem where God’s Temple was situated. Gradually things went from bad to worse. The north was wiped out. Soon the south was over-run by the Babylonians. The city and Temple were destroyed. The people were taken as prisoners to Babylon. They had practically ignored God during the previous centuries of prosperity, and had even taken an interest in the false gods of the pagan nations.

Their years of exile made them think. They repented. They turned back to God and asked him to forgive them and give them another chance. He did, on condition that they would remain loyal this time. He would be their protector and would give them temporal rewards, provided that their loyalty came from their hearts, not from their lips only.

How many Christians thank God when everything is going well with them? How many do so when their health is the best, when their business is prospering? And worse still, there are Christians who not only do not think of God when all is going well with them, but who go out of their way to offend God by abusing the very gifts which he has given them. They break his commandments and they ignore their obligations. The world sniffles on them for a while. If their worldly prosperity lasts until their end comes, they have every likelihood of leaving this world without knowing God, and of being unknown to him when they meet him as their Judge.

Thank God, however, for this is God’s kindness to weak man. Very few, even of the healthiest and the wealthiest, go through life without reminders of their need for God, even in this world. He sends his warnings to earth-bound man through illnesses and business failures, or grave disappointments. This he does in order to awaken man to the realization that he has not here a lasting city. The Christian, unless he has put himself beyond the reach of God’s mercy, and this is a possibility but an exceptional occurrence, will then turn to God once more. He will cry for help, as the Jewish exiles in Babylon did. God is still merciful and will remove the temporary cross or give the necessary strength to bear it. God will and does expect thanks in return, however, and as today’s lesson puts it, the thanks he expects is that his law be kept in future.

What we have said of God sending his messengers of mercy to awaken sinners, must by no means be taken to indicate that all sickness and sufferings are due to sins and injustices on the part of the suffering individual. Many of God’s saints had their share of heavy crosses. This was not in order to awaken them from their sins, but to make them into greater saints. Many good-living Christians, too, get more than their share of life’s troubles. If they remain close to God they will weather these storms and end up closer to God.

What we all need is to keep the God of love always before, our minds. Let us also remember the commandments he gave us for our own good. By doing so the saint will become more saintly and the sinner will grow gradually less sinful. Remember, always, that God can do without you, but you cannot do without God.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Ps 69:14, 17, 30-31, 33-34, 36, 37

Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.

I pray to you, O LORD,

for the time of your favor, O God!

In your great kindness answer me

with your constant help.

Answer me, O LORD, for bounteous is your kindness:

in your great mercy turn toward me.

Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.

I am afflicted and in pain;

let your saving help, O God, protect me.

I will praise the name of God in song,

and I will glorify him with thanksgiving.

Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.

“See, you lowly ones, and be glad;

you who seek God, may your hearts revive!

For the LORD hears the poor,

and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.”

Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.

For God will save Zion

and rebuild the cities of Judah.

The descendants of his servants shall inherit it,

and those who love his name shall inhabit it.

Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.

READING II

Col 1:15-20

Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God,

the firstborn of all creation.

For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth,

the visible and the invisible,

whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers;

all things were created through him and for him.

He is before all things,

and in him all things hold together.

He is the head of the body, the church.

He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,

that in all things he himself might be preeminent.

For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell,

and through him to reconcile all things for him,

making peace by the blood of his cross

through him, whether those on earth or those in heaven.

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 142 By his Revelation, “the invisible God, from the fullness of his love, addresses men as his friends, and moves among them, in order to invite and receive them into his own company.”1 The adequate response to this invitation is faith.

CCC 241 For this reason the apostles confess Jesus to be the Word: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”; as “the image of the invisible God”; as the “radiance of the glory of God and the very stamp of his nature”.2

CCC 291 “In the beginning was the Word. .. and the Word was God. .. all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”3 The New Testament reveals that God created everything by the eternal Word, his beloved Son. In him “all things were created, in heaven and on earth. .. all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”4 The Church’s faith likewise confesses the creative action of the Holy Spirit, the “giver of life”, “the Creator Spirit” (Veni, Creator Spiritus), the “source of every good”.5

CCC 299 Because God creates through wisdom, his creation is ordered: “You have arranged all things by measure and number and weight.”6 The universe, created in and by the eternal Word, the “image of the invisible God”, is destined for and addressed to man, himself created in the “image of God” and called to a personal relationship with God.7 Our human understanding, which shares in the light of the divine intellect, can understand what God tells us by means of his creation, though not without great effort and only in a spirit of humility and respect before the Creator and his work.8 Because creation comes forth from God’s goodness, it shares in that goodness – “And God saw that it was good. .. very good”9- for God willed creation as a gift addressed to man, an inheritance destined for and entrusted to him. On many occasions the Church has had to defend the goodness of creation, including that of the physical world.10

CCC 331 Christ is the center of the angelic world. They are his angels: “When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him. .. ”11 They belong to him because they were created through and for him: “for in him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities – all things were created through him and for him.”12 They belong to him still more because he has made them messengers of his saving plan: “Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to serve, for the sake of those who are to obtain salvation?”13

CCC 504 Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary’s womb because he is the New Adam, who inaugurates the new creation: “The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.”14 From his conception, Christ’s humanity is filled with the Holy Spirit, for God “gives him the Spirit without measure.”15 From “his fullness” as the head of redeemed humanity “we have all received, grace upon grace.”16

CCC 624 “By the grace of God” Jesus tasted death “for every one”.17 In his plan of salvation, God ordained that his Son should not only “die for our sins”18 but should also “taste death”, experience the condition of death, the separation of his soul from his body, between the time he expired on the cross and the time he was raised from the dead. The state of the dead Christ is the mystery of the tomb and the descent into hell. It is the mystery of Holy Saturday, when Christ, lying in the tomb,19 reveals God’s great sabbath rest20 after the fulfillment21 of man’s salvation, which brings peace to the whole universe.22

CCC 753 In Scripture, we find a host of interrelated images and figures through which Revelation speaks of the inexhaustible mystery of the Church. The images taken from the Old Testament are variations on a profound theme: the People of God. In the New Testament, all these images find a new center because Christ has become the head of this people, which henceforth is his Body.23 Around this center are grouped images taken “from the life of the shepherd or from cultivation of the land, from the art of building or from family life and marriage.”24

CCC 792 Christ “is the head of the body, the Church.”25 He is the principle of creation and redemption. Raised to the Father’s glory, “in everything he [is] preeminent,”25 especially in the Church, through whom he extends his reign over all things.

CCC 1042 At the end of time, the Kingdom of God will come in its fullness. After the universal judgment, the righteous will reign for ever with Christ, glorified in body and soul. The universe itself will be renewed:

The Church. .. will receive her perfection only in the glory of heaven, when will come the time of the renewal of all things. At that time, together with the human race, the universe itself, which is so closely related to man and which attains its destiny through him, will be perfectly re-established in Christ.27

CCC 1701 “Christ,. .. in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, makes man fully manifest to himself and brings to light his exalted vocation.”28 It is in Christ, “the image of the invisible God,”29 that man has been created “in the image and likeness” of the Creator. It is in Christ, Redeemer and Savior, that the divine image, disfigured in man by the first sin, has been restored to its original beauty and ennobled by the grace of God.30

CCC 2305 Earthly peace is the image and fruit of the peace of Christ, the messianic “Prince of Peace.”31 By the blood of his Cross, “in his own person he killed the hostility,”32 he reconciled men with God and made his Church the sacrament of the unity of the human race and of its union with God. “He is our peace.”33 He has declared: “Blessed are the peacemakers.”34

CCC 2641 “[Address] one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart.”35 Like the inspired writers of the New Testament, the first Christian communities read the Book of Psalms in a new way, singing in it the mystery of Christ. In the newness of the Spirit, they also composed hymns and canticles in the light of the unheard-of event that God accomplished in his Son: his Incarnation, his death which conquered death, his Resurrection, and Ascension to the right hand of the Father.36 Doxology, the praise of God, arises from this “marvelous work” of the whole economy of salvation.37

1 DV 2; cf. Col 1:15; I Tim 1:17; Ex 33:11; Jn 15:14-15; Bar 3:38 (Vulg.).

2 Jn 1:1; Col 1:15; Heb 1:3.

3 Jn 1:1-3.

4 Col 1:16-17.

5 Cf. Nicene Creed: DS 150; Hymn “Veni, Creator Spiritus”; Byzantine Troparion of Pentecost Vespers, “O heavenly King, Consoler”.

6 Wis 11:20.

7 Col 1:15, Gen 1:26.

8 Cf. Ps 19:2-5; Job 42:3.

9 Gen 1:4,10,12,18,21,31.

10 Cf. DS 286; 455-463; 800; 1333; 3002.

11 Mt 25:31.

12 Col 1:16.

13 Heb 1:14.

14 I Cor 15:45,47.

15 Jn 3:34.

16 Jn 1:16; cf. Col 1:18.

17 Heb 2:9.

18 I Cor 15:3.

19 Cf. Jn 19:42.

20 Cf. Heb 4:7-9.

21 Cf. Jn 19:30.

22 Cf Col 1: 18-20.

23 Cf. Eph 1:22; Col 1:18; LG 9.

24 LG 6.

25 Col 1:18.

26 Col 1:18.

27 LG 48; Cf. Acts 3:21; Eph 1:10; Col 1:20; 2 Pet 3:10-13.

28 GS 22.

29 Col 1:15; cf. 2 Cor 4:4.

30 Cf. GS 22.

31 Isa 9:5.

32 Eph 2:16 J.B.; cf. Col 1:20-22.

33 Eph 2:14.

34 Mt 5:9.

35 Eph 5:19; Col 3:16.

36 Cf. Phil 2:6-11; Col 1:15-20; Eph 5:14; 1 Tim 3:16; 6:15-16; 2 Tim 2:11-13.

37 Cf. Eph 1:3-14; Rom 16:25-27; Eph 3:20-21; Jude 24-25.

APPLICATION

Philosophers, thinking men of all ages and races, who had not the blessing of revelation, have puzzled their brains searching for the meaning and purpose of man’s life on earth. It cannot be riches, for no man ever seems to have had enough, and there are not enough riches in the world to make even ten per cent of men moderately rich. It cannot be pleasure, for life on earth is too short to enjoy a fraction of the pleasures that would satisfy men. It isn’t power, for only a few can have it, and their hold on it is tenuous and too short-lived.

Through his divine revelation. God has given us the answer to the problem that baffled millions. We are not to look for man’s purpose in life here on this earth. We were created by God for a future life in which we would share in his eternal, everlasting happiness. In that life, and only in that, will all the rational desires and all the rational powers which man possesses be completely fulfilled.

This is the consoling truth, the foundation-stone of our Christian religion, that St. Paul puts before us for our consideration and our consolation today. He tells us God created us as intelligent beings, capable of seeing truth and beauty and of enjoying happiness. He did so with the image of his Incarnate Son before his mind. Through the assumption of our human nature by his divine Son, we would be made brothers and sisters of Christ, children of God, and heirs to his own eternal kingdom.

This was an act of sheer love of which only the infinite God could be capable. We shall need all eternity to get even a vague grasp of what such infinite love means, but in the meantime all we can and must do is to say “thank you God, for the infinite love you have shown us.” When the appointed time had come, the Son of God came on earth, took our human nature, went about telling people of God’s great love for them and what they should do to profit by this love. In all of this, although he was God, Christ hid his divinity under the veil of his humanity. He put up with insults, abuse, hard-heartedness, disbelief and, finally, permitted his enemies to crucify him. The world’s only benefactor died as a malefactor, hanging between two crucified thieves on Mount Calvary, beside Jerusalem.

But his enemies’ victory was short-lived. The Father raised him from the tomb, revealed the divinity that had been hidden, and gave him a glorified body fit for heaven. He was “the first-born of the dead.” This phrase means that Christ was the first of millions of human beings to be raised like him from the dead, given glorified bodies and transferred to heaven to enjoy an eternal happiness for which God created them. It is the one and only answer to the philosopher’s problem: “What is man’s purpose in life?”

Let us say a heartfelt “thank you” to God today. Let us also thank his divine Son, our beloved Christ, who planned and executed such an act of benevolence for our sakes, unworthy though we are of such love. Even the holiest amongst us are unworthy. We know where we are going and we have all the means necessary to get us there. It is no harm to remember that thinking pagans found the trivial things of life of no real value to man. As Christians, should we allow them to come between us and the eternal life in which our human nature will find its eternal fulfillment, as well as the one and only real explanation of its existence?

GOSPEL

Lk 10:25-37

There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test him and said,

“Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law?

How do you read it?”

He said in reply,

“You shall love the Lord, your God,

with all your heart,

with all your being,

with all your strength,

and with all your mind,

and your neighbor as yourself.”

He replied to him, “You have answered correctly;

do this and you will live.”

But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus,

“And who is my neighbor?”

Jesus replied,

“A man fell victim to robbers

as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.

They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead.

A priest happened to be going down that road,

but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.

Likewise a Levite came to the place,

and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.

But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him

was moved with compassion at the sight.

He approached the victim,

poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them.

Then he lifted him up on his own animal,

took him to an inn, and cared for him.

The next day he took out two silver coins

and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction,

‘Take care of him.

If you spend more than what I have given you,

I shall repay you on my way back.’

Which of these three, in your opinion,

was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?”

He answered, “The one who treated him with mercy.”

Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071016.cfm

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 1293 In treating the rite of Confirmation, it is fitting to consider the sign of anointing and what it signifies and imprints: a spiritual seal.

Anointing, in Biblical and other ancient symbolism, is rich in meaning: oil is a sign of abundance and joy;1 it cleanses (anointing before and after a bath) and limbers (the anointing of athletes and wrestlers); oil is a sign of healing, since it is soothing to bruises and wounds;2 and it makes radiant with beauty, health, and strength.

CCC 1825 Christ died out of love for us, while we were still “enemies.”3 The Lord asks us to love as he does, even our enemies, to make ourselves the neighbor of those farthest away, and to love children and the poor as Christ himself.4

The Apostle Paul has given an incomparable depiction of charity: “charity is patient and kind, charity is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Charity does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Charity bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”5

CCC 2083 Jesus summed up man’s duties toward God in this saying: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”6 This immediately echoes the solemn call: “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD.”7

God has loved us first. The love of the One God is recalled in the first of the “ten words.” The commandments then make explicit the response of love that man is called to give to his God.

CCC 2196 In response to the question about the first of the commandments, Jesus says: “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”8

The apostle St. Paul reminds us of this: “He who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,‘ and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”9

CCC 2822 Our Father “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”10 He “is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish.”11 His commandment is “that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”12 This commandment summarizes all the others and expresses his entire will.

1 Cf. Deut 11:14; Pss 23:5; 104:15.

2 Cf. Isa 1:6; Lk 1034.

3 Rom 5:10.

4 Cf. Mt 5:44; Lk 10:27-37; Mk 9:37; Mt 25:40, 45.

5 1 Cor 13:4-7.

6 Mt 22:37; cf. Lk 10:27:“… and with all your strength.”

7 Deut 6:4.

8 Mk 12:29-31; cf. Deut 6:4-5; Lev 19:18; Mt 22:34-40; Lk 10:25-28.

9 Rom 13:8-10.

10 1 Tim 2:3-4.

11 2 Pet 3:9; cf. Mt 18:14.

12 Jn 13:34; cf. 1 Jn 3; 4; Lk 10:25-37.

APPLICATION

Whether this lawyer acted in good or bad faith when he questioned our Lord, need not trouble us now. We can be thankful that his question brought forth this beautiful parable which has a lesson for us today as fresh as it had for all those who heard it from the lips of Jesus.

The roads of life, no matter where we live, have neighbors lying injured by the wayside. They are waiting and hoping that some fellow-man will come to give them a helping hand. We can shut our eyes or turn away, as the priest and levite did. No doubt, these two men had urgent business or they had troubles enough of their own. Perhaps they had helped a few other similar cases already that day. Our Lord does not seem to excuse them on any of these scores. Even the lawyer did not find any justifying excuse for them. They behaved badly. They showed that they had no interest in their neighbor when he was in need. They did not keep the command that God had given them through Moses.

Judged in the light of that parable, are my dealings with my neighbor such as would earn the praise or the condemnation of our Lord? Would he number me with the priest and levite, or with the Samaritan? If I give a helping hand to the neighbors whom I see in corporal or spiritual need, as often as I possibly can, he will number me among the good Samaritans. If, instead, I turn a blind eye and busy myself with my own affairs, I am classing myself with the condemned priest and levite.

I have excuses. We all have. They sound plausible to ourselves. We have more than enough to do to look after our own affairs, material and spiritual. So too had the priest and levite. We have had to go through similar hardships and nobody gave us a helping hand. Two wrongs don’t make a right. These people in corporal or spiritual need brought this on themselves. Let them get themselves out of their difficulties now. Why should I be expected to help? People who are so foolish and so thoughtless as to bring such difficulties on themselves are the very ones who need help, advice and encouragement. They need it from one who has not their particular weakness of character. I must do all I can to save them from their own folly.

Our excuses for not helping our neighbor, who is every man of any description without distinction of race, creed or color, may sound plausible to us now. But will we dare repeat them on the judgement day? When describing the judgement scene, our Lord told certain people that they were being excluded from heaven because they refused to help him when he was in need. They cried out in consternation: “Lord when did we see you hungry, thirsty, naked and did not come to your aid?” His answer was: “you saw my neighbor, my ‘little ones.’ my friends, in need and you did not help.”

Today, with so much social provision for the less fortunate in most countries, we are not called on so often to exercise the corporal works of mercy. Never before, however, was there more need for sincere Christians to carry out the spiritual works of mercy. We are living in a world which is growing daily further and further away from God. We find people in every walk of life whose one purpose is to get all they can out of their few short years here on earth. They completely ignore or forget that their real purpose in life is to get to heaven.

Of course, we cannot go out and preach the truths of faith to these people on every street corner. Even if we did they would not listen to us. There are many other more effective ways of getting a neighbor to see his mistakes, if we but take the trouble. Start by taking an interest in your neighbor, in his work, his family, his recreations. Show by your way of living and by your outlook on life that God is never far from your thoughts. Show that your concern is more with the future life than with the present one. The neighbor will bring up the question of religion, not you. When he does, be ready to give him a simple explanation of what makes you live and act as you do. You will not win him over immediately. You may not win him over at all. But you will have sown a seed which will blossom forth somewhere, some day.

Where there is true love of God, there will be true love of neighbor. There must be. That love will find a way into the heart of the neighbor. Resolve, today, to be a Good Samaritan, especially towards those who are injured spiritually and who will not reach heaven unless you give them a helping hand. Never forget that it is the Lord who is with you doing nine-tenths of the work, while you strive to help a neighbor spiritually or physically. What you did to your neighbor, to “one of his little ones,” you did to him, and he will not forget it when your hour of judgement comes.

Applications written by Fr. Kevin O’Sullivan O.F.M. and used with permission of Franciscan Press.

BENEDICTUS

How Love is Possible

Love of neighbor is thus shown to be possible in the way proclaimed by the Bible, by Jesus. It consists in the very fact that, in God and with God, I love even the person whom I do not like or know. This can only take place on the basis of an estimate encounter with God, an encounter which has become a communion of will, even affecting my feelings. Then I learn to look on this other person not simply with my eyes and my feelings, but from the perspective of Jesus Christ. His friend is my friend. Going beyond exterior appearances, I perceive in others an interior desire for a sign of love, of concern. This I can offer them not only through the organizations intended for such purposes, accepting it perhaps as a political necessity. Seeing with the eyes of Christ, I can give to others much more than their outward necessities: I can give them the look of love which they crave… If I have no contact whatsoever with God in my life, then I cannot see in the other anything more than the other, and I am incapable of seeing in him the image of God. But if in my life I fail completely to heed others, solely out of a desire to be “devout” and to perform my “religious duties,” then my relationship with God will also grow arid. It becomes merely “proper,” but loveless. Only my readiness to encounter my neighbor and to show him love makes me sensitive to God as well. Only if I serve my neighbor can my eyes be opened to what God does for me and how much he loves me.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

CLOSING PRAYER

Act of Love

O God, all that I am and all that I have is from you. You have given me my gifts of body and soul. You have numbered me among your favored children. You have showered me with countless graces and blessings. From all eternity you have thought of me and loved me. How shall I ever love you in return?

And now in your merciful goodness you are coming into my soul to unit yourself most intimately with me. You came into the world for love of man, but now you are coming from the altar for love of me. You are coming to fill me heart with your holy love, my Creator, my Redeemer, my Sanctifier, my God.

O Jesus, I want to return this love. I want to love you with all the powers of my soul. I want to belong only to you, to consecrate myself to you alone. Jesus, let me live for you; let me die for you. Living and dying may I be yours.

http://www.catholic.org/prayers/prayer.php?p=433

“No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.”

 

OPENING PRAYER

Psalm 19 (18), 8-14

The law of God source of formation

The precepts of the Lord are right,

rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure,

enlightening the eyes;

the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever;

the ordinances of the Lord are true,

and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold,

even much fine gold;

sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.

Moreover by them is thy servant warned;

in keeping them there is great reward.

But who can discern his errors?

Clear thou me from hidden faults.

Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins;

let them not have dominion over me!

Then I shall be blameless,

and innocent of great transgression.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord,

my rock and my redeemer.

COLLECT

O God, who through the grace of adoption

chose us to be children of light,

grant, we pray,

that we may not be wrapped in the darkness of error

but always be seen to stand in the bright light of truth.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity

of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

 

READING I

1 Kgs 19:16b, 19-21

The LORD said to Elijah:

“You shall anoint Elisha, son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah,

as prophet to succeed you.”

Elijah set out and came upon Elisha, son of Shaphat,

as he was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen;

he was following the twelfth.

Elijah went over to him and threw his cloak over him.

Elisha left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said,

“Please, let me kiss my father and mother goodbye,

and I will follow you.”

Elijah answered, “Go back!

Have I done anything to you?”

Elisha left him, and taking the yoke of oxen, slaughtered them;

he used the plowing equipment for fuel to boil their flesh,

and gave it to his people to eat.

Then Elisha left and followed Elijah as his attendant.

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 436 The word “Christ” comes from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Messiah, which means “anointed”. It became the name proper to Jesus only because he accomplished perfectly the divine mission that “Christ” signifies. In effect, in Israel those consecrated to God for a mission that he gave were anointed in his name. This was the case for kings, for priests and, in rare instances, for prophets.1 This had to be the case all the more so for the Messiah whom God would send to inaugurate his kingdom definitively.2 It was necessary that the Messiah be anointed by the Spirit of the Lord at once as king and priest, and also as prophet.3 Jesus fulfilled the messianic hope of Israel in his threefold office of priest, prophet and king.

1 Cf. Ex 29:7; Lev 8:12; 1 Sam 9:16; 10:1; 16:1, 12-13; I Kings 1:39; 19:16.

2 Cf. Ps 2:2; Acts 4:26-27.

3 Cf. Is 11:2; 61:1; Zech 4:14; 6:13; Lk 4:16-21.

APPLICATION

God’s ways are indeed mysterious to us. Elijah, whom he had sent to Israel (the breakaway northern kingdom) did heroic work there to preserve the knowledge of the true God. It was a period when pagan infiltration was at its strongest under King Achab and his wicked wife, Queen Jezebel, a pagan from Tyre. God called a successor for Elijah, who carried on his great work and it is due to these two men of God that the ordinary people of Israel preserved, more or less, the true faith. This was so, notwithstanding the efforts of their rulers during the ninth century B.C. to introduce paganism.

Why does God allow evil in the world he created? Why does he create men whom he knew would spread their evil influence? Through their example and their power, which they so often succeed in acquiring, they make the eternal salvation of thousands, even of millions of their fellowman, most difficult, if not impossible.

This is a question which has troubled the minds of many down through the ages. It would be so easy for God not to create men whom he knows will lead evil lives and cause so many others to follow them in their evil ways. Would not our religious life today, and our faithful service of God, be so much easier and better if there were not so many practical (and to a less harmful degree, theoretical) atheists amongst us, and so many promoters of sin and its occasions?

Yet, any sane, sound-thinking man will have to admit that surely the all-intelligent God knows what is best for his world. Man has intelligence and free will, the gifts of God which raise him above all other earthly creatures. Yet he is liable to abuse these gifts and offend his Creator. The animals do not sin, because they lack these gifts. Neither can they know God, nor have they the possibility of enjoying an eternal heaven in his company. If God denied us intelligence and free will — the only way of preventing sin — then we, like the animals, could never earn or enjoy heaven.

Furthermore, would our religious life, our respect for God and for his laws be really better and more sincere, if we had no opposition? The example of countries and peoples who suffered persecutions from the opponents of the faith in the past (and this is true of parts of our world still today) would seem to prove the opposite. The early Church spread rapidly through the Roman Empire, not only in spite of violent persecutions, but because of them. “The blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians.”

Today we live in a world which seems in theory and in practice to be moving more and more away from God. Unfortunately, as always, some of the leaders of this secularism and this disrespect for and negation of God’s rights and claims, are or were men in positions of authority. This makes the scandal and the evil infection all the more widespread. However, we still trust in the all-wise God who knows all the thoughts and the doings of men–he has his purpose in allowing this state of affairs to exist in his Church and in the world. We shall understand it in the next life. During our years here below let us do our own part, and then we can safely leave the rest to God.

Elijah and Elisha, and the thousands of others which their active apostolate influenced, might never have been saints in heaven today, if God had not permitted paganism to be introduced into Israel by its sinful rulers. Our modern semi-paganism, too, will produce more active love for and service of God amongst the faithful and make saints of many who might otherwise have led a lukewarm, half-hearted Christian life.

God preserved the Chosen People of the Old Testament in spite of the apostasy and wickedness of many of them, until the time was right to send his Son amongst us. He will preserve his Church, the kingdom of his Son, Christ, notwithstanding the apostasy and opposition of so many he wished to save, until the last of the human race has left this earth. Let us do our part not only for our own salvation, but also for the salvation of those very ones who are opposing God and his Church. We can safely leave the outcome to God. It is in his all-wise, all-powerful hands.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Ps 16:1-2, 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11

You are my inheritance, O Lord.

Keep me, O God, for in you I take refuge;

I say to the LORD, “My Lord are you.

O LORD, my allotted portion and my cup,

you it is who hold fast my lot.”

You are my inheritance, O Lord.

I bless the LORD who counsels me;

even in the night my heart exhorts me.

I set the LORD ever before me;

with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed.

You are my inheritance, O Lord.

Therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices,

my body, too, abides in confidence

because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld,

nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption.

You are my inheritance, O Lord.

You will show me the path to life,

fullness of joys in your presence,

the delights at your right hand forever.

You are my inheritance, O Lord.

 

READING II

Gal 5:1, 13-18

Brothers and sisters:

For freedom Christ set us free;

so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.

For you were called for freedom, brothers and sisters.

But do not use this freedom

as an opportunity for the flesh;

rather, serve one another through love.

For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement,

namely, .

But if you go on biting and devouring one another,

beware that you are not consumed by one another.

I say, then: live by the Spirit

and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh.

For the flesh has desires against the Spirit,

and the Spirit against the flesh;

these are opposed to each other,

so that you may not do what you want.

But if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 1454 The reception of this sacrament ought to be prepared for by an examination of conscience made in the light of the Word of God. The passages best suited to this can be found in the Ten Commandments, the moral catechesis of the Gospels and the apostolic letters, such as the Sermon on the Mount and the apostolic teachings.1

CCC 1741 Liberation and salvation. By his glorious Cross Christ has won salvation for all men. He redeemed them from the sin that held them in bondage. “For freedom Christ has set us free.”2 In him we have communion with the “truth that makes us free.”3 The Holy Spirit has been given to us and, as the Apostle teaches, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”4 Already we glory in the “liberty of the children of God.”5

CCC 2515 Etymologically, “concupiscence” can refer to any intense form of human desire. Christian theology has given it a particular meaning: the movement of the sensitive appetite contrary to the operation of the human reason. The apostle St. Paul identifies it with the rebellion of the “flesh” against the “spirit.”6 Concupiscence stems from the disobedience of the first sin. It unsettles man’s moral faculties and, without being in itself an offense, inclines man to commit sins.7

CCC 2744 Prayer is a vital necessity. Proof from the contrary is no less convincing: if we do not allow the Spirit to lead us, we fall back into the slavery of sin.8 How can the Holy Spirit be our life if our heart is far from him?

Nothing is equal to prayer; for what is impossible it makes possible, what is difficult, easy. .. For it is impossible, utterly impossible, for the man who prays eagerly and invokes God ceaselessly ever to sin.9

Those who pray are certainly saved; those who do not pray are certainly damned.10

CCC 2819 “The kingdom of God [is] righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”11 The end-time in which we live is the age of the outpouring of the Spirit. Ever since Pentecost, a decisive battle has been joined between “the flesh” and the Spirit.12

Only a pure soul can boldly say: “Thy kingdom come.” One who has heard Paul say, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies,” and has purified himself in action, thought and word will say to God: “Thy kingdom come!”13

1 Cf. Mt 5-7; Rom 12-15; 1 Cor 12-13; Gal 5; Eph 4-6; etc.

2 Gal 5:1.

3 Cf. In 8:32.

4 2 Cor 17.

5 Rom 8:21.

6 Cf. Gal 5:16, 17, 24; Eph 2:3.

7 Cf. Gen 3:11; Council of Trent: DS 1515.

8 Cf. Gal 5:16-25.

9 St. John Chrysostom, De Anna 4, 5: PG 54, 666.

10 St. Alphonsus Liguori, Del gran Mezzo della preghiera.

11 Rom 14:17.

12 Cf. Gal 5:16-25.

13 St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. myst. 5, 13: PG 33, 1120A; cf. Rom 6:12.

APPLICATION

We are no longer troubled by Judaizers or by anyone trying to force us to keep the practices of the Mosaic law. This trouble lasted for only one generation in the early Church. We are, however, surrounded on all sides today by the other seduction against which St. Paul warns us–the call to give “free rein to the flesh.”

Freedom from all authority, freedom to do as we will with our lives, freedom from any restraint, divine or human, is the new gospel of the permissive society. But in fact it is not new. It is the old paganism of the pre-Christian era in an even more pernicious form. The old pagans had respect for their gods. They had respect for their social laws and for social authority. The new pagans have no gods but themselves. There are no social laws or no authority, which they respect. They are the supreme arbiters of all their actions; they are responsible to nobody or to no power but to their own selves.

This insidious doctrine has not come from the peoples of Africa and Asia who have not yet heard the Christian message. It comes from countries that once were Christian but which gradually lost the sense of Christianity and the true meaning of its good news. There are millions of men and women today who are ignorant of, or else ignore, their true purpose in life. The only meaning they evidently find for being a few short years on this earth is to get all the pleasure, power and plenty they can out of it. That pleasure, power and plenty, however, is very restricted and limited. Their philosophy, if it could possibly be called that, must of necessity lead once more to the law of the jungle, the survival of the fittest, until in a short while one more strong than themselves comes along.

A permissive society is not a society in any sense of the word. A society means a group of people living in harmony, working together for the common good of each and all its members. Rules must be drawn up and obeyed. Leaders with the right to interpret these rules and to command their execution must be in command. Each individual’s person and, rights must be respected and protected, regardless of age or position. While democracy and freedom of speech for each member is to be commended, the obligation on each member of the society to think seriously and cogitate carefully on all the implications of all decisions to be taken is all the greater.

This true form of democracy, and freedom to express considered and carefully weighed opinions, is not the norm that governs the agitators for the permissive society. They want freedom for themselves only. They do not care if others have to suffer as long as they get their own freedom to do what they will. Hence their advocacy of pre-marital sex relations, facile divorce, abortion and euthanasia, among other crimes, against human society. The unborn, the weak, the old, are hindrances to their pleasure and plenty, and so must be eliminated!

Needless to say, St. Paul, when warning his converts to keep the animal-man in check, could not foresee such incredible abuses of human reasoning, and such a depth of selfishness even in animal-man. He is reminding us Christians that we must be an example to our fellowman in the society in which we live, and that example must be shown especially in our real love for our fellowman. We must be ready to help our neighbor in his need, not only when doing so is not too inconvenient, but even when it puts us to grave inconvenience. We must do for him what we would wish to be done to ourselves. We would all surely be convinced that the greatest help a neighbor could give us would be to put us back on the right road to eternal life if we had strayed from the path.

Many of our neighbors today are in dire need of help to find their true bearings on the sea of this life. We can and must help them by prayer, and ask God to give them light and direction. We can sometimes get in a quiet word of advice at the opportune moment. We can and we must openly express our total rejection of any and every suggested legislation proposed and sponsored by the permissive groups denying the right of the weaker members. Such legislation would be destructive of all rational human society. Rationality will prevail. God still rules his world.

GOSPEL

Lk 9:51-62

When the days for Jesus’ being taken up were fulfilled,

he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem,

and he sent messengers ahead of him.

On the way they entered a Samaritan village

to prepare for his reception there,

but they would not welcome him

because the destination of his journey was Jerusalem.

When the disciples James and John saw this they asked,

“Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven

to consume them?”

Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they journeyed to another village.

As they were proceeding on their journey someone said to him,

“I will follow you wherever you go.”

Jesus answered him,

“Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests,

but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.”

And to another he said, “Follow me.”

But he replied, “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.”

But he answered him, “Let the dead bury their dead.

But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

And another said, “I will follow you, Lord,

but first let me say farewell to my family at home.”

To him Jesus said, “No one who sets a hand to the plow

and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.”

http://usccb.org/bible/readings/062616.cfm

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 544 The kingdom belongs to the poor and lowly, which means those who have accepted it with humble hearts. Jesus is sent to “preach good news to the poor”;1 he declares them blessed, for “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”2 To them – the “little ones” the Father is pleased to reveal what remains hidden from the wise and the learned.3 Jesus shares the life of the poor, from the cradle to the cross; he experiences hunger, thirst and privation.4 Jesus identifies himself with the poor of every kind and makes active love toward them the condition for entering his kingdom.5

1 Lk 4:18; cf. 7:22.

2 Mt 5:3.

3 Cf. Mt 11:25.

4 Cf. Mt 21:18; Mk 2:23-26; Jn 4:6 1; 19:28; Lk 9:58.

5 Cf. Mt 25:31-46.

APPLICATION

Among the various incidents gathered together by Luke in these verses of his gospel we have read today, perhaps the lesson that should strike all of us most is his insistence on total dedication on the part of his true followers to his service. We cannot be for Christ and against him at the same time. “He who gathers not with me, scatters,” he himself said. We are followers of Christ since our baptism. In theory this is the fact, but in practice how real is this fact for many of us? Are we really following Christ during the twenty-four hours of every day of our lives? Are our eyes always fixed on the true future which awaits us? Are we prepared to plow a straight furrow no matter what snags or obstacles may be on our way? How few of us can answer “yes, we are,” to these straight questions?

We have, of course, explanations ready at hand for our forgetfulness, our laxity, our earthly entanglements. We are tied down by family and a hundred other earthly cares. Our days, our weeks, our year are so fully occupied that we find it hard to spare even a short hour on Sundays to give to God. This answer shows a misunderstanding of what Christ demands of us. He knows his followers must live for a few years in this world and must, for the most part, struggle to earn a living for themselves during that period. But it is by living this earthly life properly, by being loyal to spouse and family, by earning one’s living honestly, by living not only peacefully but helpfully with one’s neighbors, that we are living our Christian life.

The man who keeps within the limits that Christian law lays down for him, while working his way through this life, is a true follower of Christ and is on the road to heaven, plowing a straight furrow. He may not have much time for prayer, and each morning he may rush off to work. But God understands half-sentences and even single words. At night he needs recreation and relaxation, and God does not expect long prayers from him–if he has worked honestly and has given the example of true Christianity to his fellow-workers, he has honored God all day. He has prayed well. A few words of thanks to God, a request for pardon for all the mistakes made since morning, before lying down to sleep at night, will give such a man nothing to fear should God call him to judgment during the night hours.

If we only realized how reasonable God’s demands are, and how every demand he makes on us is for our own benefit and not his, we would be a little more generous in our response to his calls. He does not need us–we need him. We could slip in a few more short prayers during the day; we could find more time to take a true interest in the eternal and less in the temporal. We could manage to give a helping hand and a word of encouragement to a needy neighbor. Yes, all of us could do a lot more to show to Christ and to the world that we are following him gladly and honestly. We are not looking back while plowing our Christian furrow.

Applications written by Fr. Kevin O’Sullivan O.F.M. and used with permission of Franciscan Press.

BENEDICTUS

The Destiny of Those Who were Called

The destiny of those who were “called” would henceforth be closely bound to that of Jesus. An apostle is one who is sent, but even before that he is an “expert” on Jesus. This very aspect is highlighted by the Evangelist John from Jesus’ very first encounter with the future apostles… The meeting takes place on the banks of the Jordan. The presence of the future disciples, who, like Jesus, also came from Galilee to receive the baptism administered by John, sheds light on their spiritual world. They were men who were waiting for the kingdom of God, anxious to know the Messiah whose coming had been proclaimed as imminent. It was enough for John the Baptist to point out Jesus to them as the Lamb of God, to inspire in them the desire for a personal encounter with the Teacher. The lines of Jesus’ conversation with the first two future Apostles are most expressive. To his question “What do you seek?”, they replied with another question: “Rabbi, where are you staying?” Jesus answer was an invitation: “Come and see.” Come, so that you will be able to see. The Apostles’ adventure began as an encounter of people who are open to one another. For the disciples, it was the beginning of a direct acquaintance with the Teacher, seeing where he was staying and starting to get to know him. Indeed, they were not to proclaim an idea, but to witness to a person. Before being sent out to preach, they had to “be” with Jesus, establishing a personal relationship with him. On this basis, evangelization was to be no more than the proclamation of what they felt and an invitation to enter into the mystery of communion with Christ.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

CLOSING PRAYER

The Prayer At The Foot Of The Cross

In the name of the Father,

and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit.

I will go to the altar of God.

To God who gives joy to my youth.

Judge me, O God,

and take up my cause against the nation that is not holy.

Free me from the unjust and deceitful man.

For You, O God, are my strength,

why have You cast me off?

And why do I walk in sorrow,

while the enemy troubles me?

Send forth Your light and Your truth,

they have led me,

and brought me to Your holy hill,

and to Your dwelling.

I will go to the altar of God,

to God who gives joy to my youth.

To You, O God, my God,

I will give praise upon the harp,

why are you sad, O my soul?

And why do you trouble me?

Hope in God, for I will still praise Him,

the salvation of my countenance and my God.

Glory be to the Father,

and to the Son,

and to the Holy Spirit.

As it was in the beginning,

is now and ever shall be,

world without end.

Amen.

He said to them, “Give them some food yourselves.”

OPENING PRAYER

O God, send forth your Holy Spirit into my heart that I may perceive, into my mind that I may remember, and into my soul that I may meditate. Inspire me to speak with piety, holiness, tenderness and mercy. Teach, guide and direct my thoughts and senses from beginning to end. May your grace ever help and correct me, and may I be strengthened now with wisdom from on high, for the sake of your infinite mercy. Amen.

Saint Anthony of Padua

COLLECT

O God, who in this wonderful Sacrament

have left us a memorial of your Passion,

grant us, we pray,

so to revere the sacred mysteries of your Body and Blood

that we may always experience in ourselves

the fruits of your redemption.

Who live and reign with God the Father

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

READING I 

Gn 14:18-20

In those days, Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine,

and being a priest of God Most High,

he blessed Abram with these words:

“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,

the creator of heaven and earth;

and blessed be God Most High,

who delivered your foes into your hand.”

Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 58 The covenant with Noah remains in force during the times of the Gentiles, until the universal proclamation of the Gospel.1 The Bible venerates several great figures among the Gentiles: Abel the just, the king-priest Melchizedek – a figure of Christ – and the upright “Noah, Daniel, and Job”.2 Scripture thus expresses the heights of sanctity that can be reached by those who live according to the covenant of Noah, waiting for Christ to “gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad”.3

CCC 343 Man is the summit of the Creator’s work, as the inspired account expresses by clearly distinguishing the creation of man from that of the other creatures.4

CCC 1333 At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ’s Body and Blood. Faithful to the Lord’s command the Church continues to do, in his memory and until his glorious return, what he did on the eve of his Passion: “He took bread. ..” “He took the cup filled with wine. ..” The signs of bread and wine become, in a way surpassing understanding, the Body and Blood of Christ; they continue also to signify the goodness of creation. Thus in the Offertory we give thanks to the Creator for bread and wine,5 fruit of the “work of human hands,” but above all as “fruit of the earth” and “of the vine” – gifts of the Creator. The Church sees in the gesture of the king-priest Melchizedek, who “brought out bread and wine,” a prefiguring of her own offering.6

CCC 1544 Everything that the priesthood of the Old Covenant prefigured finds its fulfillment in Christ Jesus, the “one mediator between God and men.”7 The Christian tradition considers Melchizedek, “priest of God Most High,” as a prefiguration of the priesthood of Christ, the unique “high priest after the order of Melchizedek”;8 “holy, blameless, unstained,”9 “by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified,”10 that is, by the unique sacrifice of the cross.

1 Cf. Gen 9:16; Lk 21:24; DV 3.

2 Cf. Gen 14:18; Heb 7:3; Ezek 14:14.

3 Jn 11:52.

4 Cf. Gen 1-26.

5 Cf. Ps 104:13-15.

6 Gen 14:18; cf. Roman Missal, EP I (Roman Canon) 95.

7 2 Tim 2:5.

8 Heb 5:10; cf. 6:20; Gen 14:18.

9 Heb 7:26.

10 Heb 10:14.

APPLICATION

Because Psalm 110 saw in Melchizedek a figure or type of the future Messiah: “You are a priest of the order of Melchizedek and forever” and “royal dignity was yours from the day you were born” (Ps. 110: 4; 3), the New Testament (Hebrews 7), and the Fathers read a messianic meaning into this meeting of Abraham with Melchizedek. Clement of Alexandria saw in the bread and wine offered by Melchizedek a figure of the Eucharist. He was followed by others and eventually this offering by Melchizedek found a place in the Canon of the Mass.

That Melchizedek was a king and a priest, and that he offered bread in some form of sacrifice, makes him worthy of mention in the Canon and in today’s feastday. Christ was King and Priest and he offered himself, and continues to offer himself daily, as a true sacrifice to God the Father on our behalf, under the, form of bread and wine in the blessed Eucharist–the holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

That Christ who was the Son of God in human nature could do this we cannot doubt. He who, during the years of his life on earth, hid his divinity, “emptied himself of it,” as St. Paul says, can hide his divinity and humanity under the form of food, bread and wine, is less surprising and certainly not impossible for one who is God. The fact that he did so is clearly established. In St. John’s Gospel, we are told of his promise to do so (Jn. 6). In the Synoptics and in St. Paul, the occasion (the Last Supper) and the words he used, as well as his command to his disciples to continue doing this, are given us. The Acts of the Apostles and the practice of the Church from its very beginning show that the Apostles understood what he had done, and what they were commanded to do. He did what he commanded them. The mystery of the Blessed Eucharist, that is, that Christ is present, for our spiritual nourishment, in the bread and wine after the consecration in the Mass, is not whether it could be done, but rather why the infinite love and thoughtfulness of the Son of God for us led him to do so.

But though our small minds cannot understand divine love, they can do something to show their gratitude for this proof of God’s love. Christ wished to remain with his Church until the last human being leaves this earth. He wished to remain under a form which would help us on our way. To live his earthly life man needs food. He also needs spiritual food which Christ has provided in the Eucharist.

Not only is Christ in his divinity and humanity present in us every time we receive the Blessed Eucharist, but he deigns to remain under the sacramental species in our churches to welcome us and to encourage us in our daily struggles, when we call to visit him. Surely, if the Chosen People of the Old Testament could exclaim: “What great nation has its gods so close to it, as the Lord our God is to us” (Dt. 4: 7), with how much more conviction and certitude can we not say this? He comes personally to each one of us when we receive him in Holy Communion. He remains personally in all our churches throughout the world in order to help us on the road to heaven.

Today, the feastday of Corpus Christi, Christ in the Blessed Eucharist reminds us again of all that God has done and is still doing for us. What am I doing for him in return? I could visit him more often as a sign of my appreciation. I could receive him more often with greater love and fervor. I know I am not worthy of this supreme honor, but if he says the word, “I shall be healed.” I shall be made worthy.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Ps 110:1, 2, 3, 4

You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.

The LORD said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand

till I make your enemies your footstool.”

You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.

The scepter of your power the LORD will stretch forth from Zion:

“Rule in the midst of your enemies.”

You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.

“Yours is princely power in the day of your birth, in holy splendor;

before the daystar, like the dew, I have begotten you.”

You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.

The LORD has sworn, and he will not repent:

“You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.”

You are a priest for ever, in the line of Melchizedek.

READING II

1 Cor 11:23-26

Brothers and sisters:

In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying,

“This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,

you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 610 Jesus gave the supreme expression of his free offering of himself at the meal shared with the twelve Apostles “on the night he was betrayed”.1 On the eve of his Passion, while still free, Jesus transformed this Last Supper with the apostles into the memorial of his voluntary offering to the Father for the salvation of men: “This is my body which is given for you.” “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”2

CCC 611 The Eucharist that Christ institutes at that moment will be the memorial of his sacrifice.3 Jesus includes the apostles in his own offering and bids them perpetuate it.4 By doing so, the Lord institutes his apostles as priests of the New Covenant: “For their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.”5

CCC 671 Though already present in his Church, Christ’s reign is nevertheless yet to be fulfilled “with power and great glory” by the King’s return to earth.6 This reign is still under attack by the evil powers, even though they have been defeated definitively by Christ’s Passover.7 Until everything is subject to him, “until there be realized new heavens and a new earth in which justice dwells, the pilgrim Church, in her sacraments and institutions, which belong to this present age, carries the mark of this world which will pass, and she herself takes her place among the creatures which groan and travail yet and await the revelation of the sons of God.”8 That is why Christians pray, above all in the Eucharist, to hasten Christ’s return by saying to him:9 Marana tha! “Our Lord, come!”10

CCC 781 “At all times and in every race, anyone who fears God and does what is right has been acceptable to him. He has, however, willed to make men holy and save them, not as individuals without any bond or link between them, but rather to make them into a people who might acknowledge him and serve him in holiness. He therefore chose the Israelite race to be his own people and established a covenant with it. He gradually instructed this people. .. All these things, however, happened as a preparation for and figure of that new and perfect covenant which was to be ratified in Christ. .. the New Covenant in his blood; he called together a race made up of Jews and Gentiles which would be one, not according to the flesh, but in the Spirit.”11

CCC 1076 The Church was made manifest to the world on the day of Pentecost by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.12 The gift of the Spirit ushers in a new era in the “dispensation of the mystery” the age of the Church, during which Christ manifests, makes present, and communicates his work of salvation through the liturgy of his Church, “until he comes.”13 In this age of the Church Christ now lives and acts in and with his Church, in a new way appropriate to this new age. He acts through the sacraments in what the common Tradition of the East and the West calls “the sacramental economy”; this is the communication (or “dispensation”) of the fruits of Christ’s Paschal mystery in the celebration of the Church’s “sacramental” liturgy.

It is therefore important first to explain this “sacramental dispensation” (chapter one). The nature and essential features of liturgical celebration will then appear more clearly (chapter two).

CCC 1130 The Church celebrates the mystery of her Lord “until he comes,” when God will be “everything to everyone.”14 Since the apostolic age the liturgy has been drawn toward its goal by the Spirit’s groaning in the Church: Marana tha!15 The liturgy thus shares in Jesus’ desire: “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you. .. until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”16 In the sacraments of Christ the Church already receives the guarantee of her inheritance and even now shares in everlasting life, while “awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus.”17 The “Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come. .. Come, Lord Jesus!”’18

St. Thomas sums up the various aspects of sacramental signs: “Therefore a sacrament is a sign that commemorates what precedes it- Christ’s Passion; demonstrates what is accomplished in us through Christ’s Passion – grace; and prefigures what that Passion pledges to us – future glory.”19

CCC 1328 The inexhaustible richness of this sacrament is expressed in the different names we give it. Each name evokes certain aspects of it. It is called:

Eucharist, because it is an action of thanksgiving to God. The Greek words eucharistein20 and eulogein21 recall the Jewish blessings that proclaim – especially during a meal – God’s works: creation, redemption, and sanctification.

CCC 1329 The Lord’s Supper, because of its connection with the supper which the Lord took with his disciples on the eve of his Passion and because it anticipates the wedding feast of the Lamb in the heavenly Jerusalem.22

The Breaking of Bread, because Jesus used this rite, part of a Jewish meat when as master of the table he blessed and distributed the bread,23 above all at the Last Supper.24 It is by this action that his disciples will recognize him after his Resurrection,25 and it is this expression that the first Christians will use to designate their Eucharistic assemblies;26 by doing so they signified that all who eat the one broken bread, Christ, enter into communion with him and form but one body in him.27

The Eucharistic assembly (synaxis), because the Eucharist is celebrated amid the assembly of the faithful, the visible expression of the Church.28

CCC 1339 Jesus chose the time of Passover to fulfill what he had announced at Capernaum: giving his disciples his Body and his Blood:

Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the passover meal for us, that we may eat it. ..” They went. .. and prepared the passover. And when the hour came, he sat at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer; for I tell you I shall not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”… And he took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after supper, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood.”29

CCC 1344 Thus from celebration to celebration, as they proclaim the Paschal mystery of Jesus “until he comes,” the pilgrim People of God advances, “following the narrow way of the cross,”30 toward the heavenly banquet, when all the elect will be seated at the table of the kingdom.

CCC 1356 If from the beginning Christians have celebrated the Eucharist and in a form whose substance has not changed despite the great diversity of times and liturgies, it is because we know ourselves to be bound by the command the Lord gave on the eve of his Passion: “Do this in remembrance of me.”31

CCC 1366 The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit:

[Christ], our Lord and God, was once and for all to offer himself to God the Father by his death on the altar of the cross, to accomplish there an everlasting redemption. But because his priesthood was not to end with his death, at the Last Supper “on the night when he was betrayed,” [he wanted] to leave to his beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice (as the nature of man demands) by which the bloody sacrifice which he was to accomplish once for all on the cross would be re-presented, its memory perpetuated until the end of the world, and its salutary power be applied to the forgiveness of the sins we daily commit.32

CCC 1376 The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: “Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.”33

CCC 1393 Holy Communion separates us from sin. The body of Christ we receive in Holy Communion is “given up for us,” and the blood we drink “shed for the many for the forgiveness of sins.” For this reason the Eucharist cannot unite us to Christ without at the same time cleansing us from past sins and preserving us from future sins:

For as often as we eat this bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the death of the Lord. If we proclaim the Lord’s death, we proclaim the forgiveness of sins. If, as often as his blood is poured out, it is poured for the forgiveness of sins, I should always receive it, so that it may always forgive my sins. Because I always sin, I should always have a remedy.34

CCC 1566 “It is in the Eucharistic cult or in the Eucharistic assembly of the faithful (synaxis) that they exercise in a supreme degree their sacred office; there, acting in the person of Christ and proclaiming his mystery, they unite the votive offerings of the faithful to the sacrifice of Christ their head, and in the sacrifice of the Mass they make present again and apply, until the coming of the Lord, the unique sacrifice of the New Testament, that namely of Christ offering himself once for all a spotless victim to the Father.”35 From this unique sacrifice their whole priestly ministry draws its strength.36

CCC 2772 From this unshakeable faith springs forth the hope that sustains each of the seven petitions, which express the groanings of the present age, this time of patience and expectation during which “it does not yet appear what we shall be.”37 The Eucharist and the Lord’s Prayer look eagerly for the Lord’s return, “until he comes.”38

1 Roman Missal, EP III; cf. Mt 26:20; I Cor 11:23.

2 Lk 22:19; Mt 26:28; cf. I Cor 5:7.

3 1 Cor 11:25.

4 Cf. Lk 22:19.

5 Jn 17:19; cf. Council of Trent: DS 1752; 1764.

6 Lk 21:27; cf. Mt 25:31.

7 Cf. 2 Th 2:7.

8 LG 48 # 3; cf. 2 Pt 3:13; Rom 8:19-22; I Cor 15:28.

9 Cf. I Cor 11:26; 2 Pt 3:11-12.

10 1 Cor 16:22; Rev 22:17,20.

11 LG 9; Cf. Acts 10:35; 1 Cor 11:25.

12 Cf. SC 6; LG 2.

13 1 Cor 11:26.

14 1 Cor 11:26; 15:28.

15 1 Cor 16:22.

16 Lk 22:15.

17 Titus 2:13.

18 Rev 22:17, 20.

19 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 60, 3.

20 Cf. Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24.

21 Cf. Mt 26:26; Mk 14:22.

22 Cf. 1 Cor 11:20; Rev 19:9.

23 Cf. Mt 14:19; 15:36; Mk 8:6, 19.

24 Cf. Mt 26:26; 1 Cor 11:24.

25 Cf. Lk 24:13-35.

26 Cf. Acts 2:42, 46; 20:7, 11.

27 Cf. 1 Cor 10:16-17.

28 Cf. 1 Cor 11:17-34.

29 Lk 22:7-20; Cf. Mt 26:17-29; Mk 14:12-25; 1 Cor 11:23-26.

30 AG 1; cf. 1 Cor 11:26.

31 1 Cor 11:24-25.

32 Council of Trent (1562): DS 1740; cf. 1 Cor 11:23; Heb 7:24, 27.

33 Council of Trent (1551): DS 1642; cf. Mt 26:26 ff.; Mk 14:22 ff.; Lk 22:19 ff.; 1 Cor 11:24 ff.

34 St. Ambrose, De Sacr. 4, 6, 28: PL 16, 446; cf. 1 Cor 11:26.

35 LG 28; cf. 1 Cor 11:26.

36 Cf. PO 2.

37 1 Jn 3:2; Cf. Col 3:4.

38 1 Cor 11:26.

APPLICATION

These words of St. Paul to the Corinthians, written in 57 A.D., can leave no doubt in our minds as to the belief of the great Apostle and that of his converts in the reality of the gift of himself which Our Lord gave to us in that central sacrament of our Christian faith, the Blessed Eucharist, or the Body of Christ, as today’s feast calls it. The meeting for “the breaking of bread,” that is, the celebration of the Eucharist, was the chief act of divine worship performed by the Christians. It was also the bond of love which kept them united from the very first days of the Church.

They knew that in the consecration of the bread and wine, the Mass as it was later called, they were repeating, in an unbloody but real manner, the salvific action of Christ in his death and Resurrection. He returned to heaven in his glorified humanity to take his place as the God-man at the right hand of the Father. But in his love for us, he found a way in which he could still remain with us, and re-offer the sacrifice of the cross through us and for us.

As an essential part in all the sacrifices of the Old Testament (and in pagan religions too) the priests and the laity offering the sacrifice ate part of the sacrifice offered. It was a sign of their union with God and with one another. Thus Christ gave us the re-offering of himself, “his body and blood,” under the form of food and drink so that we could partake of it and thus become united to God and to one another.

The Mass and the receiving of Holy Communion are the full participation in the re-enactment of Calvary. By offering the Mass we are giving infinite honor and satisfaction to God, and by receiving part of what is sacrificed we become intimately united with God and with one another–we are members of the one divine family, partaking of the same divine meal. This community participation in the eucharistic sacrifice was stressed and practiced very much in the early Church and down through the first centuries. This is being stressed again in recent years, and so it ought to be. We give honor to God by being present and participating in the Mass, in the offering of Christ’s sacrifice to the Father. But we participate fully and receive the full benefits of this sacrificial act only when we partake of the sacrifice with our fellow-worshippers by receiving Christ in Holy Communion.

There are many, of course, who feel they are not worthy. They are not worthy if they are conscious of serious sins which are unforgiven. But the means of forgiveness, left to us by Christ in another sacrament, are so easily available that to neglect to make use of these means shows a lack of interest, not only in our own salvation, but in the good God who is offering himself to us as our spiritual food on the road to heaven. For those not conscious of any serious offense, an act of love of God will cleanse them of any minor faults or failings. Then the Good Lord will make them worthy. He is willing and anxious to enter their humble and lowly homes.

The ideal to be aimed at is that everyone present at the Mass should also gather around the communion table and take part in the community, sacrificial meal. This will then strengthen the bonds of love that unite them with God and with one another.

GOSPEL

Lk 9:11b-17

Jesus spoke to the crowds about the kingdom of God,

and he healed those who needed to be cured.

As the day was drawing to a close,

the Twelve approached him and said,

“Dismiss the crowd

so that they can go to the surrounding villages and farms

and find lodging and provisions;

for we are in a deserted place here.”

He said to them, “Give them some food yourselves.”

They replied, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have,

unless we ourselves go and buy food for all these people.”

Now the men there numbered about five thousand.

Then he said to his disciples,

They did so and made them all sit down.

Then taking the five loaves and the two fish,

and looking up to heaven,

he said the blessing over them, broke them,

and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd.

They all ate and were satisfied.

And when the leftover fragments were picked up,

they filled twelve wicker baskets.

http://usccb.org/bible/readings/052916.cfm

APPLICATION

It should not surprise us that Jesus, who miraculously fed over five thousand people out of sheer generosity, to prevent them feeling any pangs of hunger on their return journey home, could and would find a miraculous way to feed his faithful followers on their way to heaven. Many, if not most, of that five thousand had little or no interest in his teaching (he said so the next day; see Jn. 6: 26), but were ready to take all the earthly benefits he would give them. Yet he wanted to prevent them from suffering any undue hardship.

We, his followers, have learned and appreciated his teaching and the supernatural future life which he has earned for us and promised us. We are trying to live Christian lives according to the rules he gave us. We are struggling along towards heaven, each in his own way, fervent at times, careless or cold often, perhaps but still most anxious not to miss the glorious future he has prepared for us. With this proof of his kindness and generosity in helping this more or less indifferent multitude in the matter of earthly food, it is much easier for us to see him provide generously for the spiritual nourishment of his followers on their journey to their true and lasting home.

That he did so we have the certainty of the centuries-long tradition of generations of Christians, based on his own words recorded in the inspired writings. Christ has arranged to remain with us under the form of food for our spiritual sustenance in the sacred sacrifice of the Mass, in which we can partake of his sacred body and blood, soul and divinity. This is, we can receive the Incarnate Son of God in the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

How he could do that is only a small mystery for our finite minds. He was God as well as man. But why he should do this for us unworthy creatures is the greater mystery by far. Infinite love, which we finite beings cannot even begin to understand, is the answer and the explanation. Instead, then, of wasting any time on trying to solve this mystery, which we know to be a fact, let us try to thank him for it and use this gift of his love as often as possible. This will be the greatest proof that we appreciate this divine gift. We know that we are not worthy to receive our divine Lord “under our roof.” Perhaps, we are even more unworthy than the pagan Centurion who was first to use these words. But we also know that Jesus can and will make us worthy if we ask him in all sincerity: “to say but the word” and we shall be healed.

“It is not the healthy who need the doctor but the sick,” Christ said when accused of being too friendly with sinners (Mt. 9: 12). We Christians are more often spiritually sick and dead than healthy. However, we have our doctor and he cares for us. It is only by following his advice, and by using the spiritual medical nourishment he prescribes for us, that we can overcome our illnesses and weaknesses and keep on the straight and narrow road to heaven.

Applications written by Fr. Kevin O’Sullivan O.F.M. and used with permission of Franciscan Press.

BENEDICTUS

Corpus Christi and Hope

It is only because God himself is the eternal dialogue of love that he can speak and be spoken to. Only because he himself is relationship can we relate to him; only because he is love can he love and be loved in return. Only because he is threefold can he be the grain of wheat which dies and the bread of eternal life. Ultimately, then, Corpus Christi is an expression of faith in God, in love, in the fact that God is love. All that is said and done on Corpus Christi is in fact a single variation on the theme of love, what it is and what it does. In one of his Corpus Christi hymns Thomas Aquinas puts it beautifully: nec sumptus consumitur – love does not consume: it gives and, in giving, receives. And in giving it is not used up but renews itself. Since Corpus Christi is a confession of faith in love, it is totally appropriate that the day should focus on the mystery of transubstantiation. Love is transubstantiation, transformation. Corpus Christi tells us: Yes, there is such a thing as love, and therefore there is transformation, therefore there is hope. And hope gives us the strength to live and face the world. Perhaps it was good to have experienced doubts about the meaning of celebrating Corpus Christi, for it has led us to the rediscovery of a feast which, today, we need more than ever.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

CLOSING PRAYER

You are Christ

You are Christ, my Holy Father, my Tender God, my Great King, my Good Shepherd, my Only Master, my Best Helper, my Most Beautiful and my Beloved, my Living Bread, my Priest Forever, my Leader to my Country, my True Light, my Holy Sweetness, my Straight Way, my Excellent Wisdom, my Pure Simplicity, my Peaceful Harmony, my Entire Protection, my Good Portion, my Everlasting Salvation.

Christ Jesus, Sweet Lord, why have I ever loved, why in my whole life have I ever desired anything except You, Jesus my God? Where was I when I was not in spirit with You? Now, from this time forth, do you, all my desires, grow hot, and flow out upon the Lord Jesus: run . . . you have been tardy until now; hasten where you are going; seek Whom you are seeking. O, Jesus may he who loves You not be an anathema; may he who loves You not be filled with bitterness.

O, Sweet Jesus, may every good feeling that is fitted for Your praise, love You, delight in You, adore You! God of my heart, and my Portion, Christ Jesus, may my heart faint away in spirit, and may You be my Life within me! May the live coal of Your Love grow hot within my spirit and break forth into a perfect fire; may it burn incessantly on the altar of my heart; may it glow in my innermost being; may it blaze in hidden recesses of my soul; and in the days of my consummation may I be found consummated with You! Amen.

St. Augustine of Hippo

 “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.”

OPENING PRAYER

Prayer for our Family – Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Heavenly Father,

you have given us the model of life

in the Holy Family of Nazareth.

Help us, O Loving Father,

to make our family another Nazareth

where love, peace and joy reign.

May it be deeply contemplative,

intensely eucharistic,

revived with joy.

Help us to stay together in joy

and sorrow in family prayer.

Teach us to see Jesus in the members of our families,

especially in their distressing disguise.

May the eucharistic heart of Jesus

make our hearts humble like his

and help us to carry out our family duties

in a holy way.

May we love one another

as God loves each one of us,

more and more each day,

and forgive each other’s faults

as you forgive our sins.

Help us, O Loving Father,

to take whatever you give

and give whatever you take with a big smile.

Immaculate Heart of Mary,

cause of our joy, pray for us.

St. Joseph, pray for us.

Holy Guardian Angels,

be always with us,

guide and protect us.

Amen.

COLLECT

Almighty ever-living God,

constantly accomplish the Paschal Mystery within us,

that those you were pleased to make new in Holy Baptism

may, under your protective care, bear much fruit

and come to the joys of life eternal.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity

of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

READING I

Acts 14: 21-27

After Paul and Barnabas had proclaimed the good news
to that city
and made a considerable number of disciples,
they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch.
They strengthened the spirits of the disciples
and exhorted them to persevere in the faith, saying,
“It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships
to enter the kingdom of God.”
They appointed elders for them in each church and,
with prayer and fasting, commended them to the Lord
in whom they had put their faith.
Then they traveled through Pisidia and reached Pamphylia.
After proclaiming the word at Perga they went down to Attalia.
From there they sailed to Antioch,
where they had been commended to the grace of God
for the work they had now accomplished.
And when they arrived, they called the church together
and reported what God had done with them
and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 556 On the threshold of the public life: the baptism; on the threshold of the Passover: the Transfiguration. Jesus’ baptism proclaimed “the mystery of the first regeneration”, namely, our Baptism; the Transfiguration “is the sacrament of the second regeneration”: our own Resurrection.1 From now on we share in the Lord’s Resurrection through the Spirit who acts in the sacraments of the Body of Christ. The Transfiguration gives us a foretaste of Christ’s glorious coming, when he “will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body.”2 But it also recalls that “it is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God”:3

Peter did not yet understand this when he wanted to remain with Christ on the mountain. It has been reserved for you, Peter, but for after death. For now, Jesus says: “Go down to toil on earth, to serve on earth, to be scorned and crucified on earth. Life goes down to be killed; Bread goes down to suffer hunger; the Way goes down to be exhausted on his journey; the Spring goes down to suffer thirst; and you refuse to suffer?”4

CCC 2847 The Holy Spirit makes us discern between trials, which are necessary for the growth of the inner man,5 and temptation, which leads to sin and death.6 We must also discern between being tempted and consenting to temptation. Finally, discernment unmasks the lie of temptation, whose object appears to be good, a “delight to the eyes” and desirable,7 when in reality its fruit is death.

God does not want to impose the good, but wants free beings. .. There is a certain usefulness to temptation. No one but God knows what our soul has received from him, not even we ourselves. But temptation reveals it in order to teach us to know ourselves, and in this way we discover our evil inclinations and are obliged to give thanks for the goods that temptation has revealed to us.8

1 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 45, 4, ad 2.

2 Phil 3:21.

3 Acts 14:22.

4 St. Augustine, Sermo 78, 6: PL 38, 492-493; cf. Lk 9:33.

5 Cf. Lk. 8:13-15; Acts 14:22; Rom 5:3-5; 2 Tim 3:12.

6 Cf. Jas 1:14-15.

7 Cf. Gen 3:6.

8 Origen, De orat. 29 PG 11, 544CD.

APPLICATION

This first missionary journey of St. Paul, the shortest of three, lasted about two and a half years. During it, apart from the sea journey, he traveled on foot about 600 miles over mountainous and difficult terrain. He had to earn his bread by the work of his hands. He suffered hunger and cold and was once stoned by the Jews and left for dead. Compared with his other journeys this was relatively easy. But when we think about it and think about the love of God and of his fellow men which inspired St. Paul to endure such hardships, can we fail to wonder and be shocked at the coldness of our own love of God, and the almost total lack of interest in the eternal welfare of our neighbor which we perhaps show?

There are Christians and Catholics who begrudge the 45 minutes they have to give to God on Sunday morning : they look for a 20 minutes Mass. The remaining 167.25 hours of each week are given to their worldly cares, which nonetheless they will have to leave forever in a few years’ time. There are Catholics who grumble when they are asked to give a portion of their weekly earnings to help support their church and their pastors. There are good devout Catholics who give no help whatsoever in spreading the faith among the pagan peoples. Do such Christians really love God and appreciate what he has done for them? Have they really got their eternal salvation at heart if they are so unwilling to put themselves out the least little bit for its sake?

Granted, we are not all called to be other St. Pauls nor do we get the abundance of divine grace he got. We are, however, all called to be saints, if lesser saints maybe, and we all have got many graces from God. God does expect us, too, to show some return for his many gifts and to prove our love for him by our love for our neighbor. Love of God and love of neighbor are the two greatest of the commandments. They are in fact our tickets to heaven. If we haven’t got these tickets or if we are not purchasing them in daily installments by our charitable acts, we had better begin today. Millions of the saved in heaven today are thanking God for St. Paul’s love of God and neighbor. I shall be happy if even a few of my fellow men will have reason to thank God that I existed.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Ps 145:8-9, 10-11, 12-13

I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.

The LORD is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger and of great kindness.

The LORD is good to all

and compassionate toward all his works.

I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.

Let all your works give you thanks, O LORD,

and let your faithful ones bless you.

Let them discourse of the glory of your kingdom

and speak of your might.

I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.

Let them make known your might to the children of Adam,

and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.

Your kingdom is a kingdom for all ages,

and your dominion endures through all generations.

I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.

READING II

Rev 21:1-5a

Then I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth.

The former heaven and the former earth had passed away,

and the sea was no more.

I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem,

coming down out of heaven from God,

prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race.

He will dwell with them and they will be his people

and God himself will always be with them as their God.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes,

and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain,

for the old order has passed away.”

The One who sat on the throne said,

“Behold, I make all things new.”

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God’s plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

1. The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ’s victory and also of Christian Baptism.1

2. The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written “for our instruction”.2

3. The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, “leading”). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.3

CCC 677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection.4 The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven.5 God’s triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.6

CCC 756 “Often, too, the Church is called the building of God. The Lord compared himself to the stone which the builders rejected, but which was made into the corner-stone. On this foundation the Church is built by the apostles and from it the Church receives solidity and unity. This edifice has many names to describe it: the house of God in which his family dwells; the household of God in the Spirit; the dwelling-place of God among men; and, especially, the holy temple. This temple, symbolized in places of worship built out of stone, is praised by the Fathers and, not without reason, is compared in the liturgy to the Holy City, the New Jerusalem. As living stones we here on earth are built into it. It is this holy city that is seen by John as it comes down out of heaven from God when the world is made anew, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.”7

CCC 757 “The Church, further, which is called ‘that Jerusalem which is above’ and ‘our mother’, is described as the spotless spouse of the spotless lamb. It is she whom Christ ‘loved and for whom he delivered himself up that he might sanctify her.’ It is she whom he unites to himself by an unbreakable alliance, and whom he constantly ‘nourishes and cherishes.’”8

CCC 1043 Sacred Scripture calls this mysterious renewal, which will transform humanity and the world, “new heavens and a new earth.”9 It will be the definitive realization of God’s plan to bring under a single head “all things in [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth.”10

CCC 1044 In this new universe, the heavenly Jerusalem, God will have his dwelling among men.11 “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.”12

CCC 1045 For man, this consummation will be the final realization of the unity of the human race, which God willed from creation and of which the pilgrim Church has been “in the nature of sacrament.”13 Those who are united with Christ will form the community of the redeemed, “the holy city” of God, “the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.”14 She will not be wounded any longer by sin, stains, self-love, that destroy or wound the earthly community.15 The beatific vision, in which God opens himself in an inexhaustible way to the elect, will be the ever-flowing well-spring of happiness, peace, and mutual communion.

CCC 1186 Finally, the church has an eschatological significance. To enter into the house of God, we must cross a threshold, which symbolizes passing from the world wounded by sin to the world of the new Life to which all men are called. The visible church is a symbol of the Father’s house toward which the People of God is journeying and where the Father “will wipe every tear from their eyes.”16 Also for this reason, the Church is the house of all God’s children, open and welcoming.

CCC 2016 The children of our holy mother the Church rightly hope for the grace of final perseverance and the recompense of God their Father for the good works accomplished with his grace in communion with Jesus.17 Keeping the same rule of life, believers share the “blessed hope” of those whom the divine mercy gathers into the “holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”18

CCC 2676 This twofold movement of prayer to Mary has found a privileged expression in the Ave Maria:

Hail Mary [or Rejoice, Mary]: the greeting of the angel Gabriel opens this prayer. It is God himself who, through his angel as intermediary, greets Mary. Our prayer dares to take up this greeting to Mary with the regard God had for the lowliness of his humble servant and to exult in the joy he finds in her.19

Full of grace, the Lord is with thee: These two phrases of the angel’s greeting shed light on one another. Mary is full of grace because the Lord is with her. The grace with which she is filled is the presence of him who is the source of all grace. “Rejoice. .. O Daughter of Jerusalem. .. the Lord your God is in your midst.”20 Mary, in whom the Lord himself has just made his dwelling, is the daughter of Zion in person, the ark of the covenant, the place where the glory of the Lord dwells. She is “the dwelling of God. .. with men.”21 Full of grace, Mary is wholly given over to him who has come to dwell in her and whom she is about to give to the world.

Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. After the angel’s greeting, we make Elizabeth’s greeting our own. “Filled with the Holy Spirit,” Elizabeth is the first in the long succession of generations who have called Mary “blessed.”22 “Blessed is she who believed. .. ”23 Mary is “blessed among women” because she believed in the fulfillment of the Lord’s word. Abraham. because of his faith, became a blessing for all the nations of the earth.24 Mary, because of her faith, became the mother of believers, through whom all nations of the earth receive him who is God’s own blessing: Jesus, the “fruit of thy womb.”

1 Cf. I Cor 10:2.

2 I Cor 10:11; cf. Heb 3:1 -4:11.

3 Cf. Rev 21:1 – 22:5.

4 Cf. Rev 19:1-9.

5 Cf Rev 13:8; 20:7-10; 21:2-4.

6 Cf. Rev 20:12 2 Pt 3:12-13.

7 LG 6; Cf. 1 Cor 3:9; Mt 21:42 and parallels; Acts 4:11; 1 Pet 2:7; Ps 118:22; 1 Cor 3:11; 1 Tim 3:15; Eph 2:19-22; Rev 21:3; 1 Pet 2:5; Rev 21:1-2.

8 LG 6; Cf. Gal 4:26; Rev 12:17; 19:7; 21:2,9; 22:17; Eph 5:25-26,29.

9 2 Pet 3:13; Cf. Rev 21:1.

10 Eph 1:10.

11 Cf. Rev 21:5.

12 Rev 21:4.

13 Cf. LG 1.

14 Rev 21:2, 9.

15 Cf. Rev 21:27.

16 Rev 21:4.

17

18 Rev 21:2.

19 Cf. Lk 1:48; Zeph 3:17b.

20 Zeph 3:14,17a.

21 Rev 21:3.

22 Lk 1:41, 48.

23 Lk 1:45.

24 Cf. Gen 12:3.

APPLICATION

We have only a very limited revelation from God as regards the nature of heaven, the place or state in which we hope to be for eternity after death, if we live as loyal Christians. There must be reasons for this paucity of information, or God would reveal more to us. One of the first reasons that we can see is that God wants us to have faith and to trust in his divine promise. The man who works honestly for a prearranged salary, legally guaranteed, has no reason to have faith in the justice of his employer or trust his word. But he who works diligently for a generous friend, without any contract, is showing faith and trust in that friend.

Another reason why we have not been given more minute information concerning our future life, is that the present state of our intellect, dependent as it is on earthly images, is incapable of grasping or understanding the true and exact nature of the future life. If somebody had told Aristotle, one of the great minds of ancient Greece, that a man could travel on a machine to the moon and return again, I feel sure the great philosopher would shake his head in pity for his half-witted informant!

We have St. Paul’s word for it, and he had a vision of heaven, that we could form no human concept of its nature.

However, St. John today tells us enough to make us anxious to go there. We shall be in the presence of God. All earthly things will have passed away. Our abode, which is God’s abode, will be a new creation. We shall live eternally there, free from all care, all pain, all anxiety–free from everything which makes our earthly life difficult.

I have God’s word for it that there is such a future place in store for me. I have the added proof that the Son of God came on earth, suffered, died and rose from the dead, in order that I could get there. What I shall be like in heaven is the least of my worries. The only worry I should really have now is: am I on the right road there? Will I make it? If I am on the right road then the other questions will be solved for me when God calls me.

GOSPEL

Jn 13:31-33a, 34-35

When Judas had left them, Jesus said,

“Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.

If God is glorified in him,

God will also glorify him in himself,

and God will glorify him at once.

My children, I will be with you only a little while longer.

I give you a new commandment: love one another.

As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.

This is how all will know that you are my disciples,

if you have love for one another.”

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 782 The People of God is marked by characteristics that clearly distinguish it from all other religious, ethnic, political, or cultural groups found in history:

– It is the People of God: God is not the property of any one people. But he acquired a people for himself from those who previously were not a people: “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.”1

– One becomes a member of this people not by a physical birth, but by being “born anew,” a birth “of water and the Spirit,”2 that is, by faith in Christ, and Baptism.

– This People has for its Head Jesus the Christ (the anointed, the Messiah). Because the same anointing, the Holy Spirit, flows from the head into the body, this is “the messianic people.”

– “The status of this people is that of the dignity and freedom of the sons of God, in whose hearts the Holy Spirit dwells as in a temple.”

– “Its law is the new commandment to love as Christ loved us.”3 This is the “new” law of the Holy Spirit.4

– Its mission is to be salt of the earth and light of the world.5 This people is “a most sure seed of unity, hope, and salvation for the whole human race.”

-Its destiny, finally, “is the Kingdom of God which has been begun by God himself on earth and which must be further extended until it has been brought to perfection by him at the end of time.”6

CCC 1337 The Lord, having loved those who were his own, loved them to the end. Knowing that the hour had come to leave this world and return to the Father, in the course of a meal he washed their feet and gave them the commandment of love.7 In order to leave them a pledge of this love, in order never to depart from his own and to make them sharers in his Passover, he instituted the Eucharist as the memorial of his death and Resurrection, and commanded his apostles to celebrate it until his return; “thereby he constituted them priests of the New Testament.”8

CCC 1823 Jesus makes charity the new commandment.9 By loving his own “to the end,”10 he makes manifest the Father’s love which he receives. By loving one another, the disciples imitate the love of Jesus which they themselves receive. Whence Jesus says: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.” And again: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”11

CCC 1970 The Law of the Gospel requires us to make the decisive choice between “the two ways” and to put into practice the words of the Lord.12 It is summed up in the Golden Rule, “Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; this is the law and the prophets.”13

The entire Law of the Gospel is contained in the “new commandment” of Jesus, to love one another as he has loved us.14

CCC 2196 In response to the question about the first of the commandments, Jesus says: “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”15

The apostle St. Paul reminds us of this: “He who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,‘ and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”16

CCC 2822 Our Father “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”17 He “is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish.”18 His commandment is “that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”19 This commandment summarizes all the others and expresses his entire will.

CCC 2842 This “as” is not unique in Jesus’ teaching: “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”; “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful”; “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”20 It is impossible to keep the Lord’s commandment by imitating the divine model from outside; there has to be a vital participation, coming from the depths of the heart, in the holiness and the mercy and the love of our God. Only the Spirit by whom we live can make “ours” the same mind that was in Christ Jesus.21 Then the unity of forgiveness becomes possible and we find ourselves “forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave” us.22

1 1 Pet 2:9.

2 Jn 3:3-5.

3 Cf. Jn 13 34

4 Rom 8:2; Gal 5:25.

5 Cf. Mt 5:13-16.

6 LG 9 # 2.

7 Cf. Jn 13:1-17; 34-35.

8 Council of Trent (1562): DS 1740.

9 Cf. Jn 13:34.

10 Jn 13:1.

11 Jn 15:9, 12.

12 Cf. Mt 7:13-14,21-27.

13 Mt 7:12; cf. Lk 6:31.

14 Cf. Jn 15:12; 13:34.

15 Mk 12:29-31; cf. Deut 6:4-5; Lev 19:18; Mt 22:34-40; Lk 10:25-28.

16 Rom 13:8-10.

17 1 Tim 2:3-4.

18 2 Pet 3:9; cf. Mt 18:14.

19 Jn 13:34; cf. 1 Jn 3; 4; Lk 10:25-37.

20 Mt 5:48; Lk 6:36; Jn 13:34.

21 Cf. Gal 5:25; Phil 2:1,5.

22 Eph 4:32.

APPLICATION

We are disciples, followers of Christ, but how many of us would pass the test that Christ himself lays down for deciding who are his true followers? The word “charity” unfortunately has come to have a very restricted meaning in our present-day vocabulary. It signifies giving an alms, a gift of money to a needy person. This is but a very small part of the true charity, true love of neighbor which Christ made the distinguishing mark of the true Christian. He who truly loves his neighbor must be interested, first and foremost, in those things which concern that neighbor’s most important purpose in life, his eternal salvation.

Here is where so many good Christians fail in true charity. Effective interest in missionary activity is a case in point. Practical help in parochial matters, taking part in the various societies which are intended to build up and strengthen the faith and the devotion of the members of the parish is another obligation of true charity. So many seem to think it is no concern of theirs but it is. Advising and encouraging, with true Christian kindness, a neighbor who is beginning to grow lax in his attendance to his Christian duties, or who is forming habits or alliances which, if unchecked, will bring misery and suffering to his family, and scandal to the neighborhood, and even the possibility of his own eternal destruction, is also an exercise of real Christian charity.

There are thousands of broken homes today which would not be broken if there was true charity in those homes not only in the heart of the offender but in the hearts of the offended. There are thousands in jails and in hospitals of rehabilitation today who would not be there if their families and neighbors fulfilled their obligation of Christian charity. There are many, far too many, lapsed Catholics in the world today, who would not have lapsed had true charity been practiced by their relatives and neighbors. And, last but not least, there are millions of people who have remained outside the Church of Christ because the hall-mark of charity which Christ said was its distinguishing mark was tarnished or invisible. Each one of us could, with great profit, spend a few moments today looking into ourselves and comparing our thoughts and our words and our actions with the thoughts, words and actions of love which Christ expects from his followers.

It is never too late to mend. Begin today to take a true Christian interest in the spiritual fate of your family and neighbors. Where words have already failed perhaps, try prayer and example. The grace of God will cooperate with your sincere, charitable effort.

Applications written by Fr. Kevin O’Sullivan O.F.M. and used with permission of Franciscan Press.

BENEDICTUS

How to Reach the Dignity of Christianity

The Church must always become anew what she already is; she must open the borders between peoples and break down the barriers between class and race. In her, there cannot be those who are forgotten or looked down upon. The wind and fire of the Holy Spirit must continually break down those barriers that we men and women continue to build between us; we must continually pass from Babel – being closed in on ourselves – to Pentecost. We continually close our doors; we continually want to feel secure and do not want to be disturbed by others and by God. And so, we can continually implore the Lord just for this, that he come to us, overcoming our closure. It is in lowering ourselves, together with Christ, that we rise up to him and up to God. God is Love, and so the descent, the lowering that love demands of us, is at the same time the true ascent. Exactly in this way, lowering ourselves, coming out of ourselves, we reach the dignity of Jesus Christ, the human being’s true dignity. In people, notwithstanding all of their limitations, there is now something absolutely new: the breath of God. The life of God lives in us. The breath of his love, of his truth and of his goodness. To his breath the Lord joins the power of forgiveness. The strength that opens up and overcomes Babel is the strength of forgiveness. Forgiveness comes from the cross; he transforms the world with the love that is offered. His heart opened on the cross is the door through which the grace of forgiveness enters into the world. And this grace alone is able to transform the world and build peace. Evil can be overcome only by forgiveness.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

CLOSING PRAYER

Prayer to the Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit of light and love, you are the substantial love of the Father and the Son; hear my prayer. Bounteous bestower of most precious gifts, grant me a strong and living faith which makes me accept all revealed truths and shape my conduct in accord with them. Give me a most confident hope in all divine promises which prompts me to abandon myself unreservedly to you and your guidance. Infuse into me a love of perfect goodwill, and act according to God’s least desires. Make me love not only my friends but my enemies as well, in imitation of Jesus Christ who through you offered himself on the Cross for all people. Holy Spirit, animate, inspire, and guide me, and help me to be always a true follower of you. Amen.

http://www.catholic.org/prayers/prayer.php?p=336

 “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.”

OPENING PRAYER

Prayer for our Family – Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Heavenly Father,

you have given us the model of life

in the Holy Family of Nazareth.

Help us, O Loving Father,

to make our family another Nazareth

where love, peace and joy reign.

May it be deeply contemplative,

intensely eucharistic,

revived with joy.

Help us to stay together in joy

and sorrow in family prayer.

Teach us to see Jesus in the members of our families,

especially in their distressing disguise.

May the eucharistic heart of Jesus

make our hearts humble like his

and help us to carry out our family duties

in a holy way.

May we love one another

as God loves each one of us,

more and more each day,

and forgive each other’s faults

as you forgive our sins.

Help us, O Loving Father,

to take whatever you give

and give whatever you take with a big smile.

Immaculate Heart of Mary,

cause of our joy, pray for us.

St. Joseph, pray for us.

Holy Guardian Angels,

be always with us,

guide and protect us.

Amen.

COLLECT

Almighty ever-living God,

constantly accomplish the Paschal Mystery within us,

that those you were pleased to make new in Holy Baptism

may, under your protective care, bear much fruit

and come to the joys of life eternal.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity

of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

READING I

Acts 14: 21-27

After Paul and Barnabas had proclaimed the good news
to that city
and made a considerable number of disciples,
they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch.
They strengthened the spirits of the disciples
and exhorted them to persevere in the faith, saying,
“It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships
to enter the kingdom of God.”
They appointed elders for them in each church and,
with prayer and fasting, commended them to the Lord
in whom they had put their faith.
Then they traveled through Pisidia and reached Pamphylia.
After proclaiming the word at Perga they went down to Attalia.
From there they sailed to Antioch,
where they had been commended to the grace of God
for the work they had now accomplished.
And when they arrived, they called the church together
and reported what God had done with them
and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 556 On the threshold of the public life: the baptism; on the threshold of the Passover: the Transfiguration. Jesus’ baptism proclaimed “the mystery of the first regeneration”, namely, our Baptism; the Transfiguration “is the sacrament of the second regeneration”: our own Resurrection.1 From now on we share in the Lord’s Resurrection through the Spirit who acts in the sacraments of the Body of Christ. The Transfiguration gives us a foretaste of Christ’s glorious coming, when he “will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body.”2 But it also recalls that “it is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God”:3

Peter did not yet understand this when he wanted to remain with Christ on the mountain. It has been reserved for you, Peter, but for after death. For now, Jesus says: “Go down to toil on earth, to serve on earth, to be scorned and crucified on earth. Life goes down to be killed; Bread goes down to suffer hunger; the Way goes down to be exhausted on his journey; the Spring goes down to suffer thirst; and you refuse to suffer?”4

CCC 2847 The Holy Spirit makes us discern between trials, which are necessary for the growth of the inner man,5 and temptation, which leads to sin and death.6 We must also discern between being tempted and consenting to temptation. Finally, discernment unmasks the lie of temptation, whose object appears to be good, a “delight to the eyes” and desirable,7 when in reality its fruit is death.

God does not want to impose the good, but wants free beings. .. There is a certain usefulness to temptation. No one but God knows what our soul has received from him, not even we ourselves. But temptation reveals it in order to teach us to know ourselves, and in this way we discover our evil inclinations and are obliged to give thanks for the goods that temptation has revealed to us.8

1 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 45, 4, ad 2.

2 Phil 3:21.

3 Acts 14:22.

4 St. Augustine, Sermo 78, 6: PL 38, 492-493; cf. Lk 9:33.

5 Cf. Lk. 8:13-15; Acts 14:22; Rom 5:3-5; 2 Tim 3:12.

6 Cf. Jas 1:14-15.

7 Cf. Gen 3:6.

8 Origen, De orat. 29 PG 11, 544CD.

APPLICATION

This first missionary journey of St. Paul, the shortest of three, lasted about two and a half years. During it, apart from the sea journey, he traveled on foot about 600 miles over mountainous and difficult terrain. He had to earn his bread by the work of his hands. He suffered hunger and cold and was once stoned by the Jews and left for dead. Compared with his other journeys this was relatively easy. But when we think about it and think about the love of God and of his fellow men which inspired St. Paul to endure such hardships, can we fail to wonder and be shocked at the coldness of our own love of God, and the almost total lack of interest in the eternal welfare of our neighbor which we perhaps show?

There are Christians and Catholics who begrudge the 45 minutes they have to give to God on Sunday morning : they look for a 20 minutes Mass. The remaining 167.25 hours of each week are given to their worldly cares, which nonetheless they will have to leave forever in a few years’ time. There are Catholics who grumble when they are asked to give a portion of their weekly earnings to help support their church and their pastors. There are good devout Catholics who give no help whatsoever in spreading the faith among the pagan peoples. Do such Christians really love God and appreciate what he has done for them? Have they really got their eternal salvation at heart if they are so unwilling to put themselves out the least little bit for its sake?

Granted, we are not all called to be other St. Pauls nor do we get the abundance of divine grace he got. We are, however, all called to be saints, if lesser saints maybe, and we all have got many graces from God. God does expect us, too, to show some return for his many gifts and to prove our love for him by our love for our neighbor. Love of God and love of neighbor are the two greatest of the commandments. They are in fact our tickets to heaven. If we haven’t got these tickets or if we are not purchasing them in daily installments by our charitable acts, we had better begin today. Millions of the saved in heaven today are thanking God for St. Paul’s love of God and neighbor. I shall be happy if even a few of my fellow men will have reason to thank God that I existed.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Ps 145:8-9, 10-11, 12-13

I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.

The LORD is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger and of great kindness.

The LORD is good to all

and compassionate toward all his works.

I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.

Let all your works give you thanks, O LORD,

and let your faithful ones bless you.

Let them discourse of the glory of your kingdom

and speak of your might.

I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.

Let them make known your might to the children of Adam,

and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.

Your kingdom is a kingdom for all ages,

and your dominion endures through all generations.

I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God.

READING II

Rev 21:1-5a

Then I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth.

The former heaven and the former earth had passed away,

and the sea was no more.

I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem,

coming down out of heaven from God,

prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race.

He will dwell with them and they will be his people

and God himself will always be with them as their God.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes,

and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain,

for the old order has passed away.”

The One who sat on the throne said,

“Behold, I make all things new.”

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God’s plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

1. The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ’s victory and also of Christian Baptism.1

2. The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written “for our instruction”.2

3. The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, “leading”). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.3

CCC 677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection.4 The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven.5 God’s triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.6

CCC 756 “Often, too, the Church is called the building of God. The Lord compared himself to the stone which the builders rejected, but which was made into the corner-stone. On this foundation the Church is built by the apostles and from it the Church receives solidity and unity. This edifice has many names to describe it: the house of God in which his family dwells; the household of God in the Spirit; the dwelling-place of God among men; and, especially, the holy temple. This temple, symbolized in places of worship built out of stone, is praised by the Fathers and, not without reason, is compared in the liturgy to the Holy City, the New Jerusalem. As living stones we here on earth are built into it. It is this holy city that is seen by John as it comes down out of heaven from God when the world is made anew, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.”7

CCC 757 “The Church, further, which is called ‘that Jerusalem which is above’ and ‘our mother’, is described as the spotless spouse of the spotless lamb. It is she whom Christ ‘loved and for whom he delivered himself up that he might sanctify her.’ It is she whom he unites to himself by an unbreakable alliance, and whom he constantly ‘nourishes and cherishes.’”8

CCC 1043 Sacred Scripture calls this mysterious renewal, which will transform humanity and the world, “new heavens and a new earth.”9 It will be the definitive realization of God’s plan to bring under a single head “all things in [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth.”10

CCC 1044 In this new universe, the heavenly Jerusalem, God will have his dwelling among men.11 “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.”12

CCC 1045 For man, this consummation will be the final realization of the unity of the human race, which God willed from creation and of which the pilgrim Church has been “in the nature of sacrament.”13 Those who are united with Christ will form the community of the redeemed, “the holy city” of God, “the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.”14 She will not be wounded any longer by sin, stains, self-love, that destroy or wound the earthly community.15 The beatific vision, in which God opens himself in an inexhaustible way to the elect, will be the ever-flowing well-spring of happiness, peace, and mutual communion.

CCC 1186 Finally, the church has an eschatological significance. To enter into the house of God, we must cross a threshold, which symbolizes passing from the world wounded by sin to the world of the new Life to which all men are called. The visible church is a symbol of the Father’s house toward which the People of God is journeying and where the Father “will wipe every tear from their eyes.”16 Also for this reason, the Church is the house of all God’s children, open and welcoming.

CCC 2016 The children of our holy mother the Church rightly hope for the grace of final perseverance and the recompense of God their Father for the good works accomplished with his grace in communion with Jesus.17 Keeping the same rule of life, believers share the “blessed hope” of those whom the divine mercy gathers into the “holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”18

CCC 2676 This twofold movement of prayer to Mary has found a privileged expression in the Ave Maria:

Hail Mary [or Rejoice, Mary]: the greeting of the angel Gabriel opens this prayer. It is God himself who, through his angel as intermediary, greets Mary. Our prayer dares to take up this greeting to Mary with the regard God had for the lowliness of his humble servant and to exult in the joy he finds in her.19

Full of grace, the Lord is with thee: These two phrases of the angel’s greeting shed light on one another. Mary is full of grace because the Lord is with her. The grace with which she is filled is the presence of him who is the source of all grace. “Rejoice. .. O Daughter of Jerusalem. .. the Lord your God is in your midst.”20 Mary, in whom the Lord himself has just made his dwelling, is the daughter of Zion in person, the ark of the covenant, the place where the glory of the Lord dwells. She is “the dwelling of God. .. with men.”21 Full of grace, Mary is wholly given over to him who has come to dwell in her and whom she is about to give to the world.

Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. After the angel’s greeting, we make Elizabeth’s greeting our own. “Filled with the Holy Spirit,” Elizabeth is the first in the long succession of generations who have called Mary “blessed.”22 “Blessed is she who believed. .. ”23 Mary is “blessed among women” because she believed in the fulfillment of the Lord’s word. Abraham. because of his faith, became a blessing for all the nations of the earth.24 Mary, because of her faith, became the mother of believers, through whom all nations of the earth receive him who is God’s own blessing: Jesus, the “fruit of thy womb.”

1 Cf. I Cor 10:2.

2 I Cor 10:11; cf. Heb 3:1 -4:11.

3 Cf. Rev 21:1 – 22:5.

4 Cf. Rev 19:1-9.

5 Cf Rev 13:8; 20:7-10; 21:2-4.

6 Cf. Rev 20:12 2 Pt 3:12-13.

7 LG 6; Cf. 1 Cor 3:9; Mt 21:42 and parallels; Acts 4:11; 1 Pet 2:7; Ps 118:22; 1 Cor 3:11; 1 Tim 3:15; Eph 2:19-22; Rev 21:3; 1 Pet 2:5; Rev 21:1-2.

8 LG 6; Cf. Gal 4:26; Rev 12:17; 19:7; 21:2,9; 22:17; Eph 5:25-26,29.

9 2 Pet 3:13; Cf. Rev 21:1.

10 Eph 1:10.

11 Cf. Rev 21:5.

12 Rev 21:4.

13 Cf. LG 1.

14 Rev 21:2, 9.

15 Cf. Rev 21:27.

16 Rev 21:4.

17

18 Rev 21:2.

19 Cf. Lk 1:48; Zeph 3:17b.

20 Zeph 3:14,17a.

21 Rev 21:3.

22 Lk 1:41, 48.

23 Lk 1:45.

24 Cf. Gen 12:3.

APPLICATION

We have only a very limited revelation from God as regards the nature of heaven, the place or state in which we hope to be for eternity after death, if we live as loyal Christians. There must be reasons for this paucity of information, or God would reveal more to us. One of the first reasons that we can see is that God wants us to have faith and to trust in his divine promise. The man who works honestly for a prearranged salary, legally guaranteed, has no reason to have faith in the justice of his employer or trust his word. But he who works diligently for a generous friend, without any contract, is showing faith and trust in that friend.

Another reason why we have not been given more minute information concerning our future life, is that the present state of our intellect, dependent as it is on earthly images, is incapable of grasping or understanding the true and exact nature of the future life. If somebody had told Aristotle, one of the great minds of ancient Greece, that a man could travel on a machine to the moon and return again, I feel sure the great philosopher would shake his head in pity for his half-witted informant!

We have St. Paul’s word for it, and he had a vision of heaven, that we could form no human concept of its nature.

However, St. John today tells us enough to make us anxious to go there. We shall be in the presence of God. All earthly things will have passed away. Our abode, which is God’s abode, will be a new creation. We shall live eternally there, free from all care, all pain, all anxiety–free from everything which makes our earthly life difficult.

I have God’s word for it that there is such a future place in store for me. I have the added proof that the Son of God came on earth, suffered, died and rose from the dead, in order that I could get there. What I shall be like in heaven is the least of my worries. The only worry I should really have now is: am I on the right road there? Will I make it? If I am on the right road then the other questions will be solved for me when God calls me.

GOSPEL

Jn 13:31-33a, 34-35

When Judas had left them, Jesus said,

“Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.

If God is glorified in him,

God will also glorify him in himself,

and God will glorify him at once.

My children, I will be with you only a little while longer.

I give you a new commandment: love one another.

As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.

This is how all will know that you are my disciples,

if you have love for one another.”

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 782 The People of God is marked by characteristics that clearly distinguish it from all other religious, ethnic, political, or cultural groups found in history:

– It is the People of God: God is not the property of any one people. But he acquired a people for himself from those who previously were not a people: “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.”1

– One becomes a member of this people not by a physical birth, but by being “born anew,” a birth “of water and the Spirit,”2 that is, by faith in Christ, and Baptism.

– This People has for its Head Jesus the Christ (the anointed, the Messiah). Because the same anointing, the Holy Spirit, flows from the head into the body, this is “the messianic people.”

– “The status of this people is that of the dignity and freedom of the sons of God, in whose hearts the Holy Spirit dwells as in a temple.”

– “Its law is the new commandment to love as Christ loved us.”3 This is the “new” law of the Holy Spirit.4

– Its mission is to be salt of the earth and light of the world.5 This people is “a most sure seed of unity, hope, and salvation for the whole human race.”

-Its destiny, finally, “is the Kingdom of God which has been begun by God himself on earth and which must be further extended until it has been brought to perfection by him at the end of time.”6

CCC 1337 The Lord, having loved those who were his own, loved them to the end. Knowing that the hour had come to leave this world and return to the Father, in the course of a meal he washed their feet and gave them the commandment of love.7 In order to leave them a pledge of this love, in order never to depart from his own and to make them sharers in his Passover, he instituted the Eucharist as the memorial of his death and Resurrection, and commanded his apostles to celebrate it until his return; “thereby he constituted them priests of the New Testament.”8

CCC 1823 Jesus makes charity the new commandment.9 By loving his own “to the end,”10 he makes manifest the Father’s love which he receives. By loving one another, the disciples imitate the love of Jesus which they themselves receive. Whence Jesus says: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.” And again: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”11

CCC 1970 The Law of the Gospel requires us to make the decisive choice between “the two ways” and to put into practice the words of the Lord.12 It is summed up in the Golden Rule, “Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; this is the law and the prophets.”13

The entire Law of the Gospel is contained in the “new commandment” of Jesus, to love one another as he has loved us.14

CCC 2196 In response to the question about the first of the commandments, Jesus says: “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”15

The apostle St. Paul reminds us of this: “He who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,‘ and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”16

CCC 2822 Our Father “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”17 He “is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish.”18 His commandment is “that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”19 This commandment summarizes all the others and expresses his entire will.

CCC 2842 This “as” is not unique in Jesus’ teaching: “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”; “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful”; “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”20 It is impossible to keep the Lord’s commandment by imitating the divine model from outside; there has to be a vital participation, coming from the depths of the heart, in the holiness and the mercy and the love of our God. Only the Spirit by whom we live can make “ours” the same mind that was in Christ Jesus.21 Then the unity of forgiveness becomes possible and we find ourselves “forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave” us.22

1 1 Pet 2:9.

2 Jn 3:3-5.

3 Cf. Jn 13 34

4 Rom 8:2; Gal 5:25.

5 Cf. Mt 5:13-16.

6 LG 9 # 2.

7 Cf. Jn 13:1-17; 34-35.

8 Council of Trent (1562): DS 1740.

9 Cf. Jn 13:34.

10 Jn 13:1.

11 Jn 15:9, 12.

12 Cf. Mt 7:13-14,21-27.

13 Mt 7:12; cf. Lk 6:31.

14 Cf. Jn 15:12; 13:34.

15 Mk 12:29-31; cf. Deut 6:4-5; Lev 19:18; Mt 22:34-40; Lk 10:25-28.

16 Rom 13:8-10.

17 1 Tim 2:3-4.

18 2 Pet 3:9; cf. Mt 18:14.

19 Jn 13:34; cf. 1 Jn 3; 4; Lk 10:25-37.

20 Mt 5:48; Lk 6:36; Jn 13:34.

21 Cf. Gal 5:25; Phil 2:1,5.

22 Eph 4:32.

APPLICATION

We are disciples, followers of Christ, but how many of us would pass the test that Christ himself lays down for deciding who are his true followers? The word “charity” unfortunately has come to have a very restricted meaning in our present-day vocabulary. It signifies giving an alms, a gift of money to a needy person. This is but a very small part of the true charity, true love of neighbor which Christ made the distinguishing mark of the true Christian. He who truly loves his neighbor must be interested, first and foremost, in those things which concern that neighbor’s most important purpose in life, his eternal salvation.

Here is where so many good Christians fail in true charity. Effective interest in missionary activity is a case in point. Practical help in parochial matters, taking part in the various societies which are intended to build up and strengthen the faith and the devotion of the members of the parish is another obligation of true charity. So many seem to think it is no concern of theirs but it is. Advising and encouraging, with true Christian kindness, a neighbor who is beginning to grow lax in his attendance to his Christian duties, or who is forming habits or alliances which, if unchecked, will bring misery and suffering to his family, and scandal to the neighborhood, and even the possibility of his own eternal destruction, is also an exercise of real Christian charity.

There are thousands of broken homes today which would not be broken if there was true charity in those homes not only in the heart of the offender but in the hearts of the offended. There are thousands in jails and in hospitals of rehabilitation today who would not be there if their families and neighbors fulfilled their obligation of Christian charity. There are many, far too many, lapsed Catholics in the world today, who would not have lapsed had true charity been practiced by their relatives and neighbors. And, last but not least, there are millions of people who have remained outside the Church of Christ because the hall-mark of charity which Christ said was its distinguishing mark was tarnished or invisible. Each one of us could, with great profit, spend a few moments today looking into ourselves and comparing our thoughts and our words and our actions with the thoughts, words and actions of love which Christ expects from his followers.

It is never too late to mend. Begin today to take a true Christian interest in the spiritual fate of your family and neighbors. Where words have already failed perhaps, try prayer and example. The grace of God will cooperate with your sincere, charitable effort.

Applications written by Fr. Kevin O’Sullivan O.F.M. and used with permission of Franciscan Press.

BENEDICTUS

How to Reach the Dignity of Christianity

The Church must always become anew what she already is; she must open the borders between peoples and break down the barriers between class and race. In her, there cannot be those who are forgotten or looked down upon. The wind and fire of the Holy Spirit must continually break down those barriers that we men and women continue to build between us; we must continually pass from Babel – being closed in on ourselves – to Pentecost. We continually close our doors; we continually want to feel secure and do not want to be disturbed by others and by God. And so, we can continually implore the Lord just for this, that he come to us, overcoming our closure. It is in lowering ourselves, together with Christ, that we rise up to him and up to God. God is Love, and so the descent, the lowering that love demands of us, is at the same time the true ascent. Exactly in this way, lowering ourselves, coming out of ourselves, we reach the dignity of Jesus Christ, the human being’s true dignity. In people, notwithstanding all of their limitations, there is now something absolutely new: the breath of God. The life of God lives in us. The breath of his love, of his truth and of his goodness. To his breath the Lord joins the power of forgiveness. The strength that opens up and overcomes Babel is the strength of forgiveness. Forgiveness comes from the cross; he transforms the world with the love that is offered. His heart opened on the cross is the door through which the grace of forgiveness enters into the world. And this grace alone is able to transform the world and build peace. Evil can be overcome only by forgiveness.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

CLOSING PRAYER

Prayer to the Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit of light and love, you are the substantial love of the Father and the Son; hear my prayer. Bounteous bestower of most precious gifts, grant me a strong and living faith which makes me accept all revealed truths and shape my conduct in accord with them. Give me a most confident hope in all divine promises which prompts me to abandon myself unreservedly to you and your guidance. Infuse into me a love of perfect goodwill, and act according to God’s least desires. Make me love not only my friends but my enemies as well, in imitation of Jesus Christ who through you offered himself on the Cross for all people. Holy Spirit, animate, inspire, and guide me, and help me to be always a true follower of you. Amen.

http://www.catholic.org/prayers/prayer.php?p=336

“My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”

OPENING PRAYER

Psalm 119

Daleth

My soul clings to the dust;

give me life in accord with your word.

I disclosed my ways and you answered me;

teach me your statutes.

Make me understand the way of your precepts;

I will ponder your wondrous deeds.

My soul is depressed;

lift me up according to your word.

Lead me from the way of deceit;

favor me with your law.

The way of loyalty I have chosen;

I have kept your judgments.

I cling to your testimonies, LORD;

do not let me come to shame.

I will run the way of your commandments,

for you will broaden my heart.

http://www.usccb.org/bible/psalms/119

COLLECT

Almighty ever-living God,

lead us to a share in the joys of heaven,

so that the humble flock may reach

where the brave Shepherd has gone before.

Who lives and reigns with you in the unity

of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

READING I

Acts 13:14, 43-52

Paul and Barnabas continued on from Perga

and reached Antioch in Pisidia.

On the sabbath they entered the synagogue and took their seats.

Many Jews and worshipers who were converts to Judaism

followed Paul and Barnabas, who spoke to them

and urged them to remain faithful to the grace of God.

On the following sabbath almost the whole city gathered

to hear the word of the Lord.

When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy

and with violent abuse contradicted what Paul said.

Both Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said,

“It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first,

but since you reject it

and condemn yourselves as unworthy of eternal life,

we now turn to the Gentiles.

For so the Lord has commanded us,

I have made you a light to the Gentiles,

that you may be an instrument of salvation

to the ends of the earth.”

The Gentiles were delighted when they heard this

and glorified the word of the Lord.

All who were destined for eternal life came to believe,

and the word of the Lord continued to spread

through the whole region.

The Jews, however, incited the women of prominence who were worshipers

and the leading men of the city,

stirred up a persecution against Paul and Barnabas,

and expelled them from their territory.

So they shook the dust from their feet in protest against them,

and went to Iconium.

The disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 2640 St. Luke in his gospel often expresses wonder and praise at the marvels of Christ and in his Acts of the Apostles stresses them as actions of the Holy Spirit: the community of Jerusalem, the invalid healed by Peter and John, the crowd that gives glory to God for that, and the pagans of Pisidia who “were glad and glorified the word of God.”1

1 Acts 2:47; 3:9; 4:21; 13:48.

APPLICATION

How wonderful are the ways of God! The Incarnation, his plan in creation to unite the human with the divine, thus raising man, the masterpiece of his creation, to the supernatural state of adopted sons, did not take place for centuries and centuries. Yet, as St. Paul says, it took place, “in the fullness of time,” at the right moment in history.

When Christ came, the known world, after many wars and upheavals, was united under one government–the Roman Empire. It was 99% pagan but, apart from the daily widespread immorality which paganism encouraged, there was very little belief or trust in the many pagan gods among the people. They saw them for what they were, the work of men’s hands, or earthly creatures more helpless than their adorers.

Thus was the Christian message welcomed by all right-minded pagans, for it was the news of a true God who was creator and governor of the whole universe, who had made man in order to share in God’s eternal happiness. This true God so loved mankind, that he sent his son on earth in our human nature to teach us to know and love our Creator. This son suffered and died as our representative, but was raised from the dead by God the Father, thus earning for us all the adopted sonship of God, and the guarantee that everyone who would follow his teaching would likewise be raised from the dead to an everlasting life.

This was surely startling, but pleasing, news. Coming as it did from men whose personal integrity and whose positive proofs were such as to convince any unprejudiced mind, it is little wonder that, in the life-time of the Apostles, all the important cities and towns of the Mediterranean side of the Roman Empire had their flourishing Christian communities.

But today, twenty centuries later, there are still some people who have not heard of the true God, and unfortunately there are millions more who have heard of him but deny him. God can and does provide, in his own ways, for those who through no fault of their own have not yet heard of him. But does he not expect some cooperation from us, who have the blessing and the consolation of his knowledge, in bringing the light of faith to these people?

Likewise, as regards those who know of God but ignore him, are we true Christians if by our daily lives we do little or nothing to make them stop and think of their folly, if they persevere in their practical atheism? Pope Pius XI once said that today we must all be apostles or else we become apostates. If our faith is a living faith, its light and heat will go out to enlighten and move others. If it is lukewarm or cold it will not save others. Think for a few moments on St. Paul today and compare your own appreciation of and zeal for the faith with his.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Ps 100:1-2, 3, 5

We are his people, the sheep of his flock.

Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands;

serve the LORD with gladness;

come before him with joyful song.

We are his people, the sheep of his flock.

Know that the LORD is God;

he made us, his we are;

his people, the flock he tends.

We are his people, the sheep of his flock.

The LORD is good:

his kindness endures forever,

and his faithfulness, to all generations.

We are his people, the sheep of his flock.

READING II

Rev 7:9, 14b-17

I, John, had a vision of a great multitude,

which no one could count,

from every nation, race, people, and tongue.

They stood before the throne and before the Lamb,

wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.

Then one of the elders said to me,

“These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress;

they have washed their robes

and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

“For this reason they stand before God’s throne

and worship him day and night in his temple.

The one who sits on the throne will shelter them.

They will not hunger or thirst anymore,

nor will the sun or any heat strike them.

For the Lamb who is in the center of the throne

will shepherd them

and lead them to springs of life-giving water,

and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 775 “The Church, in Christ, is like a sacrament – a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of unity among all men.”1 The Church’s first purpose is to be the sacrament of the inner union of men with God. Because men’s communion with one another is rooted in that union with God, the Church is also the sacrament of the unity of the human race. In her, this unity is already begun, since she gathers men “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues”;2 at the same time, the Church is the “sign and instrument” of the full realization of the unity yet to come.

CCC 1138 “Recapitulated in Christ,” these are the ones who take part in the service of the praise of God and the fulfillment of his plan: the heavenly powers, all creation (the four living beings), the servants of the Old and New Covenants (the twenty-four elders), the new People of God (the one hundred and forty-four thousand),3 especially the martyrs “slain for the word of God,” and the all-holy Mother of God (the Woman), the Bride of the Lamb,4 and finally “a great multitude which no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes, and peoples and tongues.”5

1 LG 1.

2 Rev 7:9.

3 Cf. Rev 4-5; 7:1-8; 14:1; Isa 6:2-3.

4 Rev 6:9-11; Rev 21:9; cf. 12.

5 Rev 7:9.

APPLICATION

As Christians we have every reason to think that we will one day, and soon, be among the countless number of saints whom St. John saw in his vision of heaven. I say “every reason,” because God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, has done everything that was necessary to bring us there. There is only one thing that can keep us from getting there. That is the one thing that is completely under our own control–our free will. There is no other thing, no other being on earth or outside the earth that can come between us and our eternal happiness, if we truly and sincerely desire to get it.

That is fine in theory, you may answer, but what of my human weaknesses, what of my ignorance, what of the bad example of those around me, what of the urgent bodily needs of myself or of my dependents, all of which prevent me from keeping God’s laws?

Put yourself at the judgment seat at this moment and see how these excuses, which seem plausible enough now, will look to you. We all have human weaknesses, but God knows that and expects us to overcome them. He does not demand the impossible. If we do something wrong because of ignorance for which we are not responsible, then God will not hold us responsible for that particular act. But if our ignorance is willed, if we refuse to learn when we should, then we are not excused.

Bad example can and does influence people. Those who give such example are responsible, not only for their own sins but for those of others whom they lead into sin. But it is when we freely follow the bad example that we are guilty. The pressing need to preserve one’s own or one’s dependent’s life allows one to take what belongs to another, provided this urgent need is not brought about by one’s own laziness or carelessness.

Yes, heaven is intended for all men. Some, but very few, we hope, will not get there, but they will have no one but themselves to blame. Better have our remorse now, repent in time and seek the straight and narrow road. The judgment hour is not the time for repentance.

GOSPEL

Jn 10:27-30

Jesus said:

“My sheep hear my voice;

I know them, and they follow me.

I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.

No one can take them out of my hand.

My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all,

and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand.

The Father and I are one.”

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 590 Only the divine identity of Jesus’ person can justify so absolute a claim as “He who is not with me is against me”; and his saying that there was in him “something greater than Jonah,… greater than Solomon”, something “greater than the Temple”; his reminder that David had called the Messiah his Lord,1 and his affirmations, “Before Abraham was, I AM”, and even “I and the Father are one.”2

1 Cf. Mt 12:6, 30, 36, 37, 41-42.

2 Jn 8:58; 10:30.

APPLICATION

Christ, the Son of God, is our Shepherd. He has laid down his life for us, his sheep, as he himself said (Jn 10: 11). Today he tells us in these verses which have been read, that his sheep know his voice and that they follow him. We have a very simple criterion here for judging the truth and sincerity of our faith. Do we always know his voice, do we always follow him?

The enemies of Christ, and of our eternal welfare are blaring forth their Gospel of degradation and destruction from all sides. Their message to us is to forget the future, get all the pleasure and power and prosperity we can out of this short life. It matters not to them that by so doing we are bringing suffering, slavery and misery on our fellow-men. They wish us to think of ourselves only, to let the weaker or the milder take what they deserve.

What our modern self-appointed teachers of the new heaven-on-earth for the few forget, is that all this was tried before and failed miserably. The great empires of the past, built on the same pagan philosophy as that of our new “saviors,” flourished for a while. The Masters satiated with power and pleasure, the slaves living in despair and degradation are part of history–but one by one they collapsed from internal corruption.

But something more important still which our modern world-renovators forget, or do not like to remember, is that our time on this earth is but a passing phase in our life. Our true life, our unending existence, begins when we leave this world. This is no “old-wives’ tale,” this is no opium for the common people. This is rational deduction of the reasoning of the greatest minds in human history down through the centuries. It is the universal conviction of the common men of all ages and climates. Above all, and beyond fallible human reasoning, this is the revelation that God the Creator of the universe has deigned to give to men.

Today we are once more reminded of this one basic and solid fact of life. We are destined for an eternal life. Our Good Shepherd, Christ our Savior, promised to give us this eternal life, if we listen to his voice and follow him. Any sane man or woman who knows this true fact of life can turn a very deaf ear to the modem vendors of false, temporary happiness. “They have not the truth in them” (Jn. 8:44).

Applications written by Fr. Kevin O’Sullivan O.F.M. and used with permission of Franciscan Press.

BENEDICTUS

Christ the Good Shepherd

If “sacrifice” in its essence is simply returning to love and therefore divinization, worship now has a new aspect: the healing of wounded freedom, atonement, purification, deliverance from estrangement. The essence of worship, of sacrifice – the process of assimilation, of growth in love, and this the way into freedom – remains unchanged. But now it assumes the aspect of healing, the loving transformation of broken freedom, of painful expiation. Worship is directed to the Other in himself, to his all-sufficiency, but now it refers itself to the Other who alone can extricate me from the knot that I myself cannot untie. Redemption now needs the Redeemer. The Fathers saw this expressed in the parable of the Lost Sheep. For them, the sheep caught in the thorn bush and unable to find its way home is a metaphor for man in general. He cannot get out of the thicket and find his way back to God. The shepherd who rescues him and takes him home is the Logos himself, the eternal Word, the eternal nature, and as the God-Man he carries man the creature home to God. Man is given a homecoming. But now sacrifice takes the form of the cross of Christ, of the love that in dying makes a gift of itself. Such sacrifice has nothing to do with destruction. It is an act of new creation, the restoration of creation to its true identity. All worship is now a participation in this “Pasch” of Christ, in his “passing over” from divine to human, from death to life, to the unity of God and man.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

CLOSING PRAYER

Psalm 143, 1-11 Domine, exaudi

Lord, listen to my prayer; turn your ear to my appeal.

You are faithful, you are just; give answer.

Do not call your servant to judgment for no one is just in your sight.

The enemy pursues my soul; he has crushed my life to the ground; he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead, long forgotten.

Therefore my spirit fails; my heart is numb within me.

I remember the days that are past; I ponder all your works.

I muse on what your hand has wrought and to you I stretch out my hands.

Like a parched land my soul thirsts for you.

Lord, make haste and answer: for my spirit fails within me.

Do not hide your face lest I become like those in the grave.

In the morning let me know your love for I put my trust in you.

Make me know the way I should walk; to you I lift up my soul.

Rescue me, Lord, from my enemies; I have fled to you for refuge.

Teach me to do your will for you, O Lord, are my God.

Let your good Spirit guide me in ways that are level and smooth.

For your name’s sake, save my life; in your justice save my soul from distress.

In your love make an end of my foes; destroy all those who oppress me for I am your servant, O Lord. Amen.

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